Common Questions Asked During a Job Interview

"Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm." That line from Winston Churchill is a decent thing to keep in mind when you are staring down an interview you feel unprepared for.

Most people walk into interviews not knowing what they will be asked, and that uncertainty is where the nerves come from. Nobody hands you a cheat sheet of questions ahead of time. You sit down across from someone who could become your boss, and a lot of the time you are improvising on the spot. So you do what everyone does: you ask friends and relatives what came up in their interviews, and you dig through site after site promising the "best questions and answers." A fair number of those sites don't actually tell you what to say when it counts, which leaves you no further ahead than when you started. What follows is a handful of questions that come up again and again, with the kind of answers that actually help.

Describe yourself. You have almost certainly fielded this one before, and there is a trap built into it. Plenty of candidates answer by talking about who they are as a person. Something like, "I always try to help people in need." That is a fine quality to have, but it is the wrong answer here. The person across the table is not fishing for your personal virtues; they want work-related ones. What makes you good at the job, and what makes you a good fit for this company and this role? Give them three or four professional qualities. For example: you are dedicated to any task you take on and you don't mind staying late to finish something. You are ambitious and always looking for ways to improve and move up. You are highly organized, because you get more done when everything is lined up and in order.

Problem-solving. Expect to be asked about a problem you handled in the past. Pick a real situation from a job or from school where something went wrong and you fixed it, and make sure the outcome reflects well on you. Keep the example coherent, and have a couple of these ready in your head before you walk in, because thinking one up cold is hard. Walk the interviewer through what the problem was, the steps you took, and what you came away having learned. The whole point of the question is to find out whether you can untangle the problems that will inevitably come up once you are on the job. It often arrives in different wording: tell me about a conflict or a tough situation, what happened, how you resolved it, and what it taught you.

Strengths and weaknesses. If you've interviewed at all, this one has come for you. And a lot of people fumble it by handing over a genuine weakness. Don't. Name a weakness that won't get in the way of you doing good work, ideally one that doubles as a strength. Try something along these lines: "My weakness is that I'm a workaholic. I love the job so much that other parts of my life get neglected. I don't carve out enough time for myself and my family, so I end up missing things. But I'm just that committed to the work." See how the weakness quietly becomes an asset? For strengths, tie them to the job in front of you. Read the duties and responsibilities before the interview and line your strengths up against what they are after. Applying to teach, for instance, you might say: "I'm detail-oriented and organized, with a lot of experience building lesson plans. I'm also creative, which helps in a classroom because it keeps students engaged and curious. They never know what I'll pull out of my hat."

Good luck out there.

References: Green, A. (2011). The 10 most common job interview questions. U.S. News: Money. Harden, J. (2013). 14 interview questions that reveal everything. Huffington Post. Smith, J. (2013). 30 motivational quotes for job seekers. Forbes.