Quintessential Careers Press:
The Quintessential Guide to Job Interview Preparation
Chapter 4: What's in an Interview Question?
Analyzing various questions and types of questions to determine what the employer isreally asking and how to respond effe
While it may seem easy to get your hands on an interviewing book (including this one)
and rehearse canned answers out of the book, it’s a mistake to do so. Interviewers have heard them all.
We provide sample answers in this book strictly as a guideline to effective responses. Your responses
will always be better if they are your own. The key to responding to interview questions is to understand
what the interviewer is really trying to get at with each question, what kind of response is expected, and
in some cases, what traps the interviewee must avoid. Following are some questions and categories
of questions with suggestions for how to approach them.
The "Tell Me about Yourself" Question. Of course, this question is not a question at all but
a request for a command performance. It's the most commonly asked interview question, yet it frequently
still rattles interviewees. The trick is to make your response a succinct summary of information that is
specifically targeted to the job you're interviewing for. (Sell yourself!) For example:
"My background to date has been centered around preparing myself to become the very best financial
consultant I can become. Let me tell you specifically how I've prepared myself. I am an undergraduate
student in finance and accounting at ___________ University. My past experience has been in retail
and higher education. Both aspects have prepared me well for this career."
The interviewer is not looking for your autobiography and probably is not interested in your personal life
unless aspects of it are relevant to the job you're interviewing for. Elevator speech.
The "Weakness" Question. The conventional wisdom about responding to “What are your weaknesses?”
used to be that the candidate should spin a weakness into a strength. For example: “I'm a perfectionist and don't
believe anyone can do the job as well as I can, so I sometimes have a hard time delegating.” That type of response
has, however, worn out its welcome with interviewers. Other approaches include offering a weakness that is
inconsequential to the job (such as being a poor speller and relying on spellcheck) or denying that you have
any weaknesses that would stand in the way of your performing the job effectively. The former approach may
work but be seen as shallow, while the latter sometimes lacks credibility. After all, everyone has a weakness.
An approach that seems to work well is to talk about an area that was once a weakness but that you have
worked to improve. Here's how you could frame the perfectionist example above in terms of professional
growth: "I tend to be a perfectionist who has had trouble delegating tasks to others, but I've come to see that
teamwork and capitalizing on everyone's strengths is a much more effective way to get the job done than
trying to do it all myself."
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