21 Jan 2020

Employers are sneaky ones. In their search for the perfect employee, they must weed out a bunch of candidates that are unfortunately not the right fit for the job.

In order to sift through all the applicants, employers first look at the resumes they have received and toss all the average ones in the bin (helpful hint – make sure your resume is gun). But any smart employer knows that anyone could copy and paste a good resume from online and even lie about their qualifications and experience.

That’s why interview questions were invented.

They were made to make you show your true colours. They put you on the spot and put you under pressure. They try to stump you. They show the confident from the timid, the experienced from the clueless and the passionate from those who are full of bull.

Fortunately, there are some ‘old classic’ interview questions that employers still like to whip out in interviews. If you know how to answer each of these, you’ll be unstoppable in ya next interview.

Tell me about yourself

While technically not a question, I don’t recommend you tell the interviewer to “back off” because “you’re not my boss yet”. Instead, I’d suggest that you do exactly as asked. Your resume can only say so much in a page or two, so tell them what they don’t know.

Tell them about who you are (current job and hobbies should do), then explain a bit about your past, then a bit about your goals and plans for the future. Show your true colours but keep it short.

What are your biggest weaknesses?

If you answer with “I just work way too hard, all the time”, or “I’m almost too good looking”, don’t expect to get a call back.

You could try to find something that appears negative and flip it into a positive. But everyone will do that. If you wanna stand out, try stating an actual weakness of yours, and what steps you’re taking to try and improve on yourself. Your new boss will froth.

How did you hear about this job?

Don’t say you saw the job online! Don’t say it’s just one of the hundreds you applied to! Don’t do it!

Tell them you follow their company on all forms of social media. Tell them you love the company, and when the job posting popped up, you were overjoyed. Tell them that you found the job – the job didn’t find you.

Give me an example of conflict in the workplace, and how you’ve solved it

If you’re going for your first job, don’t stress. Let them know you haven’t worked before, and ask them to either:

  1. Give you a hypothetical situation and ask you to solve it, or
  2. Let you use a conflict from some other point in your life

I would recommend going with option #1 above. Employers want to see that you understand how to interact with customers or co-workers and solve problems. They don’t care about that fight you had with your sister over dinner.

Where do you see yourself in five years?

Be honest!

Employers understand that people move on. But also, make sure you consider where you’re applying, and what you’ve already told them. If you’re applying for a job waiting tables to support your engineering degree, don’t tell your boss that you want to be waiting tables in five years’ time. Give them some credit.

That being said, if you’re being interviewed for an engineering job, then it’d probs make sense to see yourself somewhere within the industry in five years. Whether or not that’s at the same company is up to you. 

If you’re using the job you’re applying for as a stepping stone to your dream job, then that’s okay too. People will respect that you’re working towards your dream career and will take that as a sign that you’ll be a hard worker for the time that you spend with them.

Nail those five questions with confidence and some nice touches of personality (your actual personality, btw), and you’ll be well on your way to becoming a real-life employed adult in whatever career it is you like.