Find below a list of questions that you could be asked whilst at interview
Warm-up questions
- What made you apply for this particular position?
- Briefly, how would you summarise your work history & education?
Work history
- Can you describe for me one or two of your most important accomplishments?
- How much supervision did you receive in your previous job?
- Describe for me one of your biggest disappointments in your current job?
- Why are you leaving your current job?
- What’s important to you in a company, and what things do you look for in a new organization?
Job performance
- What are your strong points for this job?
- When you’ve been told, or discovered yourself, a problem in your job performance, what have you typically done? Can you give me an example?
- Do you prefer working alone or in groups?
- Starting with your last job, tell me about your achievements that were recognised by your manager?
- What things you would like to avoid in a job and why?
- What would you say is the most important thing you are looking for in a job?
- What were some of the things about your last job that you found most difficult to do?
- What are some of the problems you encountered in doing your job? What do you usually do about it?
- What are some things you particularly liked about your last job?
- How do you feel about the way you were managed?
- If I asked your present or most recent employer about your ability, what would they say?
Education
- What aspects of your education or training have prepared you for this opportunity?
- What courses have been of most help to you in doing your present job and why?
Career goals
- What is your long-term career objective?
- What kind of job do you see yourself doing five years from now?
- What do you feel you need to develop in terms of skill & knowledge to be ready for that opportunity?
- How does this job fit in with your overall career goals?
- What would you most like to achieve if you were offered this position?
Self-assessment
- What are your three greatest strengths?
- And what are your three greatest weaknesses?
- What kind of things do you feel most confident doing?
- Can you describe for me a difficult obstacle you have had to overcome?
- How would you describe yourself as a person?
- What do you think are the most important characteristics a person must possess to become successful?
- What do you consider to be your greatest achievements to date? Why?
- What things frustrate you the most? How do you usually cope with them?
Creativity
- Can you think of a problem you’ve encountered when the old solutions didn’t work & you came up with a new one?
- What kind of problems have people recently called on you to solve? How did you solve them.
Decisiveness
- Do you consider yourself to be thoughtful, or do you usually make up your mind up quickly? Give an example.
- What was your most difficult decision in the last six months? What made it difficult?
- How do you go about making an important decision?
Range of interests
- Tell me specifically what you like to do outside of work?
- How do you keep up with what’s going on in your industry?
Work standards
- What are your standards of success in your current position?
- In your position, how would you define doing a good job?
- If you were to manage the performance of another individual, what factors would you look for?
Leadership
- What approach do you take in getting your co-workers to accept your ideas?
- How would you implement a specific change in the organisation?
- How would you get co-workers who don’t want to work together to establish a common approach to a problem?
- How would you describe your basic leadership style? Give specific examples of how you practice this?
Flexibility
- What was the most important idea or suggestion you received at work and what happened as a result?
- What was the most significant change made by your company in the last six months that directly impacted you, and how successfully did you adapt to this change?
Self-development
- What or who has been the most important event or person in your own self-development?
- What kind of books & publications do you read?