What Were You Doing In Your Employment Gap
Dont be afraid of employment gaps, despite the very real threat of unemployment bias they are justifiable. For example, you might have had a gap if you were studying or on maternal/paternal leave.
However, these are not the only reasons for a temporary break from work and sometimes these topics can be complicated. Check out our blog or more complex employment gap issues and how to explain employment gaps in your resume.
Screening Part Is Just The Start Of The Interview Process
So you made it to the end. Wonderful!
But you should know that after passing the first, screening part of interview process , you will often have to deal with behavioral questions , and sometimes also the assessment test. Thats when the real fun starts
Assessment tests help the employers learn more about your personality, emotional intelligence, IQ, and other important things that determine your readiness for the job. They may let you complete verbal reasoning test, numerical reasoning test, personality test, and many other tests. These tests are common especially in Fortune 500 corporations, and the only way to prepare for them is practicing We recommend the following assessment test practice package , which should suffice you to prepare for the assessment center in any big corporation.
And for the behavioral questions we have a separate article you can look at here. Check it out to see how to answer these questions. I hope you will manage to prepare for all challenges of the hiring process, and eventually sign a great employment agreement. Good luck to you!
MatthewMay also interest you:
Go Beyond The Common Interview Questions
Yes, the job search is intimidating, but reviewing interview questions and answers in advance is one way to calm your nerves and boost your confidence. Are you looking for more ways to stand apart from the competition? Set up a free profile with Monster and we can send you career advice, workplace insights, and more job interview tips directly to your inbox. It’s a quick and easy way to stay one step ahead.
Recommended Reading: What Should Females Wear To A Job Interview
Tell Me About The Toughest Decision You Had To Make In The Last Six Months
The goal of this question is to evaluate the candidate’s reasoning ability, problem-solving skills, judgment, and possibly even willingness to take intelligent risks.
Having no answer is a definite warning sign. Everyone makes tough decisions, regardless of their position. My daughter worked part-time as a server at a local restaurant and made difficult decisions all the time — like the best way to deal with a regular customer whose behavior constituted borderline harassment.
A good answer proves you can make a difficult analytical or reasoning-based decision — for example, wading through reams of data to determine the best solution to a problem.
A great answer proves you can make a difficult interpersonal decision, or better yet a difficult data-driven decision that includes interpersonal considerations and ramifications.
Making decisions based on data is important, but almost every decision has an impact on people as well. The best candidates naturally weigh all sides of an issue, not just the business or human side exclusively.
Whats Your Current Salary
Its now illegal for some or all employers to ask you about your salary history in several cities and states, including New York City Louisville, North Carolina California and Massachusetts. But no matter where you live, it can be stressful to hear this question. Dont panicthere are several possible strategies you can turn to. For example, you can deflect the question, Muse career coach Emily Liou says, with a response like: Before discussing any salary, Id really like to learn more about what this role entails. Ive done a lot of research on and I am certain if its the right fit, well be able to agree on a number thats fair and competitive to both parties. You can also reframe the question around your salary expectations or requirements or choose to share the number if you think it will work in your favor.
Don’t Miss: What To Wear For An Interview Women
What Are Your Hobbies And Interests
Continuing our series of common interview questions and answers, next we look at ‘what are your hobbies’ example answers. When put on the spot, selecting your hobbies and interests that are simultaneously work-appropriate and not too vague can present a real challenge – especially under time pressure.
We dive into why employers ask the question, the difference between hobbies and interests, loads of example answers and what to avoid when answering!
How to answer what are your hobbies and interests
A Snail Is At The Bottom Of A 30
Questions like these have become a lot more popular in recent years. The interviewer isn’t necessarily looking for the right answer but instead a little insight into your reasoning abilities.
All you can do is talk through your logic as you try to solve the problem. Don’t be afraid to laugh at yourself if you get it wrong — sometimes the interviewer is merely trying to assess how you deal with failure.
Read Also: Interview Attire Womens
What Are Some Of Your Hard Skills
Hard skills are your well-defined, easily measured strengths and abilities. These are what most people think of when it comes to “skills,” but they aren’t in my opinion, what are most important when it comes to becoming a successful entrepreneur. They can always be learned over time, whereas a soft skill like being a strong leader, isn’t acquired by attending an online class on nights & weekends.
Nevertheless, acknowledging, understanding, and focusing on using your hard skills is essential to maximizing your success potential. Here are a few examples of common hard skills that entrepreneurs possess:
- Coding: Writing HTML, CSS, Ruby, Javascript, etc.
- Design: Proficiency with Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, etc.
