Common Interview Questions

Employers will have different priorities depending on the job you are applying for, but there are a number of areas that will be of common interest in an interview that you need to be prepared for.

These are some of the areas that may be of interest to an employer, and the kind of questions that you may be asked.

Ability to learn new skills

1. What did you find easiest and hardest at school?
2. How long did it take you to get up to speed in your last job?
3. Which type of working environment do you learn best in?
4. What skill areas do you think you need to improve on?

Ability to Meet Responsibilities

1. What are some of the biggest responsibilities you've had in the past?
2. Describe a time when you had to figure out a difficult problem on your own. How did you go about it?
3. How do you keep yourself motivated?
4. Tell me about a time when you felt you didn't meet your responsibilities.

Attention to Detail

1. Describe a project you worked on that required very close attention to detail.
2. How do you stay organized?
3. Can you provide an example of an instance when you've discovered errors in your work or someone else's?
4. How do you know if a project you are working on is going well?

Creativity

1. What type of working environment makes you creative?
2. What is the most innovative thing you have done in your previous job?
3. What types of changes did you implement at your last job?
4. How do you encourage creativity in coworkers?

Customer Service Orientation

1. Tell me about the last time you received really great customer service.
2. What was the most difficult customer service situation you ever had to deal with?
3. How did you handle the situation?
4. Why did you choose to go into customer service?
5. Describe a time when the customer was wrong.
6. How did you handle it?/LI>

Decision Making Ability

1. Provide an example of a time when you had to come to a decision even though you did not have enough information.
2. How did you go about it?
3. Tell me about a good and a bad decision you've made in the last year.
4. What kinds of decisions take you the longest to make?
5. Describe a situation in which you had to get information from a number of different sources before making a decision.
6. How did you go about it?

Flexibility

1. How would you describe the amount of structure and feedback that you need to be successful?
2. Do you prefer stability and continuity or frequent change in your daily work environment?
3. How do you determine priorities in scheduling your time?
4. Can you give examples of times when you were assigned a number of tasks and had to prioritize what needed to be done?
5. Have you ever had to reinvent your job to meet your company's changing needs?

Initiative

1. Can you describe any projects or tasks that were primarily undertaken because of your efforts?
2. How successful were they?
3. Have you ever come up with ways to make a job you were doing or a project you were working on easier or more enjoyable?
4. What type of balance do you strive for between your work and your life?
5. What skills would you like to learn or improve on in the next year?

Job Hopping

1. Why do you want to leave your present job after such a short time on the job?
2. Why do you think this job is a better fit for you?
3. What have you learned from your most recent jobs?
4. What motivates you to work hard and do well?

Teamwork Interpersonal skills

1. Describe a time when you had to arrive at a compromise or had to help others arrive at a compromise.
2. Give an example of an instance when you worked with someone who you found difficult to get along with.
3. How did you handle the situation?
4. Tell about a time when you worked with a colleague who was not completing his or her share of work.
5. What did you do?
6. Describe a favorite work experience and tell me why it was satisfying.

Leadership

1. How would you describe your training and management style?
2. Have you ever had difficulty getting others to agree with your decisions?
3. How did you handle it?
4. Have you ever had to discipline or counsel another employee?
5. What was the nature of the situation and how did you go about it?
6. Can you recall a work experience where a problem arose and your manager or boss was unavailable?
7. How did you handle the situation, and how did things turn out?
8. Describe a time when you had to build a team to accomplish a task.
9. How did you go about building the team, and was it successful in attaining its goals?

These common interview questions are in just a few areas that may be of interest to an employer, and are just examples.

It is unlikely that you would be asked questions in all these areas, only those relevant to the position.

Equally, these questions are just to give you an idea - there are so many thousands of jobs and employers, all with there own particular requirements that we can not cover them in this short article.

We do recommend a publication that covers job interview questions in great detail, and importantly, provides you with sample answers that you can use to model your responses on.



Using a resource like this can certainly prepare you for the interview and put you at ease beforehand, knowing that you are more likely to handle some of those curly questions that may come your way.