by Julie Marseu, B.Sc.

You've just received a phone call asking you to come in for an interview. What then? Do you just walk into the interview and wing it, hoping for the best? Many people do. As a former recruiter who has interviewed approximately 10,000 people in the last 18 years, I wouldn't recommend it. Not unless you get offered a job every time you go for an interview. For everyone else, a little practice might be in order.

In my experience, most human resources professionals will generally use a combination of six lines of questioning: Traditional, Situational, Behavior Description, Achievement, Abstract and Confrontational.

Traditional Interview Questions

These are still the most commonly used types of questions. Some examples of traditional interview questions include:

• Why do you want this job?
• Why should we hire you?
• What makes you think you can succeed in this job?
• What are your strengths?
• What are your weaknesses?
• What would you bring to our company?
• What are your goals?
• Where do you see yourself in 5 years?
• What do you value most in a job?

Situational Questions

Typically, situational questions ask how you would handle a theoretical situation. Examples of situational questions might be:

• Your division hasn’t achieved budget in the last 3 quarters. Your immediate manager tells you to get your act together or your job is on the line. Describe the steps you'd take in this situation, and why.
• On a routine sales call to an existing client (in your new territory), you discover that the client refuses to deal with you because he is so unhappy with the company’s past service. How would you handle the situation?
• Let’s say you have a misunderstanding with a co-worker that results in her making a disparaging remark under her breath and walking away. How would you handle the situation?
• You encounter a technical problem with _______________(fill in the blank to make it relevant to you). How would you handle this type of a situation?

Behavior Description Questions

This style of questioning was developed when people began to notice that situational questions don't always predict how someone would behave in a real-life situation, where there might be personality conflicts, deadlines, pressure, stress, etc. Behavior description questions ask you to describe your behavior in actual, real-life situations that you encountered in your work or personal life. Each question generally has 4 parts: a question about a real situation that you encountered, a question asking you to describe your behavior in that situation, a question about the outcome, and a question on your learning. Two examples of behavior description questions might be:

• Can you tell me about the last time that you had a conflict with a co-worker?
• How did you handle the situation?
• What was the outcome?
• In hindsight, what would you have done differently, if anything?

• Describe the last time you had to make a tough decision. What was the situation?
• How did you handle it?
• How did things turn out?
• What did you learn from that situation, if anything?

Achievement Questions

When I first began working as a manager, I noticed something I considered to be very peculiar at the time. If I gave two of my staff members the exact same task, they often produced very different results. Some people gave up as soon as they encountered their first obstacle. Others managed to get everything done that was asked of them, and no more. And then there were the superstars…the ones who used their brains and talents to figure out new ways to get things done…who managed to introduce new initiatives to increase sales revenues, or profits, or efficiency, or customer satisfaction, even if it meant taking risks and working longer hours.

Achievement questions are designed to discover which category you fit into. They are based almost entirely on facts, and often have a numerical component to show how well you performed in any given position. Of course, most experienced recruiters will confirm your achievements with past or current employers during a reference-checking process, so you’ll want to be honest without underselling yourself.

Examples of achievement questions include:

• Describe the situation you walked into when you started your current position. What were some of the challenges you faced? How did you handle these challenges?
• What steps did you take to improve the situation?
• How have your actions impacted your organization?
• Have you taken any steps to increase sales revenues? What was the result?
• Have you expanded your product or service offering in any way?
• Have you led any restructuring initiatives? What was the result?
• Have you upgraded any systems or infrastructure?
• How else have you improved efficiency or productivity?
• What have you done to improve customer satisfaction? What was the result?

Abstract Questions

Personally, I’ve never been a fan of this line of questioning, but it has its uses. The rationale behind this line of questioning is to learn how you think, how quickly you can respond to unexpected questions/situations, how creative you are, how well you think in the abstract, how you perceive yourself and others, etc.

Some examples of abstract questions include:

• If you were a bird, what kind of a bird would you be? Why is that?
• If you were a tree, what kind of a tree would you be? Why is that?

There are many more variations, but you get the picture…

Confrontational Questions

Some employers want to see how you would react under pressure or adverse conditions. If the target position involves dealing with irate people, sensitive situations, multiple deadlines or other types of stresses, the interviewer might adopt a confrontational approach to test your reactions. The secret is to remember that they are probably using this same approach with every applicant, and that the interviewer's tone has very little to do with you and your competence. So don’t take anything personally. Stay calm, no matter what! Examples of confrontational questions might be:

• Your company’s share price is 20% below what it was 2 years ago. Why is that?
• Why haven’t you been able to reverse that abysmal trend?
• Aren’t you embarrassed at your results?

A Word of Advice

Obviously, the questions listed above are only a few of the thousands of questions that might be asked. More than anything else, they are designed to inspire you to think a certain way. Use them as a guide to brainstorm other questions that might be relevant to your field, to the target position and to the prospective employer. Then formulate your answers to show the interviewer you have the right combination of experience, skills, qualifications and attitudes to succeed in the target position. Make sure to practice your answers out loud with someone else posing as a recruiter. This will dramatically improve the smoothness of your answers in a real interview. Remember to keep your answers honest. Most experienced recruiters have excellent intuition when they are given a dishonest or grossly exaggerated answer.

I hope you find the above information helpful. I wish you success in your job search, and invite you to touch base with me to share any success stories. It always warms my heart to hear them!

During her career as a recruiter, employment agency manager and resume writer, Julie Marseu has interviewed over 10,000 people, placed hundreds of new employees and written over 6,000 resumes. Currently, Julie is a resume writer and a job interview coach with High Impact Resumes Ltd.

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