Four Classic Interview Questions—and How to Prepare for Them

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Experienced job seekers know there are four basic types of interview questions—and they prepare accordingly.

These are:

1. Résumé questions - These relate to your past experience, skills, job responsibilities, education, upbringing, personal interests, and so forth. They require accurate, objective answers, since your résumé consists of facts which tend to be quantifiable (and verifiable). Try to avoid answers which exaggerate your achievements, or appear to be opinionated, vague, or egocentric.

2. Abilities and past performance - Interviewers will usually want you to comment on your abilities, or assess your past performance. They’ll ask self-appraisal questions like, “What do you think is your greatest asset?” or, “Can you tell me something you’ve done that was very creative?”

3. Situational questions- interviewers like to know how you respond to different stimuli. Situation questions ask you to explain certain actions you took in the past, or require that you explore hypothetical scenarios that may occur in the future. “Give an example of a difficult situation at work and how you overcame it” is a typical situational question.

4. Stress questions - some employers like to test your mettle with stress questions such as, “It’s obvious your background makes you totally unqualified for this position. Why should we even waste our time talking?” These types of questions are designed to evaluate your emotional reflexes, creativity, or attitudes while you’re under pressure. Since off-the-wall or confrontational questions tend to jolt your equilibrium, or put you in a defensive posture, the best way to handle them is to stay calm and give carefully considered answers.

Remember, your sense of humour will come in handy during the entire interviewing process, just so long as you don’t go over the edge.

Even if it were possible to anticipate every interview question, memorizing dozens of stock answers would be impractical, to say the least. The best policy is to review your background, your priorities, and your reasons for considering a new position; and to handle the interview as honestly as you can. If you don’t know the answer to a question, just say so, or ask for a moment to think about your response.

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Four Classic Interview Questions

— and How to Prepare for Them