No matter how confident you are, you always need to be prepared before a job interview. You never know what questions the interviewer might hurl at you. But yes, there are some questions which are very common and are asked in every interview.
I have noted down the three most common questions and their answers so that you can get an idea about how to answer them.
- Tell me more about yourself
This question is the most common one and is asked in every interview. What the interviewer actually tries to know from this question is your education, work history as well as the professional aspirations of the candidate. This question is generally asked in the beginning of the interview and thus it acts as an icebreaker.
Make sure to keep it brief and to the point. Try to keep forward real-life incidents related to your profession and how it had helped your current or earlier organizations. Try to add a touch of humor to your answer and avoid any deal breakers which make you look uncooperative and rigid.
- What are your greatest strengths and weaknesses?
- Greatest weaknesses
There are a number of ways in which this question can be answered. You can either focus on points which are not important for your current job.
For example: If you are appearing for an interview for a writing job, you can tell that you are not very good with group presentations as it is not a very important characteristic for a writing job.
You can also discuss about any skills that you have improved over the course of time. This will reveal that you are ready to make improvements whenever necessary. But while answering this question, also keep in mind not to talk about any quality that is related to your present job. Talk about some trait which is not directly related to this job and discuss what steps you took to improve and how dedicatedly you had worked on it.
Another way to answer is to turn a negative trait into a positive one. For instance, you can tell that you go to great lengths and work extremely hard to ensure that you finish your work before time and keep on checking time and again.
It will tell your interviewer that you are a candidate you will make sure that you will finish any project you are given.
- Greatest strengths:
This is a question which will help you to showcase your strength and let your interviewer know what your strong points are. Unlike your weaknesses while discussing about your strengths, make sure that you tell your interviewer about points that are relevant for your current job. You can focus on any skill that you have been praised for and talk about real life incidents.
- What is your expected salary?
Before appearing for the interview make a thorough research of how much you are worth and also how much the job is offering other employees. That way you can ask for a salary that is both realistic and reasonable. You can also put forward a salary range that you think is proper for you.
And if you also tell them that you will think about the offer, you have the chance of being offered a better compensation. So take time before you commit.
You can also negotiate with your employer about your salary. Instead of a raise there might be other benefits as well which you might consider. Sometimes it might happen that the company really doesn’t have enough budgets to offer the salary you had asked for.
And if you really want the job and have been looking forward to get this dream job then a bit of a compromise on your part is okay.
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