Common Interview Questions

    Here are some of the difficult questions that have been accumulated by experience. This article not only discusses what these questions are and how to answer them, but also provides information about why these questions are asked.

    There are some questions that tend to pop up during almost every job interview. The bad news is that these questions are difficult to answer since there is no standard way of answering and every interviewer expects an answer in his own style. The good news is that because these questions are so common, you can prepare for them well in advance and give a perfect answer without breaking a sweat.

    1. Tell me something about yourself?
Sometimes the most general question can be the hardest. How do you sum up your entire life story in just a couple of minutes?
Depending on the years of experience that you have, you need to have a short statement prepared in your mind.

For Freshers:
If you are a fresher, you need to should consider talking about your achievements at school / college and professional courses undertaken. As a fresher you could talk about various college assignments and how you executed them and your role in those assignments or projects.

For people with experience:
When you have experience, the situation becomes a little more tricky. Employers here are not interested in your achievements at school or college. There will be more interested in projects/assignments at work and your execution style with previous company.

Always have this prepared and make sure that it does not sound rehearsed. Limit this to work related items unless instructed otherwise.

Reason why this question is asked?
Employers want a quick introduction from which they tend to understand what is it that you have to offer to the organization. A lot of them judge your communication skills through this question.

2. Why do you wish to leave your current job?
This is the most difficult question that you will have to answer.
Did you resign? Get laid off? Get fired? Storm out of the office in a huff, never to return? Chances are, you'll have to explain it in an interview.

The most important point to remember when answering this question: STAY POSITIVE.

The biggest sign of a troublemaker is when someone trashes his or her former boss or company during an interview. It doesn't matter if your boss was a jerk or if you hated your coworkers -- an interview is not the place to vent past frustrations.

Rather, the best way to answer this question is to stay positive and talk about your desire for growth opportunities. This will paint you as a proactive employee who enjoys responsibility and challenges.

IF YOU WERE FIRED: Be honest, but quick about explaining it. Don't get into the political details; rather, explain what you learned from the experience and how it makes you an even stronger employee today. It's not a good idea to lie about your termination. When the interviewer calls your references, he or she will most likely find out you were fired anyway. So be honest, and explain what you learned.

IF YOU WERE LAID OFF: This is not nearly as taboo as it was even five years ago, so don't apologize or act defeated. If a company goes bankrupt or had massive layoffs, simply explain, "Because of the economy, the company decided to eliminate six departments, including mine."

IF YOU QUIT: Again, be honest and stay positive. State that the work being offered wasn't challenging enough, that you are seeking higher levels of responsibility or simply that you are ready to make the next step on your career ladder -- and that the job for which you are interviewing is the ideal next step.

The secret is to stay positive and discuss your desire for growth. Hiring managers love applicants who actively seek responsibility.

Reason why this question is asked?
This question is asked to understand your behavioral attitude towards your professional life. Interviewers tend to gauge to know a lot about you through this question. They test and judge your honesty with this question.

3. What are your career goals 3 - 5 years from now?
Again this is the question that gets on people's nerves if they are really not sure of what they want to do. This is what the interviewer wants to understand. Many people just mention a designation?that's not enough. In the software industry it's easy to say that you want to become a team or tech lead if you are being interviewed for a software engineer or a senior software engineer, but the designation rarely helps. What the employer is looking at from this question is the kind of roles and responsibility that you would want to handle.

Answer to this question explains how dedicated you are to climb up the ladder. Just faking a designation or mentioning something is not enough, look at the next question, this could catch you unawares if you are faking.

A proper answer to this question is with you. I would recommend that you plan your career and know what you want, and be convinced about it. Have your own goals and desires, never fall in the trap of following the goals of other people.

Reason why this question is asked?
It's to understand how serious you are with your career and how much of planning is involved from your side to climb up. Employers like people who have a forward thinking and would like to accept challenges along their path towards growth.

4. How do you plan to achieve those goals?
This is usually a follow up question to the question mentioned above. Most of the people get stumped here. If you have prepared yourself for the question mentioned above, without really thinking about your career plan then this question would set you on fire.

If you don't have an answer, be honest. But no matter what, don't fake. Don't underestimate the person interviewing you to not understand that you are faking. To avoid this situation, I would recommend that you start planning your career today and prepare yourself for this and the above mentioned question.

No matter what, always explain your plan in as much detailed as possible, but don't be tempted to stretch it too far. I would put the time limit to 2 - 3 minutes, but in this time be as detailed as possible and talk about important milestones that you will have to achieve to finally achieve your career goals within 3 - 5 years.

Reason why this question is asked?
This is to understand what you are planning to do to achieve your goals and the level of your determination. This question also helps to understand how motivated and committed you are towards a career growth.

5. What is your biggest weakness?
This question is the most popular with interviewers not because they want to torture you, but because they are interested in hearing how you tackle challenges.

The most important thing to do after you name your weakness, you MUST discuss what you have done or are doing to overcome it.

Pick a weakness that is real but understandable or relatively harmless. Whatever weakness you pick be sure it is work related and that you present the strategies for how you overcame it.

Here are a few examples:

"I used to have a tendency to procrastinate. So now I am always sure to set a strict schedule for all of my projects well in advance and I set personal deadlines. This organization has really helped."

"Once in a while, I focus too much on the details of a project. So now, when I'm working on a project, I always make sure at the end of the day to sit back and take a few minutes to think about the general scope of my work. It forces me to keep priorities straight and helps me keep the right mindset."

