What Were Your Responsibilities
What They Want to Know: Know what’s on your resume, so you can discuss what you did at the other jobs you’ve held. When you’re describing your responsibilities, try to mention those that match the new job’s requirements.
Showing that you have done similar work will be an asset during the interview. Focus on the responsibilities that most closely align with the job for which you’re interviewing when you respond to the recruiter.
As a special ed teacher, Ive worked with grades K-6 at a large inner-city school, partnering with parents and other teachers to design IEPs and support the inclusion of students with disabilities in regular classrooms.
More Answers: Job Interview Questions About Your Responsibilities
Personality Questions To Ask Job Candidates:
- Tell me about yourself.
- What are three character traits that your friends would use to describe you?
- What are three positive character traits you dont have?
- What do you like to do?
- What are your lifelong dreams?
- What do you ultimately want to become?
- What is your personal mission statement?
- Tell me about your proudest achievement outside of work.
- Give me an example of a time you did something wrong. How did you handle it?
- What is your greatest achievement outside of work?
- If you could be anywhere in the world right now, where would you be?
- What is the last book you read? What did you think of it?
- What magazines do you subscribe to?
- Whats the best movie youve seen in the last year?
- What would you do if you won the lottery?
- Who are your heroes?
- What do you like to do for fun?
- What do you do in your spare time?
- What is your favorite memory from childhood?
- What is one thing youd like to achieve in life?
Is There Anything About This Interview Process That You Would Change
This is a question that no candidate can prepare for and it takes some by surprise .
It will give you an indication of how candidates are feeling about the process and forces them to think on their feet.
If you’re hiring for a management position it can also show you how a candidate thinks about process efficiency and illustrate the thinking style that they may apply to other areas of your business if hired.
This can also be a great way to get constructive criticism and improve your interviewing process and boost candidate experience.
Don’t Miss: System Design Interview Prep
Tell Me About Your Work Experience
An interviewer may or may not already be familiar with your background. Regardless, this question gives you the chance to detail your experiences that are most valuable to the prospective role. Employers want to know that youve reflected on their expectations for a qualified candidate and that you have directly relevant or transferable skills. Consider these tips for answering:
1. Quantify your experience:I have 10 years of experience in personal finance management, and I have assisted 45 repeat clients in increasing their capital by an average of 15% every year.
2. Illustrate connections to role:As a financial analyst, Ive used visual growth charts to show my clients how each saving plan option can impact their goals. When I became a senior financial analyst, I supervised other analysts and trained them in providing the most helpful experience to our customers.
3. End with a goal statement:”As your senior financial consultant, I aim to integrate my individualized approach to helping clients build the retirement fund they will depend on.
Read more: Interview Question: Tell Me About Your Work Experience
Questions About Your Supervisors And Co
What They Want to Know: Did you get along with your manager? Have you worked with difficult colleagues? How you interact with supervisors and co-workers will provide the interviewer with insight into your interpersonal and communication skills.
I think I get along well with both my manager and my colleagues, because I approach everyone with respect. When issues arise, I try to ask for clarification and find points of agreement we can use to resolve differences of opinion.
More Answers: Interview Questions About Co-Workers and Supervisors
Also Check: Interview With Cfo
What Is The Star Method In Interviewing
The STAR method is an interview technique that organizes answers to behavioral questions into a structured response format as follows:
Situation: Describes a specific situation that pertains to the question. Outline the particulars of the circumstance.
Task: Explain the objective.
Action: Illustrate the steps and actions taken in order to achieve the desired goal. Be as detailed as possible and focus on individual contributions.
Response: Relay the outcome of the action and evaluate results.
This interview structure ensures that the interviewer receives comprehensive answers that provide a more complete picture of applicants work styles. Though situations should ideally be from past jobs, entry-level applicants or candidates pursuing career changes may draw on from experiences from school, internships, volunteer work, or other industries.
Work Habits And Working Style Interview Questions
Once youve gotten a sense of whether or not your employee is qualified to do the job you want to fill, take some time to determine what kind of worker they are.
This series of questions is a bit of everything: it looks at personality, the culture they work best in, and a little bit of their background as an employee.
Where it differs from the previous categories is by focusing on your potential new hires work style. Are they more detail oriented, or are they a big-picture thinker? What are their strengths and weaknesses as an employee? How do they deal with difficult coworkers? These kinds of questions inform what type of employee youre dealing with.
