Common Interview Questions

Rowan Manahan at Fortify Your Oasis is running an commentary on the Common Interview Questions. Although my posts tend to spend more time talking about Odd Interview Questions, I have some opinions on the more conventional questions as well.

Common Question #1: What are your strengths and weaknesses?

My Advice: They are going to ask you this, I almost guarantee it! So prepare a response in advance. Use a REAL example, when discussing your weaknesses, then talk about how you overcame the issue and kept it from adversely affecting your performance or how you are currently working to improve.

Do not try to “spin” something like… “Well I suppose I care just too much about my job.” That just makes you look like an idiot, at least if I were interviewing you.

When discussing strengths, do so in a way that highlights your skills and relates them to the position for which you are interviewing. Provide examples (and quantify your results if possible.

Stop short of sounding arrogant. “I can do just about anything I put my mind to!” is just blather.

See Rowan’s advice here

Common Question #2: Tell me about yourself.

My Advice: If you think this response begins with “Well, I was born in a small town in Iowa…” STOP. I don’t need to know your life story, I want to know how you chose your line of work and what brings you to this interview today. Speak briefly about your career history, how you moved from position to position, what attracted you to the company, and why you feel you’re a good fit for the job.

If you have something JOB RELEVANT to add from your personal life, for example you design engine cooling components for a living and in your spare time you build race car engines, that’s job relevant. However, my experience building off-road demo-derby race cars with Figure 8 isn’t relevant to my job. (Well, it did come up in an interview once: when I asked to “Share something about you that would surprise us.”)

See Rowan’s advice here

Of course I've always got plenty to say on this topic. Since teaching candidates to interview effectively is a major part of our jobs. See all I've got to say about interviewing here.