"I used to have some problems with organization. So now I carry a schedule book around throughout the day and I also use this Palm Pilot to keep me on track. It's worked out great!"

You don't want to pick a weakness that will torpedo your chances -- even your weakness should speak strongly toward your skills. The examples above all address honest weaknesses; here are a few other "safe" weaknesses that are easy to discuss:

I tend to be a perfectionist.
I sometimes work too hard, leading to unnecessary stress.

Spend sometime with yourself to analyze yourself and your weakness.

Reason why this question is asked?
Everyone has a weakness. What is more important is whether you have realized your weakness and what you plan to do to overcome it.

6. Did you ever have an argument with your boss and how did you resolve it?
In any organization that you work, conflicts, issues and arguments are part of a working culture everywhere. That's how the world has developed. For every idea put forward people have conflicts and arguments to make it better. To lay things straight, if you never had an argument with your boss then there is something wrong either with the organization that you work in or with you. So be honest. Just don't go ahead criticizing your boss and tell how much you hate him or mention that he does not to accept change, etc, etc. Ultimately you will have a boss at your new company too, so answer this question carefully.

Everyone understand that people have arguments with their bosses, so make sure that you mention an example of an argument with your boss and how you resolved it. It could be about a new product, project or a method of execution. In every company it is assumed that people agree to disagree. This very notion causes people to come with the best product or service.

e.g "My boss wanted me to implement a web design which I considered flawed as many colors were used which would lead the visitor to lose his focus and increase the size of the page. Thought he did not agree with me initially till the time I sent him samples of other live websites which had the same issue and I asked his review about those websites. It rang a bell for him. Now we have a design that people love".

Answers to this question should come from your personal experience. Always remember to be honest and don't use an example that will reduce your chances of getting the job.

Reason why this question is asked?
This question is asked to understand your temperament and how you get your point across to your superiors, as its really difficult to convince the guy above you. If you showcase with an example of how you dealt with a situation like the example mentioned above, you increase the chances of marching ahead with the interview.

7. If I were to meet one of your school friend or teacher, what would the say about you? On the onset, you might consider this to be a stupid question. But think again. It's easy to brag about yourself when asked about the type of person you are, but when you start relating to your friend, you know how they think about you and it's difficult to think at the spur of the moment to come with an answer that could save you. People mostly speak the truth about themselves when surprised with this question. It's a psychological question waiting to stump you. Be prepared, but again, be honest.

Reason why this question is asked? This question helps the person to understand the real you. The person you are when you are by yourself, "alone".

8. What do you know about our organization?
My guru once told me the three secrets to win in life is (1. Do your homework well, 2. Do your homework well, 3. Do your homework well).

Yes, doing some background research will help you. Not only will you understand what you are getting into, but will also help you validate the information gathered when you meet the HR people and understand their perspective about the company. You could have many questions about the company and doubts after you have read about them. After all, its your career. Don't you think its necessary to read about the organization before your interview.

This reading helps you at the interview as well. Many interviewers tend to ask this question to gauge your interest level in the organization and how much public information you know about the company. This information could be about their branches, line of business, recent news or even publicized profit figures, etc.

A great source of organization information is their website. Spend some time there and make notes. If you have some questions about their operations or information mentioned on their website, reserve those for later when you feel that your interview is nearing an end.

Reason why this question is asked? Employers like people who take interest in their organization. Just put yourself in their shoes. Who would you hire, a person who has shown respect for the organization by reading about them or a person who just landed for an interview.

9. What has been your most challenging project/assignment/job?
If your job involves you to work on projects and assignments, then such questions are always asked.

Be careful to answer this question. It tells a lot about your experience. Mention in brief about the project, your role in the project, the team size, challenges faced and how you contributed towards helping the team resolve that challenge. The keyword here is challenge. A person matures throughout his life by meeting challenges and the interviewer would like to understand if you are capable to take on the challenges of the job he has to offer. Always be prepared for this question. Don't fumble on this while answering as your confidence shows how much you have learnt from the project.

Reason why this question is asked?
Is to understand how geared you are to take on new challenges. After all every employer would like to take on challenging assignments as every challenge means a couple of lakhs more in your employer's bank account. Therefore your prospective employer would like to see if you are geared up to take on newer challenges for you and your prospective employer to grow.

10. Do you have any questions for me?
Yes, you should. After all its your career. A wrong move could prove costly for you in the experience wasted or diverting you from your set career plan (If you haven't started planning your career yet, consider reading the Career Planning Guide).

While researching and interacting with your prospective employer, a lot of questions pop in your mind. Seeking answers to your questions is necessary and is in the best of your interest.

Some examples are:

1. What kind of career growth opportunities exist in your company?
2. How do you help your employees upgrade their knowledge to work more effectively?

If you are doing a part time course or you have to take care of someone at home or something where you could invest not more than X amount of time each day then be honest and discuss this during the interview. Some of the people that I have spoken to, disagree with this idea of being very honest. But what they don't understand is that if you don't discuss such issues then sooner or later they will start objecting you leaving early or at a fixed time. As competition increases a lot of employers demand a little extra work hours to be put in by everyone. So, being honest and discussing your situation is the best in such circumstances.

Reason why this question is asked?
There isn't any particular reason why this question is asked. But, some employers ask this question to make sure that before they make their choice in selecting you all your doubts and questions are addressed well so that it's a win-win situation for both you and the employer.

(Referred from: http://www.careercurry.com/article/common-tough-interview-questions)