Sample Interview Questions

 021 Sample Interview Questions

http://careercenter.waldenu.edu/873.htm

Sample Interview Questions

It is beneficial to give advance thought to potential answers to possible interview questions.  There are two types of interview questions: traditional and behavioral.  Traditional interview questions are straightforward inquiries such as "Tell me about yourself."  "Tell me your greatest strength and weakness."  "What are your long term goals?"

Behavioral interview questions are often more challenging.  Employers assume that past behavior is the best predictor of future behavior so they are evaluating how you handled tough situations in the past to predict how you would do so in the future.  "Give me an example of a time you had to handle a really tough problem.  How did you deal with the problem and what were the results?  What would you do if your supervisor asked you to do something you believed to be wrong?"

Below are some general traditional and behavioral questions with suggested approaches.  Memorizing answers is not recommended, as your responses may sound canned.  In addition to these questions, sit down with the job posting/description and brainstorm about possible questions specific to your career field.  For example, if you are in education, you may be asked about your teaching style and experience in curriculum development.  If you get a question that takes you by surprise, it is acceptable to briefly pause during an interview before giving your answer.

TRADITIONAL QUESTIONS

Describe your educational background.

Highlight the parts of your education most relevant to this job opportunity.

Why did you choose Walden University?

Do your homework - for example, its social change mission, its emphasis on scholarly research and practical application, its peer reviewed journal, etc.

What were your major achievements in each of your past jobs?

Choose achievements that are most closely related to the challenges of the job you’re seeking.  Describe your achievements in terms of a challenge you addressed, your action, and the results - be specific.

Why are you changing careers/jobs?

Include in your answer how you can apply your skills and background to add value to their organization.  Employers would like to know how you can help them succeed.

Which job did you enjoy most/least and why?

Keep your answers positive.  Turn lemons into lemonade by emphasizing what you learned from the job you enjoyed least.

Have you ever been fired?  Why?

If you have been fired, avoid the temptation to criticize your former employer.  Stay objective and positive.  If it wasn't the right fit, state what you learned from the experience.  Be sure to provide positive references who can speak to your abilities and accomplishments in other positions.

Why are you interested in this position?

Do substantial research so that you can make a convincing case for your interest in this particular employer and this specific position.

What is your ideal job?

While we all might enjoy being a box office star or a cruise director, your interviewers are interested in whether your ideal job shares common ground with their position so somehow tie your ideal job back to their opportunity.

What are your short/long term career goals?

Be prepared for this question as it's a common one.  The employer is wondering if your long term goals fit with their organization.  It's acceptable to have a general long term goal, i.e., "to master this position, to build a stronger professional network in my field, and to get an article published."

Why should I hire you over other candidates?

Come up with your top three relevant qualifications that make you stand out from the crowd.

Tell me about yourself.

There are two ways to answer this question.  It’s acceptable to ask the employer whether they are interested in hearing more about you personally or professionally.  If they are asking about you professionally, state how you meet the top three qualifications for the job, using accomplishments to illustrate each one.

What is your major strength/weakness?

Typically, a desirable job is one that plays to your major strength and doesn’t often test your major weakness.  If your weakness might be somewhat challenged, state how you've improved in that area, e.g., through taking courses or joining Toastmasters.  If your major weakness will be tested quite often in this job, you may want to consider whether it's the right opportunity.

What causes you to lose your temper?

Leading negative questions like this one are challenging.  One strategy is to give an example of an aggravating situation and how you dealt with it in a calm, constructive manner.  Another strategy is to state how you handled a situation, what you learned, and how you would handle it differently next time.  In other words, always pull something positive - either how you acted or what you learned - out of a negative.

How do you cope with working under pressure and meeting tight deadlines?

State the best way you diffuse stress and manage your time.

Tell me about your current boss.  What was the strongest compliment you've received from him/her?  What was the strongest criticism?

Make your description of your boss positive.  While it may be easy to think of a compliment, be sure to include criticism and how you used it to improve your performance.  If you don't include criticism, the employer will wonder if you're a coachable employee open to feedback from others.

What is your minimum salary?

It is best to delay discussion of salary and benefits until you have an actual job offer because that is when you'll be the desired candidate and have the greatest amount of bargaining power.  However, be prepared for this question.  If the salary was not stated when the job was advertised, research salary information before your interview.  Try to obtain the company’s pay scale, the fair market value for the position, the industry average and your region.

