Tough Interview Questions - How to Answer Difficult Interview Questions

Many of the people that I work with in my career coaching practice express a concern about how to answer what they define as tough interview questions. It will come as no surprise that people define tough in different ways. So for example the person that has not prepared for an interview may class a lot of the questions as difficult. Whereas if they have prepared there is a certain type of question people see as tough.

Preparation

Preparation for any interview is the key to success and there is a separate article by me which gives much more detail on this. However the key points to good preparation are:

• Make sure you can run through your CV in three or four minutes
• Consider in advance the type of competencies an employer may be looking for in the successful candidate. So for example many roles require the ability to deliver results against tough deadlines. The interviewer will be looking for evidence of this and may ask a question like 'can you give me an example of where you had to deliver results against a difficult deadline. What did you do? What was the outcome?' If you can work out the competencies most of the questions are likely to follow this format
• So if you haven't prepared and you are going for a job that requires creativity you may well find this type of question tough 'describe a time where you had to be particularly creative. What did you do and what was the result?'
• Make sure you look at your experiences and achievements for examples of the competencies the interviewer is likely to be looking for in a good candidate. Be ready to give an example of where you have shown each competence, what you did, and the result

The Tough Interview Questions

In this group of questions I include all those questions that it is difficult to anticipate and for which it is hard to prepare. These are much less likely to be based on the competencies for the job. They are often questions that the interviewer has been asked before and found difficult. Alternatively they might be questions that are a favourite of the interviewer. From a candidates perspective they often seem to act to create a black hole in the interview, but they do not need to. I have listed below some of the questions my clients have reported back to me as being tough. Beneath each is a guide to providing a good answer which is unlikely to risk your prospects of getting the job.

Q If you were doing this interview what question would you want to ask next?

A Find a question that allows you to highlight your strengths and not one designed to reveal weaknesses. For example 'What strength do you think would be most valuable to our company?'

Q What has been your biggest mistake at work and what have you learned as a result?

A Find an answer that reveals a weakness that may be strength from an employer's point of view. For example, 'I have learnt that my drive to get results can be detrimental to the moral of team members who do not see the urgency and importance of a project. I am much more aware of this now and make sure I ask people if they are going to be able to hit deadlines beforehand'.

Q What do you see as the five greatest successes in your life?

A Give an answer that has at least three work achievements, an educational achievement or one related to an interest and one related to family and friends. This demonstrates your achievement orientation and a balance in your life.

Q What are you three greatest strengths and weaknesses?

A This is a chance to shine as well as show self-awareness. Give three positive strengths that are related to the requirements of the job. For the weaknesses find two that are strengths in disguise, and one minor weakness that will not impact your employment chances. For example, 'I know that sometimes I find it difficult not to finish a job before I leave and this sometimes means I stay longer at work than I should. I can be a bit of a perfectionist so my drive for top quality can sometimes irritate others. My wife sometimes says I should have more outside interests'.

Q Where do you see yourself in 5 years time?

A With this type of question you need to balance your ambition with the expectations of the interviewer and reality. Firstly do not say you see yourself in a job outside the company. Do not say you see yourself as a Director if you are 18 and taking a role at the first level in the organisation. A safe answer would be 'I would hope to have demonstrated my skills and progressed to a level more senior to this job. This shows ambition and drive, as well as a realistic level of career aspiration.

Q Are there any questions you would like to ask us?

A Some candidates see this question as a kind of trap - it isn't. It may be an idea to ask a question to show an interest in the job but you don't have to. A good one that shows you are motivated to succeed would be 'can you tell me about the training and development I can expect to receive?'

There will be a lot of other questions similar to the ones listed here that come up in interviews. But by following the principles given here you will be able to answer them and give yourself the best chance of getting the job. I'm always interested in collecting more tough questions to help my clients. So if you get one please send it to me.

4 Things You Must Not Tell the Interviewers

The job market is competitive and it is indeed challenging to get an ideal job. Many people have been striving hard to search for jobs and attend numerous interviews, but they fail. There are many factors that contribute to the failure. In this article, I am going to share with you a few things which the job seekers must not tell the interviewers.

� During the interview sessions, it is true that you need to be honest in providing your personal details to the interviewers. However, if the interviewers ask you about your previous employers, what should you answer? Please bear in mind that no matter how bad your relationship is with your ex-bosses, you should not talk bad about them. It is not wise to criticize your previous employers in front of your potential new employers. Most of the interviewers normally want to know the reason you quit. It is advisable for you to give one standard reason, i.e. seeking for change.

� Seriously speaking, when the economy is down, many people are forced to look for part-time jobs. Their monthly income from the full-time jobs is not sufficient for them to pay off their debts. If you also have part-time job, you are reminded not to tell the interviewers. Never ever include this in your resume too. Although it is not wrong for you to have odd jobs, in the point of view of the employers, they may have doubts on your commitment and loyalty. What you need to do is to be professional. If you manage to secure a full-time job, you need to make sure that you only do your part-time work after office hours.

