Interview Answers Win More Jobs: Interview Techniques And Questions

Interview Answers and Job Interview questions can be daunting, difficult and challenging for most people.

When preparing your answers to interview questions, its as well to remember that everything they want to know about you falls into these 4 key areas:

1.Why are you here?

2.What can you do for us?

3.What sort of person are you?

4.Can we afford you?

So you must be prepared for questions on these and your interview answers should cover each of these key areas.

These are the basic areas that cover every interviewer’s needs, they sound superficially very simple, but they are not! When you understand this and learn how to deal with them, you will stand out as an excellent interviewee!

Interview Answers For Each of These 4 Key Areas

Why are you here?

This question is asking why have you put yourself forward for this job. So you have to show it’s because you are interested in the job, the company, the challenge and the chance to learn and develop new skills; and you are ready to move for such a great opportunity. Above all you want the job and you are confident that you are right for it because you are sure of your own abilities.

What can you do for us (that someone else can’t)?

This question asks you to show how you can add value to the organization, perhaps by improving systems or efficiency; maybe by increasing sales revenue. What you bring is your experience, skills and achievements, as well as your desire to develop and contribute to a new team or department. Think back to your achievements and skills, and give details of the results you got at your previous employment. But don’t just hark back to what you used to do – think what you will be capable of in the future.

What sort of person are you?

This is the killer question. What they want to know is: will you fit in, or are you going to upset the existing team? This one is worth repeating because it is the most crucial. In any employment situation where people have to work together, the question of whether they CAN work together is actually more important than whether they can do all of the tasks required. You need to try to work out the culture from people you know or from the organization’s dress code whether you actually want to work there and whether you can fit in. if it doesn’t feel like the right place – DON’T GO THERE!

Answering ‘personal’ questions is frequently considered to be more difficult than ‘non- personal’ questions so you need to be prepared. I suggest you take a Personality Test or Career Profile Test to gain a better understanding of your personality. There are plenty of tests that will give you a free report so do that at the very least. It will give you some new ways of describing ‘what sort of person’ you are. The one I like is People Maps which will give you a pretty good free mini-report after an 8-minute questionnaire.

Can we afford you?

Salary negotiation is another issue altogether, but the point is you should have a feeling for what the remuneration is likely to be and show them that you bring value-for-money. If they put you on the spot to name a figure; shoot a little higher than you think they are prepared to pay, but always say “the opportunity itself is more important than the actual salary and I’m confident of providing excellent value”.

That’s all fine as a general background to the 4 key areas the interviewer needs to know about and being better prepared than your interviewer, but now you’ve got to be more specific.

After the "Tell me about yourself" question these are the top 10 interview answers to prepare right now:

Why do you think you would like to work for our company?
What interests you most about our products or services?
What, specifically, do you have to offer us?
Why did you choose your particular field of work?
What do you think are the disadvantages of your chosen field?
Will you please give me a brief summary of your work experience?
What were your duties and responsibilities in each job?
Which job did you like best? Which least? Why?
When you are considering different job opportunities, what things do you look for?
What do you want to avoid in your next job?

Interview Answers

1 Why do you think you would like to work for our company?They want to find out if you’re interested and know anything about them and their business or operation. You believe they have an excellent record of training people. Do some homework on their website and a little flattery will go a long way. Tell them how you admire their reputation as a supplier or manufacturer or whatever they do. If you say you were not even looking for a new position, but were excited when you saw them advertise...

2 What interests you most about our products or services?They want to find out if you’re interested in joining them and whether you know anything about them and their business or operation. You must do some homework on their website so you can be sure to talk knowledgably about their products or services and how they are better than the competition. The person who shows initiative and interest becomes more interesting to the hiring manager.

3 What, specifically, do you have to offer us?Use your key strengths statement (remember the one above?) and match your specific skills and strengths to what they need. You must have a good idea what they need from their job advert and your research. Remind yourself beforehand of the main requirements in their job vacant ad and make sure you talk about them.

4 Why did you choose your particular field of work?This question is mostly about why you took certain decisions. If you think about why you enjoy what you do, then you probably chose this field to work at something you enjoy. If you are not sure, then think carefully and frame a positive answer around the benefits of working in your type of role and industry.

5 What do you think are the disadvantages of your chosen field?You should not talk about problems or disadvantages other than the challenge of mastering the required skills, then concentrate on your interest, challenge and opportunity to develop or learn new skills.

6 Will you please give me a brief summary of your work experience?Talk through your “Career Overview” as laid out previously. This can be a very similar response to your “Tell me about Yourself” answer; obviously vary it if you’ve already had to use it.

7 What were your duties and responsibilities in each job?Briefly cover each job but you must give results as well. Employers want to hire people who will be capable of producing results, so for each duty or responsibility you should add a positive outcome. You might say something like: “I was responsible for internal safety audits and saved the company $250,000 in downtime”

8 Which job did you like best? Which least? Why?Talk about the aspects which are similar to the job you’re being interviewed for as being the job you liked best; anything else, particularly if commonly disliked such as administration or filing is fair game for the stuff you liked least. Don’t dwell on problems.

9 When you are considering job opportunities, what things do you look for?Here is an opportunity to remind them of your key strengths, so the best interview answer is to talk about your interest, challenge and the opportunity to develop existing skills further or to learn new skills. “I have well developed people and organizational skills so I like to work as a team leader or manager of a small group”.

10 What do you want to avoid in your next job?Because you are flexible and eager there is not too much you want to avoid but see 8 above and frame your answer around the sort of things that most people would happily avoid such as excessive repetition or unnecessary administration duties. You must have a clear understanding of what the job involves, so you know that your positivism is not misplaced.

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