Practice makes perfect so this section will help you prepare by testing your skills against standard and sector specific interview questions.
Below lie some of the main interview questions that you may be asked at an interview. We have divided these into standard questions and tough teasers with advice on how to answer. These interview questions relate to almost any type of job.
Please note that an interviewer may also ask questions that relate to the specific position that you are applying for, so we have highlighted some more industry specific questions after the standard ones.
Lastly it is vital to prepare your own questions for the interviewer to show that you are really enthusiastic about the role and have a keen interest in working for that company. It can be hard to know where to start with questions so we list a set of strong candidate questions to get those juices flowing.
Sailing through standard questions
(click on each question for advice on answering)
- What attracted you to apply for this particular job?
A basic but important question. Employers are looking for evidence that the candidate has really thought about the job, the company, and the brand. Put your role research and knowledge of the tasks that will be involved into practice by mentioning three key aspects and tasks of the role and company that are attractive to you, and why your skills and experiences link well to these.
- What can you add to the team? Why should we hire you?
Blow your own trumpet here! This is your chance to prove what you can and have done successfully and why you as a person are right for the job. Bring up 3-4 key achievements in your current position as evidence of each positive statement you make. Elements such as drive, teamwork, delivery of targets etc are all good – the trick is picking the characteristics which will be useful in this particular role.
- Why do you want to work for this company?
Time to use all that company research and put it to good use. Use the facts you have gleaned from the website, press etc to show why you admire the company and its culture and style. Avoid financial aspects such as a pay rise and concentrate on elements such as strong teams, the great role offered with more responsibility, their good reputation, their growth in recent years.
- Do you prefer to work in a small, medium or large company?
This can actually be quite tricky to answer, especially if the majority of your experience is in only one type of company. Focus on the positives of working in the type of organisation that you are applying for, and commonly known drawbacks of other types. Link working in their type of organisation to your skills – e,g small firm = good as you are used to working in autonomy and forming close working relationships, large firm - good at networking in large teams, appreciate the support from management etc.
- What do you like and dislike about this role?
Likes: stress key tasks where you can demonstrate you have skills in already. Mention new challenges, working in a close knit team or the variety of the role keeping you excited and busy. Imply there is nothing to dislike about the job, you are looking forward to all elements you know about.
- What are you looking for in a new job?
Task wise mention things which are relevant to that role, e.g. as a team leader the chance to develop more people management skills, as a sales person the chance to develop strong business relationships and the buzz of smashing sales targets. Progression and personal development are always positive ones to mention (though not promotion yet – you are not in the company yet).
- Where do you see yourself in 3/5 years?
Honestly explain your ambitions and career hopes. You should always really think about this in advance when preparing, and especially how to link this role into these – to show you have a clear career plan and logical thinking. Keep it to the professional side unless asked for personal goals, or link personal goals such as buying your first home to work successes.
- How would you describe yourself? / How would others describe you?
- What have your achievements been to date?
Start with those already on your CV, relevant to the role, and recent, run through key milestones and achievements, with 2-3 sentences on each. And importantly what challenges you faces and why this achievement meant a lot of effort/expertise on your part.
- How did you achieve them?
- Tell me about a time when you led a team to success
- Do you prefer to work alone or in a group? Why?
- Tell me about a time where you had to meet a pressing deadline. How did you cope?
- How do you handle stressful situations?
- Are you accepted into a team quickly? What is your role in a team?
- Give me an example of when you acted on your own initiative?
Pick one of the best examples from your CV where you led a project and took proactive steps to solve a problem where you were not asked to. Show how you identified there was a problem, persuaded others to take action, volunteered to take on extra work, organised what needed to change/be done and the successful outcome.
- How do you run a meeting?
Employers are looking for your capacity to organise and lead in a meeting, encouraging viewpoints from all interested parties, managing the agenda, informing all of the key points and keeping to them. Give an example of a successful meeting that you have organised or led.
- What motivates you?
Not advisable to mention cash here. Instead pick something which will come up in your role – for example achieving targets, delivering a complex project on time, encouraging others to succeed and developing people, or learning and developing your skills. You can also mention variety and challenges in your role, chances to learn new skills and work with new teams and people. It may be advisable to give examples of how these things have been enjoyable in the past referring to key achievements on your CV.
- What management style gets the best results out of you?
Avoid an extreme answer, e.g. being left completely on own to work/ having daily checks and support from a manager. You don’t want to look too dependent or self-focused. Think about the type of role and team you are going to be working in and base your answer on that. A safe answer is that you enjoy support from a manager in personal development and setting large challenges but are capable of working well on your own on the details of how to achieve these.
- How does your job fit in to your department and company?
Tackling Tough Teasers
- You may be over qualified for this position?
Tell them that you feel that your extra experience would enable you to make a bigger contribution with less supervision and company resources needed than someone with less experience. You are looking to, and able to, add value to them quickly.
- Tell me about a time where you didn’t succeed. How did you react?
Try to pick a failure which you were later able to correct, and focus on the effort and positive way in which you corrected or made up for the problem. Otherwise pick something that is not really important or you were able to take steps to make up for after the event or get right second time. It isn’t a crime to fail, its learning from the experience that counts.
- You have not done this sort of job before. How will you cope/succeed?
- What level of salary are you looking for now?
