Having your interview? Here are the tried-and-tested ways to answer your employer’s questions.

So you’ve made sent in your CV, your cover letter, and an employer has offered you to interview for a position. What now? We’ll all heard of the basics of interviewing- professional clothing, always smile- but the real worry lies with the employer’s questions, which more often than not feel like an interrogation. Although the scope of possible questions is wide, employers often use the same techniques to judge the capabilities of their candidates. By considering this list of common questions, you will have more than enough material to tackle anything the interview throws at you.

1. Tell me about yourself

2. What are your strengths/ how would you describe yourself?

3. What are your weaknesses?

4. Why do you want to work for this company?

5. Leaving your last company

6. Why should we hire you?

7. What salary are you expecting from this job?

Tell Me A Little About Yourself

At first glance, this question seems like a cruel joke- it doesn’t give you much to work with, and it is deceptively broad. But this question is one of the most common ones you could be asked, and it’s important to hit the ground running when you start your interview.

When employers ask you to talk about yourself, they don’t mean your train collection or that time you won a marathon- although that might be a good way to wrap up your speech if you’re trying to demonstrate your tenacity. What they are looking at the onset for is a precise, engaging summary of your prior work experience and working personality.

There are two ways to go about starting your career history: going present to past or past to present. Present to past means explaining your current role first, making sure to relate it to your application at this company:

I’ve currently been working with X business for twelve years, managing stock orders and improving the value of our orders. My passion for streamlining orders is what lead to me to applying to this position… my first two jobs were at warehouse Y, where I learned about the value of effective stock delivery and tracing.

As you can see, your implication that you want to work here because of your similar experiences is sandwiched between your relevant present and past working roles. On top of that, your answering structure can be viewed as a boomerang- whatever role you’re explaining, it always comes back in the end to your job-relevant skills and your passion for this current position. This is a good way to remind the employer that not only are you eager to work here, you have the experience to prove that you can do it.

Whether you start past to present or present to past is up to you, but always consider the narrative you are presenting with your choice. Do you want to show the story of your entire growth across a sector, or just the highlights of your best and most relevant work?

To top off the question, it can be impactful to mention your original purposes or passion for the work you’re doing (wanting to be a vet because your family owned an animal shelter) and the training and education you went through as a result, as long as the information is relevant and true to you. Employers can sniff out when you’re talking through your teeth, in which case it is better to keep things professional and focus on your career ambitions and proven ability. Reserve a line or two at the end about your personality: how your bosses and colleagues have described you in the past, what you are known for, and maybe a hobby or outside achievement to demonstrate your general enthusiasm.

What Are Your Strengths/ How Would You Describe Yourself/ What Makes You A Unique Candidate?

We’ve put these three questions in the same section because when you really break it down, they are asking for the same thing- your strongest and most memorable characteristics. An employer does not want to know about your chronic insomnia and coffee addiction when they ask this question. If you don’t want to feel like a broken record, you may want to divide your best characteristics across the three possible questions, so that it may look something like this:

My Strengths: A good place to put your proven characteristics at your last few jobs: you are a talented salesperson because you increased sales in your branch by X% last year, you are a dedicated team leader because you took over a position when it was left unfilled and managed to keep improving your group’s performance, ect. Positive outcomes are to be expected here.

Describe Myself: Three adjectives and a further explanation never hurts here. If you’ve already been asked about your strengths, there’s no need to go through the statistics again. You can be more general on this one, showing your good traits by explaining how you use them at work (for example, being reliable- you have always finished your projects ahead of time and have been highly commended for helping to pick up the slack).

What Makes Me Unique: This is your time to shine! Pick the one aspect about yourself that you feel most strongly about. This will probably be your passion for the work you do, your creativity, or something unexpected like your ability to make people get along. Whatever you do, make sure you can explain it with enthusiasm and have one good example of when this unique characteristic helped you at your previous jobs.

What Are Your Weaknesses?
Another question that appears at first glance to be counterproductive. Employers ask you for your weaknesses in order to evaluate your self-awareness and your ability to grow, not your actual flaws. Use this as a short and sweet chance to demonstrate a moment where you realised something about your work process and changed it for the better.