- Writing: Being able to take complex ideas, break them down into digestible bits, and craft them into compelling stories
- Analysis: Advanced financial modeling abilities in Microsoft Excel, complex statistical analysis, data mining
For me, my most prominent hard skills are my writing ability, an advanced working knowledge of the Adobe Creative Suite, and a deep understanding of SEO. The combination of these three hard skills is what helps me create high quality blog content, downloadable guides, and visually appealing content for my online courses.
How Is The Selection Process Carried Out
Every selection processs first step is announcing the job position, functions, employee roles, salary details, and expectations from employees, like educational qualifications and experience in a similar job type. Several candidates who are eligible apply for the job. There are seven selection process operations to be performed while selecting employees.
Read Also: Questions To Ask The Cfo In An Interview
What Do You Love To Do
How would you spend your time if you didn’t have to go into work every day?
Look first to the things you already do in your limited free hours around work and spending time with friends & family.
Do you like helping your friends talk through difficult situations at work or in their personal lives? Do you spend your free time writing about life lessons you’ve learned through your travels? Do you go on outdoor adventures every weekend?
If you’re anything like me, then you love to do the things you’re already good at. It’s human nature. Trying new things and risking failure can be uncomfortable at first.
At this point in my life, I have a true love sharing my experiences in business through my writing, and pushing myself to my personal limits with long-distance running. If I could do the two of those things completely full-time, I would . I’m using my Launch While Working Formula to scale my side business into eventually becoming my full-time muse.
However, when I think back to how painful it was, as I was just beginning to sharpen my abilities at both, there were many times I contemplated giving up. Once I got my first handful of breakthroughs, I had the momentum and confidence to keep pushing, and slowly I began to love them both.
Taking a look at the things you truly love doing, and identifying which soft skills you employ most when doing these activities will help you further narrow down your core strengths as an entrepreneur.
How Would Your Coworkers Describe You
This question enables employers to get a better look at your personality and understand how your peers see you.
Think about all your personal traits and make a detailed list. If youre asked this question, pick a few that are relevant to the role and back them up with examples. You could say something along the lines of Some would say Im quite hard-working because Im usually the last one out of the office or I was often told that I was extremely reliable. They always knew they could count on me to get the job done on time.
Recommended Reading: Questions To Ask Cfo During Interview
How Do You Deal With Stress
Through this question the interviewer is trying to pin any red flags you might have. Companies look for employees who dont have an exaggerated reaction during a stressful situation. While answering this, be specific about your coping mechanism. Explain what you do to calm down like taking a short walk or drinking coffee. Answering this question effectively will raise your chances to get hired.
Determine Your Soft Skills
As we mentioned above, soft skills are your personal attributes that enable you to interact effectively and harmoniously with other people.
In short, these are the skills you possess, that you can’t necessarily quantify. This is your EQ , not your IQ. Here are some examples of soft skills:
- Having a strong sense of self-awareness
- Being optimistic
- Having patience
- Being a good listener
When I started my first business, I pretty much only possessed soft skills. I had to teach myself how to create a product with absolutely no past experience. What I lacked in hard skills like coding talent, marketing chops, and writing abilities at the time, I significantly made up for in determination, optimism, and people skills that would help me build the meaningful connections I’d need, to get my business off the ground without doing everything myself. Later on, I trained myself to become proficient with the hard skills my business would need, and I painstakingly learned how to use all the best tools to start an online business.
In our comparison between Bill Gates and Steve Jobs from above, Jobs clearly possessed and leaned on his strongest soft skills, in order to champion Apple through to success. Gates, in the beginning, took the opposite approach and utilized his hard skills within Microsoft.
Read Also: How To Prepare System Design Interview
What Is Your Greatest Professional Achievement
Nothing says hire me better than a track record of achieving amazing results in past jobs, so dont be shy when answering this interview question! A great way to do so is by using the STAR method: situation, task, action, results. Set up the situation and the task that you were required to complete to provide the interviewer with background context , then describe what you did and what you achieved : In one month, I streamlined the process, which saved my group 10 person-hours each month and reduced errors on invoices by 25%.
Read More:The Perfect Formula for Answering What Is Your Greatest Accomplishment in an Interview
Why Do You Want To Work For Us
An employer will want to find out the motivations behind your graduate job application and not just because you stumbled across it on a jobs board. This common interview question also provides an ideal opportunity for you to enforce why and how you would be a perfect fit for the company.
Our graduate recruitment experts have come up with loads of example answers to help you when answering these questions in an interview, follow the link below to find out our top interview tips.