� Everyone loves vacation. You may have plans to go for holidays in the near future. You are reminded not to tell the interviewers so early. You don't need to inform the potential employers that you are travelling overseas with your family for holidays during year end. If you do so, you may give an impression to the interviewers that you prefer something fun rather than focusing on your work.

� Is it necessary for you to tell the interviewers about your financial status? In my personal opinion, it is not necessary for you to declare to the interviewers that you have poor credit history because people may have different perception on you. Unless the interviewers insist that you need to declare your credit rating if you want to obtain the job. If not, you had better not to mention anything about your credit score.

By going through the points stated above, I hope you can be smarter in attending interviews.

The Three Most Powerful Words to Say in Your Interview

Job hunting is a stressful business. Your financial well being is at stake, even to the point of losing your house and car if you don't find a job soon. And all that stress comes to a pinnacle during the interview.

Here you sit face to face with your prospective employer, and he will decide in a half hour (or less) whether you will be earning a nice salary or continuing to flail around looking for another opportunity.

To prepare for this performance, too many job seekers take courses and study the 150 most often asked interviewing questions. I think this is a waste of time. Instead, study the company and the interviewer. Know what they are seeking. Get into their heads. Your job during the interview is to convince the hiring manager that:

1. You can make more money for the company than what they will pay you.
2. You can make more money for the company than the other applicants.

Never lose sight of this fact. You are being hired to make money for the company. Too many job hunters think that they are being hired to be a graphic designer or an accountant. They feel that they must prove how good they are in their field. So they stress their abilities in a narrow niche, talking jargon to show their deep mastery of a narrow skill.

Instead, the hiring manager is evaluating you for other skills. You see, the hirer is confident of your abilities in your field, or you would have never gotten the interview. Don't bore him or her to death with the intricacies of programming or the award you received for Best White Paper on the Impact of FAR 121.618 on Airline Crew Scheduling.

To win over the person or group who is interviewing you, speak to their needs, not yours. Chances are the folks interviewing you have profit and loss responsibilities. This means that their bonuses are directly tied to how much profit their unit or division turns in this quarter.

They are looking for the applicant to speak three powerful words that, if true, can mean promotions, accolades, and bigger bonuses for all. These three words are:

I can sell.

Today's managers realize that everyone in an organization must be able to sell upgrades and new products to their clients. Anyone coming in contact with clients or potential clients must be able to move them toward the sales funnel. While talking to a recruiter just the other day, she told me that the hottest demand from her clients is for technical people who can sell.

Now that you have uttered this statement, you must prove it by selling yourself to the interviewers. Practice your pitch before the interview. Get a coach. They can help. If you don't have any sales experience, pick up some books on sales. Study and practice. It's not hard.

Go out and sell something. Get some practice. One of the best exercises is recruiting volunteers and/or donations for your charity. You've been doing sales since you were a kid. Remember when you convinced your Dad to buy you that new bicycle? Or just last week when you sold your spouse on the idea of going to the library instead of a movie? You have the ability, you just need to rekindle your inner fire and crank up your confidence.

When you say these magic words in your interview, don't be surprised when you see the hiring manager or interview board sit up and really pay attention. You see, you have just spoken to their needs and shown yourself to be knowledgeable about more than just your niche.

Plus, you have jumped ahead of the other applicants by proving your ability to not only function in your technical corner, but to bring in revenue to the company. The hirers will see you as so much more desirable and promotable.

So, be ready to say these three words with conviction, and use a story illustrating your ability. The hiring manager will love it.

D. Alan Johnson
http://www.dalanjohnson.com

Ace The Top 10 Interview Questions

Five Great Interview Questions to Ask

Finally, Here's How You Answer Tough Interview Questions!

Linda Matias is a Job-search certified Interview Coach (CIC), Job and Career Transition Coach (JCTC) and Nationality Certified Resume Writer (NCRW) and also the writer of two books. She has also been qualified consultant for Resume writing, interviewing process and career transition areas.

In her paper, Linda described the technique for answering interview questions which are likely to be asked and how they are to be approached. In an interview, some of the questions are tough and hard to tackle. If we follow such a situation, then being aware of the kind of question and where it is coming from could help us to defend ourselves and avoid a uncomfortable situation.

Some of the examples are as follows:

Q. You don't have as much experience for this job. We may have to spend some time with you training you and taking you at a level where we expect the job requirement is. But we have another candidate to whom we don't need to train and spend time with him... so why we would hire you?

Ans. This question demands you to show up your communication skills and show the interviewer that you are a self-starter. Showing that previously you had task in hand and you managed it without any aid would be a good help to tackle this question.