As with personality and culture, it comes down to a matter of fit. Do you prefer someone who works best collaboratively, or who keeps to him or herself? Do you want an employee who directly addresses a conflict with a colleague head-on, or who goes through you to resolve it?
There are no right answers hereit depends on the type of employee youre looking for.
Recommended Reading: Top 10 Behavioral Questions
What Are Some Of The Less Tangible Traits Of Successful People On This Team
Ever work with people that just get it? That’s who hiring managers are looking for. This question demonstrates that you understand a job is about more than just going through the motions. Successful people have a specific frame of mind, approach, attitude, work ethic, communication style, and so on — and you want to know what that mix looks like at this company.
How It Helps You
Because these characteristics are often hard to pin down, this question forces a hiring manager to articulate that “it factor” they’re really looking for — even if it wasn’t written in the job description.
How Would You Describe Yourself
With this question, your interviewer wants to learn how your qualities and characteristics align with the skills they believe are required to succeed in the role. To answer this question, pick one to a few personal characteristics and elaborate on them with examples.
For example, if you are ambitious and driven you can say: I am an ambitious and driven individual. I thrive in a goal-oriented environment where I can constantly challenge myself personally and professionally. I am always looking for an opportunity to do better and grow. These characteristics have helped me achieve success in my career. For example, I was promoted three times in less than two years in my last position.
Read more: Interview Question: How Would You Describe Yourself?
You May Like: Questions To Ask A Cfo During An Interview
What Are Your Key Professional Strengths
It’s important to know the things that the candidate does well so you can understand how they might fit into your team. Arrogance is never attractive, but candidates that are confident in their abilities and how they might be able to impact your organisation are exactly the kind of people that you want to hire.
The best answers focus on one or two skills and provide direct examples of occasions where they demonstrated these skills and how it affected the outcome.
Job Interview Questions You Could Ask The Interviewer
6. Who would I be working closest with, or reporting to, on a daily basis?
Why: Job satisfaction, or dissatisfaction, has a lot to do with the people you interact with each day. So why not get a sense of the level of collaboration and team dynamic you can expect from a new job? Some people work best when they are given a high degree of independence others want their manager to be nurturing. This question will help you determine whether the role matches your needs.
7. Beyond some of the hard skills weve discussed, which soft skills would be most helpful in this position?
Why: Chances are that the job description that attracted you to the position listed all the hard skills the employer is seeking. And the bulk of most interviews is spent on discussing these elements. If by the end of the interview little attention has been paid to soft skills , be sure to raise this question. Again, it will help you determine the type of personality that fits best in the role.
8. Can you tell me if I would get the chance to be involved with this ?
Why: The best way to show that you are genuinely interested in the position is to demonstrate in-depth knowledge of the company. If youve done your research ahead of time, you will have uncovered parts of the organizations business that interest you. Dont be afraid to ask whether your work will touch these areas.
Other Good Questions to Ask in an Interviewer:
Suggested reading:
Recommended Reading: Interview Attire Women
What Interview Questions Should I Ask Candidates
The best interview questions to ask candidates depend on the role and the type of candidate you hope to attract. At minimum, you should ask the most common interview questions such as:
- Tell me about yourself
- Why do you want to work for this company?
- What are your greatest strengths?
- What is your biggest weakness?
- Why should we hire you?
Additional questions should evaluate whether the candidate is a good skill and culture fit for the position. Feel free to tailor your top interview questions to suit your organization and industry.
What Are The Next Steps In The Interview Process
This is not only a question you can ask to show youre interested in where the hiring process is going to go next, its also a great way for you to get some reassurance. Nobody likes waiting to hear back from a company and getting nothingat least this way youre prepped for how the process will continue and what to expectand when.
Recommended Reading: How To Prepare System Design Interview
How Do You Deliver Negative Feedback
If you would be working with the person interviewing you, this is another tough question that can give you some insight into how the team works. It pushes the hiring manager to think about how he or she would handle an uneasy situation, while at the same time showing your level of maturity in that that you expect to receive tough feedback sometimes.
How It Helps You
Just like different people take negative feedback differently, different people give negative feedback differently. Does this person tailor their feedback approach depending on whom they’re giving feedback to? Do they make feedback a two-way street? Their feedback style — especially when it comes to negative feedback — will help you understand how well you would be able to work with them.
Career Goal Questions To Ask Job Candidates:
- Why do you want this job?
- Where would you like to be in your career five years from now?
- Why should we hire you?
- Why are you leaving your present job?
- What salary are you seeking?
