Interview Questions - How To Be Prepared

 

When you have to compete in an economy that is tough and with more skilled people than jobs you need more than just technical skills to get through an interview. That means you need to be prepared for every curved ball that the interviewer is going to throw at you as well as create an experience unique that he/she remembers. 

First think of some personal stories that help the job. Stories are vitally important they are memorable. Good stories fit many molds, which means you can use your stories even if the interviewer asks a question that you aren't prepared to answer. Good stories help because there are often many lessons hidden within one story. The pieces that stick with the interviewer will make an impact on them even if we didn't plan it that way. Take some time to think through the past and develop some solid stories that shed light on your abilities, accomplishments, and values. With that in mind, here are seven difficult interview questions and a few tips on how to answer them. 

1. Why are you leaving your current job? 

Talk about your desire for growth and opportunity and why the new position offers those things. You're not trying to escape. You're trying to improve. Show them that you're the type of person who moves towards the next thing, not away from the last thing. Also do not mention any thing bad about the current company assuming you did work their for a decent time and the culture of the company stays with you. 

2. Why are you interested in our company or why should we hire you?? 

The honest answer might be "because you're hiring." however, best answers goes around the real reasons and real interests in the company. Tell the interviewer what you like about the company's values and ethics and how they match up with your own. If you know its good to talk about some challenges that company is facing and if it is relevant to your role. Cookie cutter statements like, "you seem like an exciting company to work for" don't go very far. If you need some help, then do some research on the type of person that usually works there. Jump on LinkedIn and shoot a message to some previous or current employees and see what they have to say. Read financials if you are planning on a Managerial position and also how the stock is doing for public company. It also helps to know the competitors in the business and the brand perception of the current company in the market. 

3. What are your weaknesses? 

Its a classic question that I came across multiple times in the interview. Most of the sites talk about typical response - say that you don't really have weaknesses or talk about a strength as a weakness. Typical answer "You know, sometimes I just work too hard or workaholic and need to manage my time at times". Some times while I was taking interviews, some people actually tell the truth and state a real weakness such as "It's tough to say, but I'm not a fan of working in teams. It's not that I don't get along with my co-workers, I'm just more efficient on my own.". I always thought the best would be to avoid any character flaws in the response which sometimes come out instantly so its always good to be prepared with one or two good stories. Instead of talking about your personality weaknesses, talk about a technical weakness that is relatively unnecessary for the job. Such as an Sr Developer in Java talking about his weakness related to infrastructure and his interest to learn and develop it in future. Also mention that you realize it's important to have people like that in the clients IT organization and it's something you could learn if needed, but I prefer to focus my time on my strengths. Like learning a new eCommerce platform or a product that is picking up or help enterprise integration. Remember, this could be any technical skill that you've experienced in the past. An answer like that avoids severe personality flaws and also reminds the interviewer that your strengths are a perfect fit for the position you are applying to get. 

4. Tell me about a time that you failed or hard to deal with tough people. 

These are trap questions to analyze how you take things at work. Perspective should be more aligned to failure is part of the game of life. We all fail at some time in the projects and what is important is that you can show how you recover from failure, how you deal with it with minimum impacts, and how you approach things differently because of it. The attitude should be, "I'm not a fan of failure, but when it happens I don't let it stop me.". Strong stories helps with these kind of questions that we dont normally come prepared. 

5. What are your strengths? 

Obviously, the strengths that you mention in this answer should clearly match the skills needed for the job, but what else should you focus on? Well, numerical results for one. Putting a number to your work not only makes it more understandable and more believable, it also leaves a bigger impression than generic statements. Think about it. If you work as Project Manager and you talk about how many people or the revenue managed or the scale of the projects you worked in the past to close the deal. If you dont know the numbers ask your managers or PMO. This is good information to know regardless of whether you're interviewing for a new job or not. If you're working somewhere, then you should take the time to figure out how you are impacting the business. Having these numbers is crucial to proving your worth in a job interview, annual review, or just everyday conversation. If you have had a successful career to date, then you can also mention that the best indicator of future success is past success. It's clear that you have succeeded before, so there is no reason to believe that you won't succeed again. They should have full faith in your ability to handle the job. 

6. Are you a team player? 

You bet you are. Everyone wants a team player as their next employee. What if you're an introvert or if you work better alone? No worries, just focus on how you're great at getting your piece done. "Teams are great because they allow me to leverage my strengths as a role player. Whenever I come into a team environment, I just need an important task to do and I'm off and running. 

 7. How do you measure success? 

You will have to decide what success means to you and then navigate your answer accordingly. I read this in an article and you may find it useful when crafting your own answer. Response to this question was simply, "My goal is to make my children proud. If they are proud of what I have done, how I have acted, and the choices I have made ... then I am successful." Think about the values behind that answer. It tells you a lot about the person. Think about how you can incorporate similar values into your response. 

Final advice 

Working together and being a good addition to the team mean being concerned with how you would like to contribute in a meaningful way to make the team successful. And that means being concerned with how much you are helping to make your boss successful.  

Ask him/her about how you can make them successful in the next year end review. Asking this question displays that you have empathy and interest in your boss's career and future success. It shows that you are not just a self-absorbed "what's in it for me" kind of person. And it shows that you know you are there to "give" as much as you are there to "get".