A tricky question. The secret is to do your research beforehand, both in terms of the industry average for that role (your recruitment consultant can advise) and what salary banding the company is offering. Don’t undersell yourself though. Giving a reasonable range may be advisable. There is nothing wrong with asking them what the salary range is so you position yourself within it or saying you would like to know more about the role before coming to a detailed idea of your expected salary.
- What would you like to avoid in your next job?
- How ambitious/competitive are you?
- What is your greatest weakness?
- Tell me about a challenging work situation you have been faced with. How did you handle it?
This question is designed to find out whether you can keep calm and solve problems rationally. Try to avoid mentioning a situation which was caused by your actions, instead select one which was thrust upon you or your team. Explain briefly how you looked at the options for solving the problem, why you selected the one you did and what the outcome was. Always end on a positive note. Employers look at how quickly you reacted, whether you took risks and whether you are able to think out of the box
- Why do you want to leave your current job?
Be careful not to complain. It is better to state that you have outgrown the role, or are looking for a new industry challenge/ to manage a team than to negatively portray the organisation, or team which you previously chose to work in. State that you are seeking a new challenge, increased scope and autonomy. DO NOT mention salary or benefits as a primary factor.
- How do you take criticism?
You are not a saint and no one likes criticism. Try not to bat this off with a generic I appreciate all feedback, which can come across as a learned answer. The best answer here is to say you take it seriously, and try to change based on feedback if it is valid.
- What can we offer that your previous employer couldn’t?
Remember be positive. Express that this is an opportunity for you to move your career forward with increased responsibility, new tasks and that you admire the company’s brand. Don’t criticise your former employer, position them as good but this company is better.
Some Sector Specific Questions
- Retail and Hospitality Management
- How do you motivate people?
- How would you build a team?
- How do you train employees?
- What types of things frustrate you?
- What skills would you like to acquire to make you a more effective supervisor? Leader? Mentor? Coach? Manager?
- Tell me about difficult guest/customer problems you have dealt with?
- Describe what you do when a customer is dissatisfied?
- If hired, how long do you plan on working here?
- What is most important - a good product or friendly, fast service?
- Why should customers shop at our stores?
- What experience have you had cross-training employees?
- Are you a better manager or leader?
- Do you have excellent people skills?
- How would you go about negotiating with suppliers?
- What experience have you had in retail that qualifies you for this position?
- What could we do to improve our stores?
- Sales and Marketing
- Give me an example of when you have communicated complex information effectively. What was the situation, what tack did you take and what was the outcome?
- Are you meeting your budget and/or projections? If not why and what are you doing to get back on track?
- Tell me about your most successful campaign?
- Describe your sales technique and tell me why this is successful
- Which of our products/services most appeals to you and why?
- What do you realistically believe to be your earning potential?
- Would you describe yourself as competitive?
- Describe a time when you used your skills to persuade someone to accept your recommendations
- How do you go about setting your objectives?
- How would you react if you failed to meet your targets?
- How do you feel about travelling a lot at work?
- How would you persuade a customer that our product was better than any other
- What is the worst objection that you’ve ever had to handle? How did you overcome it?
- What is the largest account that you have ever won and how?
- What personal qualities should a Marketing/Sales Manager possess?
- What techniques do you employ to handle difficult clients/people within your organisation?
- How do you prioritise your workload when managing multiple projects?
- Contact Centre questions
- Can you give an example of a time when you experienced good customer service.
- Tell me about a time when you gave effective customer service.
- Imagine that a customer calls to complain about being charged for something incorrectly. How would you respond to this customer and what would you do to resolve the situation
- How would you demonstrate that you are listening to a customer
- How do you handle rejection and difficult manners on the telephone?
- Describe a situation where you had to handle a difficult customer, how did you resolve their issues effectively?
- Do you enjoy working to strict deadlines and targets?
- How do you work effectively within a team?
- Building Services Questions
- What is your approach to overseeing the work of different subcontractors
- Describe a technical project that you found challenging or rewarding
- Where were your early successes in your engineering work — planning, design, construction, operations?
- Talk me through a decision you have made which has affected the budget of a project and the profitability of your employer
- How do you go about handling operational problems which arise at short notice.
- Tell me about how you organise and schedule your work
- How do you cope with delays and unexpected changes to schedule
- How familiar are you with XX software or YY product (usually one the company uses)
- Here is an object (e.g. a small box with a few small mechanical parts (some broken) please tell me everything you can about it
- IT questions
- Would you class yourself as methodical or hard working?
- Describe a time when you used your skills to persuade a co-worker to accept your recommendations
- What role do you think computer support analysts should play in the company?
- Describe your experience in liaising directly with clients to understand their technical issues
- Tell me about a time where you have worked on new modules and system enhancements
- Have you experience of instigating and gaining support for a new technical project
- How do you go about resolving functional and performance issues in products?
- What operating system do you prefer and why?
- 'Explain to us what local area networks and wide area networks are, and how, if at all, they are related
- You are 3 months into a 6 month project and it is about to overrun on cost. How would you deal with this most effectively
Candidate Interview Question Bank
Questions you might like to ask to prove your interest in the company and role, and decide whether this job is for you.
You Might Like to Ask
- How has the position become available?
- What would my typical day involve?
- What training and career development opportunities are available?
- How would the interviewers describe the culture of the organization?
- What do they enjoy about working for this organization?
- How do they expect the organisation to change and grow in the next 6 months/year?
- How is performance assessed?
- What would your key challenges in the first 3 months be?
- What are the key challenges/trends that the organisation is facing?