Secrets to Answering Common Job Interview Questions
The secret to answering common job interview questions
isn’t much different from answering all kinds of job
interview questions. As an applicant, in a job
interview you want to answer each question twice. The
first answer is the specific answer to whatever
question the interviewer asked you. The second answer
is the answer to the hidden question that the
interviewer is really asking, namely “can you come in
here and do this job successfully for us?” Answering
the first question is easy. You’re only pulling
information from your own head for that one.
Answering the second question is considerably more
difficult. You need to know what the job in question
is, what it requires, and how to adequately prove that
you can do it.
Consider what these common job interview questions
mean in both of these senses. “Where do you see
yourself professionally in five years?” What this
interview question is really asking is: “Do you really
want to be in this field, or is this just something
you’re trying? Are you ambitious? Are you motivated?
Have you paid enough attention to this job to know
what the career path is?” Whatever answer you give
needs to be able to answer those hidden questions in a
way that gets you the job. In a similar fashion, the
common job interview question of “are you good with
details?” is really asking “could you pay extremely
close attention to things even after they have become
incredibly boring to you?” When you answer that
question, you want to be able to address the hidden
question as well and reassure the interviewer that you
can do just that. In fact, you want to tell the
interviewer about times when you have done that, in
situations similar or identical to those that you
would face on the target job.
More Common Job Interview Questions Strategy
Bearing this in mind, it’s a good idea to learn as
much about the common job interview questions as you
can. At the very minimum you should learn what the day
to day duties of the job are, what the corporate
culture values most and what results the company
considered evidence of success. You can find some of
this information in printed and online publications.
Some of it may need to come from someone who is
familiar with the industry, field or company. Think
back in your career and try to remember times when you
carried out these duties, participated in a similar
corporate culture, or achieved these results.
As you are asked these common job interview questions
you want to answer that question using these examples
of your success. Give the situation, your actions and
the results you achieved. Do so in a way that makes
the story that you tell as similar as possible to the
realities of the target job. That will allow the
interviewer to have the ultimate question, whether or
not you can come in and do the job immediately,
answered in the affirmative.
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