If the employer asks you for your required salary, keep in mind that naming a figure early in the process will make it difficult to renegotiate the figure later. There are several ways you can answer this question.  You can state the salary is negotiable and you would like to consider the salary in the context of the job's entire benefits package and its promotion potential.  You can then ask for the salary range for someone with your qualifications.  If you are pressed for a figure, it is best to state that you have researched the fair market value for the position, and give a salary range.  See Salary Negotiation for more information.

BEHAVIORAL QUESTIONS

Behavioral questions typically start with, "Give me an example of a time when...," "Tell me about how you..." In answering these questions, describe specific situations you handled.  The best way to answer these questions is through using "CAR statements" which stands for Challenge, Action, Results.  For example, a possible answer to a question on one’s training skills might be:

"I developed a consulting practice focused on diversity training and cultural awareness.  My clients included several Fortune 500 companies.  I did detailed needs assessments that included interviews with staff at managerial and frontline levels.  The training was highly participative and interactive and included a peer mentoring component to foster strong working relationships among participants after the training was over.  Six months after the training, a follow-up assessment indicated staff morale was up and productivity had improved by 10%."   Focus on what was improved or resolved through your actions.  Be as specific as possible with your results.

Possible behavioral questions include, "Tell us about a situation when you.."

Demonstrated leadership

Solved a problem

Made a good/poor decision

Handled change in your organization

Handled criticism

Worked as part of a team

Met/missed a deadline

Disagreed with a decision made by your supervisor or upper management

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Tough Questions

 Tough Questions

Involvement

You may get an additional opportunity to emphasize your involvement and go-getter attitude if an employer asks,

"What types of activities were you involved with in school."

This can get awkward if your answer is nothing, which begs the point you should get involved in experiential learning. Your answer should showcase that you recognize the value of hands-on training, relationship-building, leadership and other skills valued by the employer. You might say,

 "I had a great opportunity at a small college to get very involved and meet lots of cool people. Being a student body officer and member of the thespian guild along with going on study trips and working in internships all helped me strengthen my communication skills and leadership abilities."

 This example works especially well if the job requires communication and leadership.

Tough Questions

Educational interview questions get tricky if you lack strong education or have education different from the job. A hiring officer may inquire, "I see your degree is in marketing, why are you looking for work in a science museum?" The best approach is to be honest but show how you are both qualified and passionate about the job. You might say, "Soon after I earned my degree I had a great experience in a marketing internship with a science center. While I enjoyed the job, I realized I had a strong passion for the museum culture and helping develop that particular type of organization. I want to help promote and share my enthusiasm and all the museum has to offer with others."

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educational background

 Basics

"Tell me about your educational experience."

is a basic interview request you might hear. The hiring manager uses this question to give you a chance to explain your perspective on your education as well as to connect your education to the job. Generally, an answer that shows a positive viewpoint on your educational experience and a connection on your degree to the job you want works best. For instance,

"My college experience was great in terms of both character development and learning about the various aspects of business and finance. It really prepared me well for success in financial management."

Transition

"How has your college experience prepared you for a business career?"

 is a transition-based question noted by the website Quintessential Careers. With this question, the hiring manager is looking to see that you have goals and stick to them. Ideally, you can connect your college degree to the job. While the simple approach is to show how a degree in business leads to a job in business or a degree in culinary arts leads to a job as a restaurant chef, there is more you can do with this question. Show off your ambitious approach to learning, such as,

"Not only did I learn a lot in my business classes, but I also had a chance to study abroad in Europe and to practice leadership as our club president."

This shows an above and beyond attitude.

talking about yourself

so yeah ive been very busy recently and for that recent my blogs have beeb very sparse.  I thought in this post I would post the last assignment i had to hand in for my celta course. it is supposed to be my feeling about my strengths and weaknesses etc.  not only does it sort of some up the shitty work they make me do it does also give some sort of indication of the pressure i felt i have been under over the recent period.

Introduction

Throughout this course I have grown in many ways.  This said there are still several things I need to work on.  Two areas in which I think I have grown stronger are lesson planning and language in context. However I am still weak at my classroom management and keeping to the receptive skills blueprints.

Strength One

 In my first lessons my lesson plans were not very detailed.  I had too many aims and not enough information in my Language Analysis sheet.  This was evident in TP2 in which I think my lesson would have really benefited if I had predicted difficult vocabulary and put it into my lesson plan. TP3 was not much better. TP3 was also unsuccessful and I think that one reason for this was due to the fact that I had not included actual timelines, rules and meaning check questions in my Language Analysis sheet.  

