Resignation numbers have remained abnormally high in the U.S. between July 2021 and October 2021, with millions of Americans quitting their jobs — which also means there are millions of new openings up for grabs. If you’re entering the market for the first time, or just looking to make a change, use this guide to prepare for your next interview.
Below is a list of 10 common job interview questions, along with answering techniques that will help you dazzle your prospects, and hopefully, secure the role you want.
What’s a New Software or Technology You Recently Worked With and How Did You Come to Learn It?
Interviewers are looking for your level of technology exposure and understanding here. But what’s most important is the “learning” component of this question.
Problem-Solving
“I want to see how candidates approach problems and situations, particularly when they may not have all the information,” Brooks says. “Good problem solvers know to look to others who may have faced similar challenges and seek them out.” You can share these skills in your interview by talking about examples of when you looked to others for help in approaching a problem you weren’t familiar with.
If you’re an early career candidate and don’t have examples from past IT roles, maybe it was the first time you drove a car with a stick shift or when you had to use unfamiliar software to complete a class project. When the interview question calls for it, you want to emphasize the approach you take in getting more information and how you act upon it.
4) What are your biggest strengths?
There are two answers you could go for here: what your actual strengths are, and what you think the hiring manager or HR representative wants to hear. We would most certainly suggest you go with the first answer.
For this question, you would want to narrow your answer down to at most three strengths. Pick 1 or 2 skills that would help you really excel at the job, and 1 or 2 personal (more or less unrelated) skills.
Not sure which ones are your top strengths? Check out the table below to learn which one’s perfect for your field:
After picking your strengths, back it up with a situation or story that shows how you have used it to benefit you on the job.
After all, words are just that – words. The HR can’t know whether your “natural leadership” is an actual strength, or just means that you were super active in your high school class.
As you probably already know, this is one of the most common interview questions out there, so make sure you’re prepared for it before facing the HR manager!
My biggest strength is that I’m good at picking up new skills. I’ve worked a variety of different odd jobs – things like working as a waiter, house-keeper, cook, and a lot more (as you’ve probably seen on my resume).
For most of those jobs, I ended up picking up all the needed skills within 1 or 2 weeks (with basically no previous experience).
So, I’m pretty sure while I don’t have any experience as a bartender, I have the right certification, and I believe I can get good at it within a week or two.
My biggest strength is that I’m very efficient at working under pressure. No matter the crisis or stress, I can make the right decisions on-the-spot.
As an event manager at Company X, we were organizing an IT conference for a client. There were a ton of last-minute hiccups – some speakers canceled and the catering company said they’d be late for the lunch break. On top of that, we were understaffed because 2 of our volunteer organizers got sick and couldn’t show up.
At that point, things looked so bleak that we were considering canceling the event or postponing it. Instead, I took the initiative in my hands and sorted through the problems one by one.