Let’s face it, an interview is a one-way grilling process where you are an underdog trying to do everything right and your interviewers are there to make that process harder. In every interview you are asked a common set of questions that are not even related to your job. Whilst you sit there wondering “why does this even matter? I will work very hard as soon as I get the job!”, on the other side the recruiter has already crossed your name off the list.

Let me tell you what these common questions are and why your recruiters will often ask you these questions.

1. Questions related to your position and the company

• What do you know about this company?
  When a recruiter asks you about the company, they want to know if you have done your homework. This also allows them to check how interested you are in them and check your preparedness for future projects you may work with the company.
• Why are you interested in this position?
  As much as you feel like saying, “Emm because I need money…?” The recruiter wants to hear from you why this particular vacancy entices you? Whether you will be an asset to the company by working on this position?

2. Your experience

Experience is the best way to learn anything in life and this implies to your work as well. The more experienced you are in a certain field, the more productive and comfortable you will be working in that field. This means your recruiter spends less time training you the basics of the job.

• What did you like or dislike about your last job? Tell me some of the highlights of your past jobs?
  Likes or dislikes about your past job allows them to know your work patterns and when you mention the highlights they will know what skills they can expect from you for your new role.

3. Work attributes

• Are you much of a team worker?
  Time has changed the way we look at our work from a task-oriented era to an era where task oriented is only a part of our job. Recruiters like to know if you can work in a team and how you perform in a team. Imagine the mess, your employer has to go through when someone in your team doesn’t cooperate with the co-workers. Not to forget the conflict and the HR issues that your employer may need to deal with.
• Your ability to handle work stress?
  For example: You may know everything about a software for an accounting position or know everything what is expected of that position. But if you can’t respond how you handle multiple jobs, then your recruiter is not going to be impressed very much with your skills because your response is likely to show your inability to coordinate multiple tasks.
• What are your strengths and weaknesses?
  Your strengths allow your recruiter to know where you are most productive at and if your strength align with the company’s goals and objectives. Nobody wants to tell their weaknesses, but your employers want to know if you have any. It may not be the case with every interview but what if you get asked. You are better off prepared and if you are able to change your weaknesses into strengths then you are on top of the game.

4. Your personal goals

• Where do you see yourself in the future?
  This is a very tricky question. You are expected to be ambitious and career oriented but at the same time your recruiters want to check if you going to be a reliable long term staff. So they want to know if your objectives align with what is expected of the position and the company’s goals.

It doesn’t necessarily mean that the recruiter will ask you exactly the same questions but every interview you attend they will touch base on the questions above.

Yes! Interviews are pain in the neck but once you ace it no one can stop you from achieving the world.
If you need an assistance to get through an interview, talk to us about how we can help you. Our preparation classes have over 200 sets of questions tailored for different industries.

PS: Did we tell you we do free etiquette assessments when you buy our interview preparation toolkit?