Job Seekers of Montclair, Essex County, New Jersey, support, job hunting group.

Interview Questions by Cindy Markovcy
Traditional Questions Asked by Employers
  • Tell me about yourself. (2 minute overview)
  • Why have you chosen this particular field?
  • What are your strengths?
  • What is your major weakness or area for development?
  • What have you done to develop in the last three to five years?
  • How would you describe yourself? How do others describe you?
  • What motivates you to put forth your greatest effort?
  • In a job, what interests you most and the least? Why?
  • What do you consider the most important accomplishment you contributed in your last job?
  • Think about something you consider a failure in your life, and tell me why you think it happened. If you could go back and change it, would you?
  • Where do you see yourself in three, five, ten years? Short and long-term goals?
  • What are your long-range and short-range goals? How are you preparing yourself to achieve them?
  • What are the most important rewards you expect in your career? What are you doing to achieve them?
  • How do you determine or evaluate success? How do you determine or evaluate failure?
  • What two or three accomplishments have given you the most satisfaction? Why?
  • Describe your most rewarding college experiences. What made them rewarding?
  • How has your college education experience prepared you for your career? What types of extra-curricular activities did you participate in that prepared you for your career?
  • Why did you select your college or university?
  • What courses did you enjoy most? Least? Why?
  • If you could, would you plan your academic study differently? Why?
  • Do you have plans to return to school? What area of study? When?
  • What kind of environment are you most comfortable working in?
  • Describe your worst and best manager.
  • How do you work under pressure?
  • How do you plan your work?
  • How would you describe the ideal job for you?
  • Why are you interested in working for this company? What do you know about our company?
  • How do you think you will fit into this company's culture?
  • What do you think it takes to be successful in a company like ours? What qualities should a successful manager or employee possess?
  • If you were hired, what ideas and talents could you contribute to the position or our company?
  • What two or three things are most important to you in your job?
  • Do you have a geographical preference? Are you willing to relocate?
  • Are you willing to travel? How much?
  • Are you willing to spend at least six months or longer as a trainee?
  • What major problem have you encountered and how did you deal with it?
  • What have you learned from your mistakes?
  • Why should I hire you?
  • Do you have any questions for me? (hint: always have questions!)
Behavioral Interview Questions
  • Tell me about a time when you have had to get something done by leading or motivating others. What happened? Were you successful?
  • Describe a time when you have had to sell an idea or concept. How did you go about it? Was it easy or hard? What did you do about opposition or reluctance? What was the outcome?
  • Tell me about a time when you were able to convince someone to come around to your way of thinking. Tell me about a time when you were not successful at convincing someone. What was the difference?
  • Tell me about a time when you had to get along with a difficult person. What happened? What would you do differently?
  • Tell me about a problem that required a lot of thinking and analysis. How did you gather information? What alternatives did you consider? Which ones did you select? What was the outcome?
  • Tell me about a tough decision you had to make. How did you go about making it? What did you do to help you decide? What was the outcome? Would you make the same decision now?
  • What is the biggest obstacle you have been able to overcome? What obstacle were you not able to overcome? Why or why not?
  • What would you do if you had a deadline that you knew you could not meet?
  • What have you done to make your job or your area more effective or efficient? Are you open to learning new technology?
  • Tell me about a situation where you had to come up with a creative solution to a difficult problem.
  • Describe your planning process. How often do you plan? What are the steps? How important is it?
  • Think of a time when you were involved in organizing a project for work or school. Describe how you organized it. How did you form the initial list of tasks? How did you decide which to do first? What types of information did you gather to determine priority? What did you learn to help you organize your next project better? Describe a time when you have had to switch priorities quickly.
  • Tell me about a time you have tried to improve a service or product for a customer/client. What was the service/product? How did you determine what needed to be improved? How did you improve it? What did the customer like and dislike about the change?
  • How do you develop effective working relationships with your customers? Peers? Boss?
  • Tell me about a difficult customer/client with whom you have had to develop a relationship. How did you do it? What happened as a result?
  • Tell me about a time when you don't feel that you met the clients' needs. How did you resolve it? What happened?
  • Describe a situation where you think you were an excellent communicator. What happened?
  • Tell me about a time when you failed to keep someone informed. What happened?
  • Describe a time when you had to call upon a lot of resources in order to get a project completed. How did you motivate others to work with you on the project?
  • Tell me about the most challenging presentation you had to make. Tell me about the easiest presentation you had to make. What were the differences?
  • What was the toughest thing you ever had to negotiate? What were the issues? What arguments did you make? What tactics did you employ? What was the end result?
  • Tell me about a significant accomplishment in your life. Why do you consider it significant?
  • Give me some examples of times when you have anticipated what your boss or your client has needed before they asked. How about your manager?
  • Give me some examples of things you have done that go considerably beyond what is required by the job.
  • Describe a time when you took the initiative to improve a situation/fix a problem.
  • What knowledge/skills/abilities/competencies have you improved in the last five to ten years? What ones are you still working to improve further? What are you doing to improve them?
  • Describe a time when you worked on a project with a group of people and you felt you made an exceptional contribution. Did the group receive recognition? Did you receive recognition?
  • Do you prefer working on a team or individually? Why? What are some examples of where you worked well with a team or individually?
  • Describe a time when you were part of a team working on a project. Did you tend to lead the discussions or listen more? What did you contribute to the team's success? What were the positives about the experiences? What were the frustrations?
  • Discuss a time when you tried to get a group of people to cooperate and work together as a team. Why was teamwork necessary? What did you do to encourage it? How did people react? What changes did you notice in their performance or attitudes?
  • When have you had to be very direct/firm as a manager?
  • Tell me about a time when you have successfully coached someone so that they improved a skill. Tell me about a time when you were unsuccessful.
  • Describe your management style.
Sample Questions to Ask in an Interview
  • What are the responsibilities and accountabilities of this position?
  • How well is the position defined? Can its duties be changed or evolve over time?
  • How would you describe an average day on this job?
  • Can I talk to others who would work with me on a day-to-day basis?
  • Why is this position open?
  • As you think about the position, what aspects of this job would you like to see performed better?
  • What are the key challenges or problems of this position?
  • Where can I go from here, assuming that I meet/exceed the job's responsibilities?
  • How would you describe the ideal candidate? Are there concerns about my skills being able to match the needs?
  • What are your company's short and long-range objectives? How does this position support them?
  • How do you describe your successful employees?
  • What does the company consider unique about itself? What is the competitive advantage?
  • Where does the company excel? What are its' limitations?
  • How will I be evaluated, and in what time frames? What performance standards will be used?
  • With whom would I be working? Who would be my supervisor? Who would I supervise?
  • What is the department's environment like? Culture?
  • When will a decision be made about this position?
  • What is the next step in the decision-making process?

© 2003 by Cindy Markovcy. Ms. Markovcy holds a Master's degree from Seton Hall University and has several years of experience in Human Resources. She has volunteered for Job Seekers workshops for the past three years and can be emailed at cindy.markovcy@att.net.