Interview Questions

As you prepare for your interview, put yourself in the interviewer’s position for just a moment: the HR specialist has a desirable position, and more than 200 people submitted applications and resumes. Almost all those applications and resumes came from the very same cookie-cutter, cut from exactly the same materials on the very same assembly line, yet the HR Specialist managed to find twenty candidates - the usual 10% - with whom she wanted to speak in more depth and detail.

Now, midway through the interviews, all the candidates have seemed as machine processed, preserved and packaged as the stack of resumes. What does the HR Specialist desire more than anything else? In a world of sameness, what does an interviewer crave?

Take a moment to consider your answer very carefully, because the question is neither rhetorical nor quite so obvious as it seems. On the question’s face, the answer seems “unusual, different, unique”; but you must recognize the danger in those descriptions - all of them as easily may turn to “flaky and unreliable” as they may turn to exceptional. “Exceptional” begins the answer. The HR Specialist craves exceptional skill, talent, and personality.

Therefore, as you prepare for your interview, reviewing the standard questions and composing your best answers, consider how your answers will prove your exceptional talent, skill, and personality.

The Standards

Most interviewers will help you warm-up and begin feeling at ease with relatively easy questions: “What training and experience qualify you for this job?” In truth, the interviewers already know your answers, because they have read your resume and cover letter.

If you recount all that you have documented on your paperwork, you will turn to just another sugar cookie. Seize the opportunity to break the mold. Go behind the scenes of your training and education, showing your dedication and passion: “I struggled through Berkeley, going to classes all day and working all night. I’m not sure how I did it, but I got my degree with honors. And do you know what I really learned at ‘The Farm’? Hard work. I can do it, and I like it. Hard work satisfies”. Come on, how many people have said they actually like hard work?

Among the standard questions, some of the most fundamental double as the most difficult. You cannot answer these questions just off-the-cuff, and you must answer honestly but with discretion and restraint. Most people struggle with “What motivates you?”. Pressed to answer honestly, most people will confess that money makes the list of prime motivators, but it doesn’t rank first. Money’s diminished motivational capacity creates a dilemma, because money tops the list of the company’s greatest rewards.

So, what does motivate you? As you answer, you must feel perfectly confident your answer will correspond with the corporation’s mission, values, and standards; but you cannot fake it. If the company values “service” and you know that you, somewhat selfishly, value rewards, how will you reconcile those in a unique, exceptional answer?

“Behavioral” Questions

Almost all interview questions qualify, technically, as “behavioral”; the more appropriate term might be “narrative”, because the interviewers want you to show yourself in action, demonstrate what kind of worker you are. Although you already have established that you thrive on hard work, if you’re laboring mightily just to spin your wheels and kick-up dust, you won’t be much of an asset to the corporation. The HR needs some proof that you perform, and so she will ask, “Please, tell me about a time when…”

The HR usually will fill-in the blank in one or all of five ways:

1. Teams and Teamwork: “Please, tell me about a time when you worked on a team to produce a project or achieve one of the job’s goals. What was that experience like for you? What role did you play, and how well do you think you played it? How well did you achieve your results?”

2. Leadership: “Please, tell me about a time when you have been charged with leading others. What kind of leader are you, and how well did the group respond to and perform under your leadership? If you could repeat the experience, would you do it differently?”

3. Inter-personal Skills: “Please, tell me about a time when you have been forced to work with a person you did not like and had trouble respecting. How did you manage your conflicts, and how well did you accomplish your tasks or meet your goals?”

4. Management and Supervision: “Please, tell me about a time when you have had to discipline one of your best, most productive employees for a serious violation of the rules or standards. How did you handle the situation, and how did it turn out?”

5. Communication: “Tell us about how you have made sure all the people with whom you have worked have received accurate and detailed information about changes in the standards for their work.”

Negative Questions

You inevitably will get at least one “negative” question, something that requires you to deal with conflict, failed communication, discipline, or one of the other unfortunate consequences of going to work every day. By far the most common negative question is “What is your greatest weakness?”. Simple, and right to the point; and just about everybody would agree it’s a lot easier to ask the question than to answer it.

Although you want always to accentuate the positive, you do not want to avoid or evade this question, because it measures your honesty and trustworthiness as much as it examines the fault in your character or work ethics. Answer as honestly as discretion and intuition allow, but also try to show what you have learned from coping with the weakness or how you are making progress toward turning it to a strength.

Unorthodox Questions

In unusual jobs or professionals that run on invention, innovation, and problem solving, unorthodox questions are the norm. The interviewer may introduce a strange hypothetical situation or ask a question which, on the surface, appears nonsensical. Microsoft used to ask applicants how many golf balls would fit in a jumbo jet; other computer software companies have asked, “Can you build a 9-tree log cabin if only eight trees remain in the forest?”. Some companies have taken party games to a new level, inquiring: “If you were a sea creature, which one would you be?”

Clearly, the idea is to test your quickness and mental agility, measuring how well you “think on your feet”. If you have a natural gift for nonsense, or if you are just naturally funny, now is the time to show-off those assets; otherwise, work with the metaphor as it’s given, because every ostensibly absurd question stands-for or substitutes for something deeper.

Illegal Questions

Interviewers cannot ask you whether or not you’re married, have a family, or have a significant other. They cannot ask you about your sexual orientation, religious beliefs, or political affiliation. Very technically, interviewers should not ask about language, culture, ethnicity, or country-of-origin. In general, anything your intuition suggests could be used as a basis for preference or discrimination probably is illegal. Rather than challenging the interviewer, though, simply say, “I prefer not to deal with those issues, because I keep my private life very separate from my professional life”. If ever there were a challenge, you would be on the right side of the law by declining to discuss it.