You’ve nailed all of the technical questions and feel that this job is yours. The interview’s about to end when the hiring manger asks one final question: What are your greatest strengths and weaknesses? You pause and tense up, and awkward silence ensues.
Being the expert that you are, answering technical questions during an interview might seem like a breeze. After all, the positions that you are interviewing for are probably similar in nature to what you are currently doing. Say you are a Web Developer and the hiring manager asks about your experience with HTML, CSS3, and JavaScript; naturally, your answers will flow easily because you have been using these technologies on a day to day basis at work.
The interview questions that usually make candidates cringe and pause in their tracks aren’t the technical ones, but are usually the commonly asked generic questions. As an interviewee, you won’t always have a prepared response for every generic question that an interviewer may ask.
I have compiled a list of interview preparations to help you prepare:
- Do a full examination of both your personal and professional strengths and weaknesses.
- Take some time to reflect on all of your personal and professional accomplishments. You can do this by reviewing your resume in depth and by creating a checklist of your achievements. Understand and recognize the goals that you have set for yourself and try to align them to the position and company that you are interviewing with.
- You can also prepare for generic interview questions by doing your research on the company and the hiring manager to better understand what they are really looking for in a candidate.
- Check out the company website, understand the products or services that they offer, and know who the key players are in the company.
- Do a google search of most common interview questions and practice saying your answers to them out loud or, have a friend help you and conduct a mock interview.
Interviewing can be a stressful time, but by preparing for both technical and functional questions, it will relieve anxiety so your confidence shines through.
Below are 10 questions from Monster.com that they deemed to be most common.
- What are your weaknesses?
- Why should we hire you?
- Why do you want to work here?
- What are your goals?
- Why did you leave (or why are you leaving) your job?
- When were you most satisfied in your job?
- What can you do for us that other candidates cannot?
- What are three positive things that your last boss would say about you?
- What salary are you seeking?
- If you were an animal, which one would you be?
By: Herbie W.