- Whats your salary history?
- If I were to give you the salary you requested, but let you write your job description for the next year, what would it say?
- What are you looking for in terms of career development?
- How do you want to improve yourself in the next year?
- What kind of goals would you have in mind if you got this job?
Which questions do you think are most helpful when it comes to hiring new employees? Have you had better luck focusing on personality or work experience? Id love to hear your thoughts in the comments, or on Twitter
Don’t Miss: Cfo Interview
Common Interview Questions And Answers
Preparing talking points for common interview questions can help you feel confident and prepared. While every interviewer is different and their questions may vary depending on the job and industry, there are a few common questions you can expect and prepare for such as, “Tell me about yourself.”
Below, we’ve put together a comprehensive list of commonly-asked interview questions including what interviewers are looking for in your response, plus example answers to help you
Here are several common questions to use as practice for your next interview:
Which Companies Does The Leadership Admire And Hope To Emulate Why
Kaye Mao, Interaction Designer at , loves this question she first heard from design vet . In our view, it goes back to the heart of your interview process as a candidate whats most important in your next role? Answers here should indicate the companys most powerful driving force, whether that be culture, hypergrowth, or delivering customer value. How closely does the companys motivation align with your own?
Recommended Reading: Best System Design Interview Prep
Impressive Questions To Ask In A Job Interview
With this list of questions to ask in a job interview, you can learn a lot and maybe even boost your chances of landing a job.
Interviewing for a job makes many people nervous, but you don’t have to worry — you can make a great impression on a possible employer by coming to the interview with your own questions.
If you ask quality questions, you will come across as engaged and bright. You’ll also learn more about the job, the company’s culture, and the people you’ll work with if you get the position.
Stay on this page for our list of 41 great questions to ask in an interview and how they can help you get the most out of each job interview.
What Skills Would You Bring To The Job
While this is similar to questions like, Why should we hire you? or What can you bring to the company? it allows you to be more specific about your work ethic, style and unique abilities as it relates to the role.
An impactful answer will discuss your hard and soft skills and use the STAR method to illustrate how your unique skills might benefit the team or organization.
Example answer:I can make anyone feel comfortable in a new environment, which makes me a good fit as a human resources assistant. In my previous position, a new employee came to me and told me that she didnt think she was right for the company culture. After talking to her for a few minutes, we realized that she felt too much pressure to participate in company events. I started introducing events that involved fewer competitions and more casual environments, and she quickly grew more comfortable with her team.
Read more: Interview Question: “What Skills Would You Bring to the Job?”
Also Check: Mailscoop Io
What Behaviors Do The Most Successful Members Of The Team Exhibit
Asking a question like this shows you’re interested in getting a practical example of what success looks like to the manager of the team you’d be joining. Plus, when you phrase the question in this way, “you leave no room for a hypothetical answer,” says Dave Fernandez, a former recruiting team lead at HubSpot. Instead, you’re pushing the hiring manager to think about their top performer.
How It Helps You
Because this question forces an example, the answer to this question will give you a strong idea of what success actually looks like. That way, you’ll learn what it takes to impress your colleagues and be a star candidate.
What’s The Biggest Decision You’ve Made Over The Past Year Why Was It Such A Big Deal
This shouldn’t be seen as a way of delving into a candidate’s personal life, you don’t want to find out why they’ve just broken up with their partner!
Instead, interview questions like this are designed to show you how the candidate approaches the decision making process. Do they make choices impulsively or do they conduct painstaking research. Did they make a plan, or did they talk it through with friends?
The answers to this question will if they’re style of decision-making and their thought process fits the way you do things at your company.
Determining if a candidate has the relevant skills and experience is only half the battle. You need to make sure that they’re a good cultural fit for your company if you want to make good hiring decisions. Here are a few questions that can help you find this out:
You May Like: Best Interview Attire For A Woman
Can I Expect This Role To Evolve Over Time
If you are looking for a job with room for growth, this is an excellent question to ask. It can help you figure out if you can progress in your profession while working for the company. If you are someone who isn’t looking for a change, it can also help you determine if this is job will stay the same.
Why Are You Looking For A New Job
The answer the candidate gives to this manager interview question helps you evaluate whether he or she would fit in well with your company culture.
Listen for answers that express a desire for roles that are more challenging and opportunities to satisfy work-related goals and passions.
If the candidate is leaving their current job because of issues that are common to every business, they might not be the right choice for your company.
Read Also: Questions To Ask The Cfo In An Interview
