So, your interview is going well. You are feeling comfortable, your personality is shining through and you are tailoring your experience to fit with the job duties. Everything is sailing along smoothly, and then— wham—the interviewer asks one of those questions that trips you up every time.
You know the ones; they are open-ended and a little sneaky, and generally make you draw a blank while you rack your brain for an answer. The key is to come ready with an answer to ace these commonly agonized-over queries. Let’s take a look at four tricky interview questions and how to tackle them, as discussed in 4 Interview Questions Everyone Agonizes Over by Lily Zhang.
Employers want to see how you handle setbacks and, most importantly, the lessons you learned.
1. Tell me more about yourself. Nothing like a completely open-ended question to leave you completely without words. Here’s the low-down: The interviewer only wants to know “more about yourself” in terms of how it relates to why you’re interested in the position. Focus on your experience and accomplishments that are relevant to the positions and employer.
“One way to structure this answer is to start with your present, go into your past, and finish off with your future. This approach covers all your bases by answering the question, giving you an opportunity to talk about your relevant skills, and getting to what the interviewer genuinely wants to know: How are you going to perform in this position?” writes Zhang.
2. What is your greatest weakness? What is the worst way to answer this question? By spinning it into a strength, such as saying procrastination has taught you how to work well under pressure.
“Responses like these tell me little about how a candidate faces challenges and immediately implies a lack of sincerity,” writes David Reese, VP of Human Resources at Medallia. “It doesn’t demonstrate to me how they think — beyond their ability to creatively avoid being honest or self-critical.”
What employers want to know is that you are knowledgeable about what you can improve on and that you want to improve on it. Focus on a weakness you have had, such as delegating work, but talk about steps you have taken to address it and discuss progress you have made.
3. Tell me about a time you failed. The No. 1 piece of advice here is BE REAL. It doesn’t need to be an earthshaking failure (maybe it is best not to talk about getting fired from a prior job), but employers want to see how you handle setbacks and, most importantly, the lessons you learned.
4. Where do you see yourself in 5 years? This question is really asking “How long are you going to stick with us, and is it worth our time to train you?” This one gets a little tricky because you realistically can’t guarantee you will be with the company forever (or even 5 years).
“The good news is you can still answer this question thoughtfully and with specifics without lying. After qualifications and fit, interviewers usually care more about your ability to make an impact at their company than anything else,” says Zhang.
Check out Zhang’s example on how to make this work:
“Well, I’m definitely really excited about the associate consultant position at Midnight Consulting, and I can see myself growing professionally in this role. I think, generally speaking, within the next five years I would seek to make a significant impact at Midnight Consulting, particularly in the energy sector. I’m also looking forward to eventually taking on additional managerial responsibilities and possibly taking the lead on some projects. Another big part of my life is mentoring, so I would hope to incorporate more of that as my knowledge of this industry develops.”
Interested in how to handle a few other common, but tricky, questions? Check out How to Answer the 5 Toughest Job Interview Questions.