Ultimate Interview

100s of Sample Questions and Answers for Interview Success

Lynn Williams

• Publisher: Kogan Page
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN: 9781398602137
• eBook ISBN: 9781398602144
• Edition: 6
• Topic: Personal Development
• Subtopic: Careers

Don't let interview nerves get the better of you - present the best version of yourself and be ready for anything to wow your potential employer. Including hundreds of sample interview questions and answers to really help you nail it on the day, Ultimate Interview is the ideal tool to help you relax and show off your best side. The secret to stress-free interviewing is preparation, preparation, preparation, and this book will take you through everything you need to effectively prepare, including:
-Understanding your interviewer and what they are looking for
-How to highlight the evidence they want to see
-How to stand out from the competition
-Coping with difficult questions
-Telephone, video and assessment centre interviewsThis fully updated 6th edition now contains new and up-to-date advice on the future of work; developing resilience; blind selection processes; and working in the gig economy. Getting a job doesn't have to be painful - let this book help you give the Ultimate Interview. About the Ultimate series...
The Ultimate series contains practical advice on essential job search skills to give you the best chance of getting the job you want. Taking you all the way from starting your job search to completing an interview, it includes guidance on CV or resume and cover letter writing, practice questions for passing aptitude, psychometric and IQ tests, and reliable advice for interviewing.

01

KNOW YOUR ENEMY

UNDERSTANDING INTERVIEWERS

Before you prepare for the interview, it’s useful to understand how most organizations decide what they are looking for in a candidate, and how they use this to choose the questions they ask at the interview. It can also be helpful to know how the selection procedure works, why employers conduct interviews and what’s likely to happen at the average interview.

What do they want?

Employers want:

• someone who can do the job, ie someone who has:

• the experience;
• the knowledge;
• the skills;

• someone who will do the job, ie someone who has:

• the personal characteristics;
• the enthusiasm and commitment;

Contact the company

The first thing most people do is go to the company’s web page. There is more information about all the things you could find out later in this chapter, but at the very least there are three important things that you definitely need to know about any company or organization before you go for an interview with them:

1. A broad idea of the company's culture, mission and values. You should be able to pick this up throughout the site from the home page onwards, but especially on the 'About' page on which the company literally, and very usefully, tells you about itself, so pay particular attention to this one.
2. Current company news. Always look at recent news on the company's press page at the very least. For more news you can also enter the company name into a search engine and see if it crops up in any articles, or you can sign up for specific alerts from the search engine that will let you know about any new press postings.
3. The key company members. Names are useful, but photographs and, even better, a short biography will help transform them into real people in your mind.

As well as the company website, you can also look for background information on your chosen area in news groups, interest groups and chat groups, and on professional organization, as well as making use of professionally focused social media websites.

By the time you get as far as an interview, your prospective employer already knows the specific details of what they are looking for – we’ll look at how later. Having read your CV or application form, they also know how well you match their profile. If they are interviewing you, you can be sure you’re a good match.

The purpose of the interview, then, is to probe more fully into those key areas. They need to:

• check you have the relevant skills and experience stated in your CV;
• clarify any puzzling, missing or less than favourable features;
• complete the picture of you presented by your CV.

What sort of things are they looking for?

While they are sorting and grading the CVs and application forms, employers initially look for clear evidence of:

• essential skills, qualifications, abilities and achievements;
• desirable skills, qualifications, abilities and achievements;
• industry knowledge;
• career development;
• consistency and stability of employment within the industry, including previous employers;
• general employment stability, including average period in any one job.

At the interview they will be trying to confirm that you have all of the above and to fill in the details by probing your background and experience face to face. They are also looking for those harder-to-define skills and personal attributes that will ensure that you fit comfortably into the organization, and will be a useful member of the team and an asset to the company.

What will happen at the interview?

Most interviewers these days try to ensure the interview follows the same course for each candidate, so most interviews follow the same basic structure:

• The welcome. An introduction designed to put you at your ease, which often includes a general greeting and brief chat – ‘Thank you for coming,’ ‘Did you have a good journey?...

Table of contents

• Introduction
• 1 Know your enemy Understanding interviewers
• 2 Prepare yourself What you need to know before the interview
• 3 Standing out How to be an outstanding candidate
• 4 Answering questions What the interviewer will ask and what you need to tell them
• 5 Starting the interview What to expect from the interview and how to begin confidently
• 6 Questions they ask everybody Standard questions you should prepare for
• 7 Behavioural questions Some questions dig deeper than others
• 8 Questions for practical jobs Core question, ‘Are you reliable?’
• 9 Questions for creative jobs Core question, ‘Will you deliver?’
• 10 Questions for clerical and administrative jobs Core question, ‘Are you efficient?’
• 11 Questions for sales and marketing jobs Core question, ‘Can you sell?’
• 12 Questions for technical jobs Core question, ‘Can you do the job?’
• 13 Questions for management jobs Core question, ‘Will you get results?’
• 14 Questions for customer relations jobs Core question, ‘Are you customer focused?’
• 15 Questions for school and college leavers What to do if you don’t have experience
• 16 Tackling the difficult questions Handling questions about perceived areas of weakness
• 17 Dealing with tricky questions What to say when there’s no clear answer
• 18 Answering off-the-wall questions What is the interviewer really asking?
• 19 Your questions for the interviewer What to ask at the end of the interview
• 20 Variations on the theme Different types of interview and how to deal with them confidently
• 21 The interview: Future trends Tasks and tests that are already in use and how to prepare for them
• 22 Looking the part Making a good impression from the start
• 23 What happens next? What to do after the interview
• 24 Interviews in a nutshell The three essential questions you need to know about
• Index to the questions
• Index