Q. You have been unemployed for a long time. How do you think your skills match up our level of demand?

Ans. This is again a question which may catch you off-guard. The questioner who has found out that you have a gap in your career. Now if we have been upgrading your skills in the time period when we were unemployed it becomes easy to answer. However, if were not covering this time period with any upgrade of skills then this could blow up our interview. To avoid any negative impression it's good to enroll in a program which develop required set of skills so that we could mention them in our Resume (even if we were involved in finding out the different offerings of courses in our area, it's not bad mentioning it in an interview)

Q. I am not sure if you would stick around with this job... what if you decide to move over a new place with in a year because you feel it is boring work now.

Ans. This is relatively easier question to answer because it does give us an opportunity to openly describe our qualities and work skills although the interviewer knows about our work history. Because we have invited for an interview and the person is open to listening, it's a good sign for us as we have a chance to express our qualities which we possess without getting defensive.

Interviewers sometimes ask tough or attacking questions to check our temperament. Simply answer those questions according to their merit. We don't have to be aggressive in tone nor in our stance because it sends a strong negative message to our interviewer and doesn't work out for us in the interview.

For example interviewers are not impressed with the candidate who does not possess the quality of good temperament and self-confidence. They may ask you tough yet reasonable questions, but then they will also consider how do you approach and respond to such type of questions. Getting nervy or embroiled at that crucial stage does not help the cause.

Written by: Bryan W Goldberg

Job Interview Question: How to Answer Who Is Your Best Friend?

The Who is your best friend interview question is used often as part of the behavioral assessment portion of a job interview. The answer you give to this question provides the hiring manager with a sense as to how introspective you are in terms of how other people view you, and well you map your personality characteristics into a work environment. Answering this question or a related question like this well will be important to your chances of getting that new job!

There is no perfect answer in the interview to this question, but there are answers that cast you in a positive light as a leading job candidate, and responses that will result in a strike against you - too many strikes across too many questions equals no job offer.

The interview question is often asked in the form of Who is your best friend. When a name is given, the interviewer will then ask If he/she was in the room with me right now, how would he/she describe you - both the positive and the negative. I have often received responses of my spouse, my sister or brother, and my mom or dad, all of which are acceptable as well as peer friends.

Good Interview Answers to the Positive Attributes Question

A good answer typically shows that you have a sense as to how other people view you, and you know how to position this view in a way relevant to a work environment. Some examples include the following for the positive character trait portion of the question:

• I'm outgoing and get along well with others.
• I'm focused and driven to succeed on whatever task I take on.
• I like to be challenged - whether a new game, a new environment, or physically pushing myself in sports.

Good Interview Answers to the Negative Attributes Question

I often don't see really bad answers to the positive piece, but it gets interesting when asked about any negatives a best friend may articulate. These are some generally good answers that managers look for in response to a friend's description of your negative traits:

• Sometimes I can be a perfectionist at things and won't stop until I master a task.
• I can be a workaholic, and sometimes have to remind myself to balance my personal life with work.
• I occasionally overextend myself with too many activities both at work and in my community work

Bad Interview Answers to the Positive Attributes Question

Believe it or not, I have received these answers in real interviews, and in addition to not being impressed with how the candidate is thinking, these often start tilting the interview more towards do not hire:

• I like to party and people always want to be around me.
• I am a shoe fanatic and the person to take shoe shopping.
• I'm a social butterfly, and often have stuff going on every night of the week in my personal life.

Basically you want to be honest about how your friend would describe you, but use something that translates into a character attribute that a manager would see applying in a work environment.

Shopping, driving cars, etc. don't fit this purpose, and some of the above answers indicate perhaps a lack of responsibility, especially if the impression is that you are too fun loving and your primary focus is on an active social life. A manager will interpret this as a weak work ethic, which will not be in your favor.

Bad Interview Answers to the Negative Attributes Question

Often responding with a negative is hard for most people [there are other interview questions along these lines as well], and the trick is to not portray a character trait as a true negative, and certainly never give an answer that casts you in a bad light in terms of lack of responsibility, maturity, work ethic, or teamwork.

Here are some real answers I've received in interviews that are not a good response to what would your best friend say in terms of negative characteristics or behaviors:

• I party too much and often have trouble getting going in the morning
• I don't pay attention to time and often am late for our social appointments / movies / etc.
• I'm always out of money and asking to borrow some until my next paycheck

Can you see why these would not be received well during an interview, and why you may not come across as someone I'd be excited at having on my team?

Not all interviewers use this question, but similar questions are used during most interviews - we want to learn more about your personality, and how you perceive yourself both in your eyes and in the eyes of others. Often people that are more introspective tend to be more focused on their behavior, contributions to a team, and receive and act on career coaching very well.

Written by: Russell Tuckerton