The good news is that there’s a fairly simple formula to this one, and it goes like this:
1. Explain your general weakness (being forgetful, inconsistent, bad at time management) and back it up with a situation or a type of situation where that has affected you before.

2. Demonstrate how you have since changed your behaviours for the better (using day planners, setting reminders, taking a class) and how that has specifically improved your work for the better.

3. If you are moving into a new sector, make sure to use this question (and only this question) to explain that you are as of yet a little unexperienced in the field. Be sure to mention that you believe this will improve with practice and, if necessary, the training that the work provides. This puts the burden of the flaw on the company, which is to be expected when training is involved!

Why Do You Want To Work For This Company?

While the first thing that might pop into your head is money, employers are specifically looking for what applies to them. This is where your company knowledge comes in, along with a few lines about your personal ambitions.

In terms of the company, make sure to do your research ahead of time and keep an eye out for anything that jumps out at you. This may be the quality of their work culture, their accomplishments in the sector, the opportunities for career growth and so on. Make sure to mention any special scheme that the business offers, such as flexitime- companies are always happy to know that their benefits are working to bring in people. Couple this with what you are hoping to get out of these benefits- a chance to hone your skills or challenge or yourself, or to move on to a sector that is your true passion.

Whatever you do, just don’t bring up how bad your old job was by comparison. It might seem unfair, but employers automatically associate complaints with the worst possible scenario, especially in an interview.

Leaving Your Last Company

A basic framework for talking about why you left your last job is as follows: focus on yourself and the opportunities for growth that you’re seeking. This means not talking about the negatives the company brought on you, but the personal dissatisfaction you were experiencing at the time with your responsibilities. Consider the following:

“My last business X made me work overtime each week and didn’t respect my time.” And “I’m looking to move on to a place of employment where the office culture happens to coincide with my own needs and values.”
One of them is blaming; the other one, hopeful. Guess which one the employer prefers to hear?

Why Should We Hire You?

Two qualifiers need to be met for this question: meeting the above and beyond. If you have a particular qualification or talent that you believe truly makes you stand out against the other interviews, feel free to use it as your trump card. Otherwise, a good way to go about this is as follows:

• Meeting the general requirements: refer back to the CV and the job listing, explaining briefly that you qualify for everything they’re seeking for (don’t use words like mostly or in general- if you already got the interview, there’s no need to doubt your qualifications)

• Follow this up with the ‘beyond’- your personal assets that make you even better than what they’re looking for! Check back to the advice on strengths for more ideas. Now is the time to gush about your passion, experience, and confidence in the field, following it up with examples from your previous jobs and training. You’re on the last leg of the interview, so don’t hold back!

What Salary Are You Expecting From This Job?

The dreaded question, and it’s the one that usually comes up last in an interview. Before you go in, it can help to look up average salaries for positions in your area. Simply Googling your role of interest and your location can do a lot (Glassdoor and Indeed offer a comprehensive breakdown of jobs in your area), or otherwise you can use job search websites to see what employers are offering.

Once you are asked this question in the interview, you can put that knowledge to use. Make sure to mention that your estimate range is based off your experience and the average salary in the area for the field- this comes off as less demanding and makes you appear more flexible.

Another option is to open yourself to explanation from the employer instead of having to make a definitive answer. This can either come in the form of saying that your salary is flexible to the company’s stock options or other benefits that they offer. If that doesn’t open up the floor, don’t be afraid to directly tell them that you would like to know more about their benefits. This not only can buy you time, but can also bring up some valuable information that may make you change your mind about the salary offering.

You can also subvert the question by saying that it depends on the type of work that you will be doing, hopefully prompting the employer to compare their work to the work of other companies. Again, don’t be afraid to ask directly for how intense the hours are compared to others.

The job interview can be a tiring process, especially when done over and over again. Don’t give up! Streamlining the process can ease your nerves and help you stand out as an applicant, whether it’s your first interview or your seventeenth. If you’re having any other doubts about your interview, you can also always reach a JobGuru career advisor at the click of a button (they do a pretty good job, if we say so ourselves 😊 ).

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