YAY! I had worked really hard, nailed my career fair and landed an interview for my dream company. As the initial excitement wore off, a feeling of dread quickly started to settle in. The interview was only four days away, so I knew I needed to start preparing. I combed through several popular websites like monster.com, glassdoor.com and themuse.com for much needed help on preparing for the interview. I was desperately looking for sample answers for anticipated interview questions. Though, I found many websites that listed the common questions, there weren’t many with good sample answers that I could make my own.
I have therefore compiled a list of the 5 most common interview questions with sample answers. Use these as a starting guide and modify them for your own experience. So, let’s dive in!
5 most common interview questions
1. Tell me about Yourself
This is a perfect ice-breaker question and one of the most common interview questions. It is not an invitation to share your life’s story or to regurgitate your resume. Instead, use this opportunity to showcase your top 2-3 strengths and convince the interviewer that you are a great fit for the job. Don’t be afraid to brag! Expand upon your skills by telling stories that are most relatable to the job you are applying for.
This question also sets the tone for the interview. Unless the interviewer has a specific set of questions they need to cover, your answer may serve as a pretext for follow up questions about your experience, skill-set and interests. I also recommend to end your answer by sharing a couple of relevant activities that you really enjoy, as this shows your human side. Always be genuine, as it is entirely possible for the interviewer to expand on your answer and ask follow-up questions about your activity of choice.
Finally, talk for at least 1 minute, but no longer than 2 minutes to avoid losing the interest of the interviewer.
This sample answer would be great for a consulting job interview:
“ I have 8 years of experience in the oil and gas industry, working in a variety of roles – operations, engineering and supply chain. I started my career with XYZ company working on offshore oil rigs in Indonesia. In my very first year on the job, I was supervising the crew, managing round the clock operations and interacting with clients to provide daily updates.
In my previous role as the Supply Chain Manager, I managed a spent of $10M/year, developed several critical technology suppliers, and negotiated pricing contracts with global suppliers. I was also one of the 20 people across my company to be nominated by our senior management for a special project on cost reduction. As part of this team, I analyzed data and developed supply chain models to optimize our sourcing strategy. Our findings were presented to the CEO and Board of Directors of the company!
In my most recent role as an Engineering Manager, I lead a team of 15 people spread across US and India, to provide aftermarket support for our portfolio of downhole tools. My role entails translating customer requirements into engineering specifications, negotiating with stakeholders for resources, and ensuring the projects are completed within the tight timeline and budget. I believe that these skills will also be very relevant for managing projects in my new role as a Senior Consultant.
Outside of work, I really enjoy travelling and volunteering my time with organizations that promote education for young women. ”
2. What is your biggest weakness?
This is another very common interview question, and one of my favorite ones. Many candidates answer by trying to frame one of their strengths as a weakness; “I work too hard…”, “I am a perfectionist…”, etc. Don’t make this mistake!
Answered well, this question can really help the interview become memorable. The interviewer is trying to understand if there are any show stoppers that will prevent you from succeeding in the job being offered. Therefore, you must not share a weakness that is in direct conflict with the main skills required for the job. For example, if you are applying for a position in sales, it will not be appropriate to say that public speaking makes you sweat! The interviewer is also interested to know if you have the maturity to identify your development areas and take steps to improve upon them.
The best way to answer this question is to share a genuine weakness that posed a real challenge to your professional or school life, what you did to overcome it and a concrete example to corroborate your answer.
This sample answer would be great for a Product Manager job interview:
“When I moved into my current role as an Engineering manager, I quickly identified that delegation is one of my areas of improvement. I moved from overseeing a team of two engineers in my previous role to leading a team of 15 engineers, including a remote team in India. With the increased managerial responsibilities, I also realized that I needed to rely on my team for their diversified technical expertise, and delegate tasks to appropriate team members to ensure that the projects stay on track.
To improve upon my delegation skills, I took a week long management skills training class as well as took an online Udemy course. Now, I also conduct weekly meetings with my team so that we keep track of our progress. I have become much more comfortable with delegating tasks to my team, and have also received positive feedback from my manager in my last performance review.”
3. What is your greatest strength?
Just like with the biggest weakness question, the interviewer is trying to assess if you have the maturity to identify what is your main value proposition, i.e., how will you add value to the new organization. This question is also a great test of whether you have actually read the job description and know the top skills required for the role.
This is one question where I see candidates struggle a lot as to a certain extent, it requires you to brag. If you are one of such people, remember the acronym RATE as you prepare your answer:
- Relevant: mention strengths that are relevant to the open position
- Accurate: share what are truly your strengths and not what the interviewer wants to hear.
- To the point: don’t use buzzwords like “good organizational skills”, instead say “good time management skills” or “good at prioritizing”.
- Engaging: tell stories that make you stand out from the crowd of candidates the interviewer has been meeting since morning.
This sample answer would be great for a Sales Manager job interview:
“I have strong negotiation skills that I have developed through the last 5 years I spent in Sales. I always try to focus on how to best solve my customers’ problems, which helps me create win-win solutions for my company and my clients. Last year, I negotiated a $50M contract with our largest client and exceeded my sales target by 20%, which earned me the award for the Best Saleswoman of the Year. I am confident that I can bring the same skill-set to the role of Sales Manager at ABC company, to help with the company’s vision of becoming the number one choice for sporting goods for its customers.”
4. Tell me about a conflict you had, and how did you deal with it?
When you work in a team, you are always interacting with professionals who have complementary, (READ different) skills and working styles. Hence, conflict is not only inevitable, but also healthy to ensure the team does not suffer from confirmation bias.
Through this question, the interviewer is trying to understand how you manage disagreements – do you get defensive when threatened with a conflict? Do you have a logical way of managing the argument or do you destroy relationships on your way out? Not only is this question an opportunity to your showcase your maturity, but also a chance to demonstrate your understanding of the values of the company.
Remember to use the STAR technique to frame your story. You can learn more about the STAR technique here.
This sample answer would be great for a recent engineering graduate, applying for her first job:
“I am part of the SAE Design team. Last year, one of my teammates and I were in disagreement about the maximum driver load that the car can carry. We needed to quickly decide on the material of the chassis as this was delaying manufacturing. Instead of getting into a heated argument, I invited my colleague to come together and write all our assumptions on the white board. At this point, he realized that the suspension team had recently made component changes that affected the overall weight calculations for our design. We were able to resolve our conflict and going forward, decided to do weekly team reviews to ensure we take into account any changes done by other teams.”
5. Do you have any questions for me?
When I do interviews for my company, I typically leave 10-15 mins for the candidates to ask me questions. I want to know whether they have really done their research on my company, and prepared more than one thought provoking questions for me.
So when the hiring manager asks “Do you have any questions for me?”, take advantage of this question. Asking smart questions not only reflects your true interest in the job being offered but also gives you another chance to highlight any key strengths you did not cover in the interview so far.
These sample questions would be great for any job interview:
- About the job: What does a typical day look like for you?
- About the interviewer’s experience: What is your most and least favorite part about working in this company?
- About performance measurement: Do you do 360 degree performance reviews?
- About training and development: Do you have a mentoring program?
- About follow up: What are the next steps in the interview process?
Also, I really like the article ‘51 Great Questions to Ask In An Interview’ by themuse.com, as they have bucketed the questions in different types, similar to what I have listed above.
All the best for your next job interview and stay tuned for next week, where I will cover how to negotiate your dream salary!
Very good information
Thanks
Glad you found it useful!