Interviews are never easy. Be it a graduate job, internship or student jobs. Sometimes the 30-minute session can seem like a two-hour long interrogation. Then, there are those moments where the interviewer throws you a tough question and you feel yourself freezing up and trying to fill the awkward silences with ‘ummms’. Although you can’t familiarise yourself with every interview questions, here are the common ones students have the most difficulties in answering.
Tell Me About Yourself
In any other given situation, you wouldn’t have a problem talking about yourself. But when this question comes up in an interview, you don’t know where to begin and where to end.
The tip to answering this question is to keep it short and sweet. Just a two- or three-minute overview about yourself is enough.
Start with your personality, before moving on to what you’ve done in uni and your past work experiences. Then, wrap it up by saying why you’ve applied for the job and why you might be a suitable candidate for the role and the company. In the end, you can always ask the interviewee if he/she would like more details.
Goals & Aspirations
The interviewer wants to know about your career goals, and not so much about when you want to get married, or what you want to do when you retire.
They’re also looking for stability in this question. Focus on the skill sets you can pick up in the role and how you wish to develop and grow into a more managerial or leadership position in the next five to ten years.
Let the interviewer know that you’re looking for a stable position and hope to be with the company for the long term. However, don’t exaggerate your answer by saying you would like to be with the company for the next 30 years.
Past Failures
Speaking about your achievements is much easier than talking about the more disappointing moments of your life. When the interviewer asks about your greatest failure, the worse answer you can reply with is, “Nothing.” Something like, “I use to still steal from the shop I worked for” or “I couldn’t clock the game Final Fantasy” aren’t going to cut it either.
You want to talk about a project you’ve failed due to your lack of ability at that time and what you’ve done to improve it since. For example, maybe you couldn’t meet a deadline because you weren’t good at prioritising. But since then, you’ve overcome this by using a to-do list and utilising a calendar planner.
The Ugly Side of Your Previous Job
As tempting as it might be to start venting about how boring your previous job was and how much of a psycho your manager was… Don’t! That would actually reflect badly on you as someone who complains and lack consideration.
Instead, talk about the limited scope of your previous role and you might have grown out of it. Comment on how you’re looking for a new set of challenges and responsibilities.
Behavioural Questions
Behavioural questions are quickly becoming popular for graduate jobs. The basis behind them is that your actions to a previous situation can determine what you will do in the future, and thus, truly revealing what kind of employee you will be. Behavioural questions aren’t so open-ended, some examples are:
- Tell me about a time when you couldn’t meet a deadline.
- Give me an example of when you had to deal with a difficult co-worker.
- Describe a time when you took the initiative in a project. What happened?
To answer these questions, you will use the STAR approach.
- S T - Describe the situation or task. Provide specific details
- A - What action did you take? It’s about what you did, not what someone else did.
- R - What was the result? Talk about the outcome of the event and what’ve you achieved. If appropriate, also comment on how you could have improved.
To answer using the STAR approach for, “Tell me about a time when you couldn’t meet a deadline.”
- S T - I was in the students committee and had to put together the commerce dinner. During that time, there was also a major assignment that was due.
- A - I thought I was able to handle the workload so I didn’t ask for any help with organising the dinner. The assignment seemed relatively easy and I thought I could finish it off in a day.
- R - In the end, I was so caught up with organising the commerce dinner, that I had left the assignment to the very last minute. Unfortunately, I couldn’t complete the assignment on time and had to request an extension. Looking back to this, I should have delegated some of the event organising tasks to fellow student members. After that, I started to use a planner so I can prioritise tasks properly and manage my time better.
Just Plain Weird
There are questions that are just out of the ordinary for example:
- Which superhero would you like to be?
- How do you do the dishes?
- What is your favourite colour and why?
There’s really no right or wrong for these wildcard questions. Instead, the interviewer is probably just testing out your reflexes and social conversational skills. Just relax and have fun with it.
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