How to answer why do you want to work for us
Read Also: Preparing For System Design Interview
Most Common Job Interview Questions And Answers
Speaker, Inc. Magazine contributing editor, author of THE MOTIVATION MYTH, ghostwriter.
Over the past four years this article has been read by between 8 and 10 million people on Inc.
Since Inc. now has a paywall, I decided to re-publish it here so it can be available to anyone interested.
While some job interviewers take a fairly unusual approach to interview questions, most job interviews involve an exchange of common interview questions and answers . Here are some of the most common interview questions, along with the best way to answer them.
How Do You Deal With Pressure Or Stressful Situations
The employer wants to know: Do you hold down the fort or crumble under pressure? They want to make sure that you wont have a meltdown when the pressure becomes intense and deadlines are looming. The ability to stay calm under pressure is a highly prized talent.
Example: I realize stressful situation are always going to come up, and I definitely have had to learn how to navigate them throughout my career. I think I get better at it with every new experience. While working on a new product launch at my last company, for example, things were not going according to plan with my team. Instead of pointing fingers, my first reaction was to take a step back and figure out some strategies around how we could we solve the problem at hand. Previously, I may have defaulted to panicking in that situation, so being calm and collected was definitely a step forward and helped me approach the situation with more clarity.
You May Like: Interview Questions For A Cfo
What Are Your Greatest Strengths And Weaknesses
This common interview question can often catch candidates off guard, especially for those who haven’t come across it before in a job interview – you will be tested on your level of self-awareness, your skillset, as well as your composure and communication skills.
We have explored this interview question and how to answer effectively without sounding like you’re bragging or giving a cliché answer and trying to spin a strength as a weakness! Check out a top ‘what is your greatest strength’ and ‘what is your greatest weakness’ sample answer and what else you should avoid when answering one of the most common interview questions for graduates.
How to answer what are your strengths and weaknesses
Tell Me About The Last Time A Co
Conflict is inevitable when a company works hard to get things done. Mistakes happen. Sure, strengths come to the fore, but weaknesses also rear their heads. And that’s OK. No one is perfect.
But a person who tends to push the blame — and the responsibility for rectifying the situation — onto someone else is a candidate to avoid. Hiring managers would much rather choose candidates who focus not on blame but on addressing and fixing the problem.
Every business needs employees who willingly admit when they are wrong, step up to take ownership for fixing the problem, and, most important, learn from the experience.
Don’t Miss: System Design Interview Preparation
Where Do You See Yourself In Five Years
Provide general ideas about the skills you want to develop, the types of roles you would like to be in and things you would like to have accomplished.
Example:In five years, I’d like to be an industry expert in my field, able to train and mentor students and entry-level designers alike. I feel that I will be able to grow with this company to achieve my goals.
Question No 1: What Are Your Salary Expectations
Hint: If they start talking about salary it is mostly a good sign. It means that they consider hiring you .
Anyway, you should say that your salary is not a deciding factor, and that you didnt apply having a number on your mind. If they insist on hearing a number, however, you should have something to backup your claim . Lets have a look at some answers.
I like the job description, I like your bank, and I would be happy to have this job. But as far as my knowledge goes, average salary for a teller in your institution starts at $29,000. I would accept that number for the start.
This is my first job application, and I am motivated to learn. I understand it is an entry level position, so the salary offer wont be great. At the same time, however, the possibilities of promotion are almost endless, so I would accept your standard salary offer for the newcomers.
Recommended Reading: Mailscoop Io
What Would Your Former Boss Like You To Improve On Common Interview Questions
For a question like this, try to think of a minor issue that your previous boss brought up with you. Dont think of anything too drastic as it wont sell you as a candidate. Instead, think of something thats fairly insignificant. If possible, try to think of a way that you rectified the problem already, or put a positive spin on it.
Example: In my last role, my manager thought that I needed to be more vocal in meetings and when planning projects. I tended to stay quiet in these scenarios because I wanted to focus on listening to other peoples ideas, then possibly approach them individually with improvements or other follow-ups.
When Can You Start
Your goal here should be to set realistic expectations that will work for both you and the company. What exactly that sounds like will depend on your specific situation. If youre ready to start immediatelyif youre unemployed, for exampleyou could offer to start within the week. But if you need to give notice to your current employer, dont be afraid to say so people will understand and respect that you plan to wrap things up right. Its also legitimate to want to take a break between jobs, though you might want to say you have previously scheduled commitments to attend to and try to be flexible if they really need someone to start a bit sooner.
Read Also: Cfo Interview