Strength two

 Language in context was a really big problem for me at the start of the course.  I was completely unfamiliar with grammar let alone teaching it and I thought I would never get my head around it.  This became poignant in TP3 where I really let myself down.  As addressed earlier it was unsuccessful.  I believe that it was unsuccessful not merely because my lesson planning was poor but also because I did not teach the language in context.  I did not properly show the students the target language ‘in action’ and this meant that I failed to create the necessary grounds to clarify the meaning of the grammar item.

 I finally got to grips with language in context in TP7, where I braved grammar for a second time.  Although it was not a flawless lesson, I was able to use the target context as a means to help the students tackle the grammar item.  This was a real break through for me.   I had managed to prove to myself that, even though I had not had the same experience as some of the other teacher trainers on the course, I was able to contextualise the grammar I wanted to teach. 

 I think that observing the language in context in both the live teaching and the video recordings helped me to come to grips with this style of teaching.  The first observation class I watched particular impressed me.  The teacher used a story about himself to springboard the lesson into a grammar lesson. He seemed to make the transition so swift that it did not affect the mood of the class, by which I mean, he avoided the fear factor that can be associated with the learning of grammar items. 

 Weakness one

 There are definitely areas that I feel I am still weak at.  My transition from the upper intermediate to the pre intermediate was not very smooth.  I let myself slip and I was extremely demotivated by this.  I felt as if I was taking one step forward to take ten steps back and this was a real struggle for me to get passed.  In particular my class room management dropped.  Whilst in the upper intermediate class I felt my classroom presence was strong, in the pre intermediate class my feelings changed.  This was obvious in TP7.  Planning wise the lesson could have been a great lesson, but I let my nerves get the better of me due to my blow in confidence.  This meant that where I needed to be strong and affirmative in my instructions I was not. Evidence of this could be seen when I was carrying out instructions for the classroom game.  Due to poor classroom management I completely failed to create the snappy fun game that I wished to, instead the activity was lifeless and slightly boring with students becoming disinterested.  I think there are many ways in which I can try and improve my classroom management and I hope by my last lesson to have really improved on it.  In hindsight I would have set teams up so that the students could scaffold each other.  I would have also used my script from my lesson plan more advantageously to make sure that my instructions were clear and to the point. 

I have seen evidence of good classroom practice in my observations and this should help me to pursue my aim to get better at it.  In one of the classes we watched, the teacher presented herself as a true mentor to the students, she was firm fair and consistent. I think because of this she earned the trust of the students, which is exactly what I aim to do in the future.  I have also found a site online which I think will help me in the future 

writing samples

If i was to be given the opportunity of traveling back in time, I would certainly stop in Britain in the time of the reign of the first female English queen - Elizabeth I. I have always been fascinated by this extraordinary Historical figure who had such significant influence on this country and the history.

This decision of my past time destination occurs to me quite naturally for history is one of my life-long interests, especially the period around 15th and 16th century. Although I am aware that living in those times was not as comfortable as it is nowadays, thanks to all the inventions of the modern life, i would love to explore the spirit of the life centuries ago.

Living in England in the 16th century might take me to London, where Shakespeare just opened his Globe. Watching one of his famous plays I could catch a glimpse of the queen, dressed in clothes of an ordinary woman, surrounded by her servants. She was said to attend the theatre in disguise in order to amuse herself and scape from the formality of her royal court.

My next destination could be a lively market, where i would watch the hussle of the everyday life of ordinary people comming there to sell handmade potery and fabrics or buy some fresh eggs and bread.

My main interest would be the queen, as I mentioned before. Having seen a great documentary based on her life recently I can't help wondering how this subtle woman managed to rule her country succesfully for so many years. She must have been a person of a magnificent character and skills if she was to lead the country in those unsettled times of continuous wars against Spain and France. She defeated rebelion initiated by her cousin Mary and by many others, who didn't like to see her on the throne. Surprisingly, she had never got married. It might have been a part of her strategy how to keep the fragile peace. But it would be her devotion for the nation and her people's wellfare as she once proclaimed.

That is why I want to travel to the Elizabeth times and meet this fantastic person whose strength and personal experience could teach me a lot and whom cannot help to admire.

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THE TEXT IN CONTEXT ESSAY

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