Below are five job interview questions that are highly likely to come up in your next job interview. This week, I’ve interviewed, or been in eighteen interviews. In all those interviews, one or more of these questions came up.
If you’re going to do some job interview preparation, I would suggest that you at the very least prepare answers to these job interview questions.
Best and Worst Manager?
Watch out for any question that asks for your best or worst boss/manager/company. These are all trick questions where they are trying to work out your personality. A candidate that answers this question by explaining how bad their previous manager was will be likely to continue to moan with any manager that they work with and either cause problems or not fit into the team.
My Advice – The advice here is to remain neutral about each and every manager or company you have worked with. You need to answer this question with something like “I learnt a great deal with each manager I have worked for”. You can go one step further also to mention how you’re still in touch with a previous manager who you consider to be a role model given the action they too while during your working environment together.
Have You Ever Argued with Your Manager?
This question is really aimed towards your “personal development” and whether you can take criticism or advice. Often candidates will have had an argument with their manager based upon something they do not agree with and what is important is how you dealt with this to ensure that you can carry on working together.
My Advice – Your answer must not be “no”. We have all had some form of argument with our manager, and if a candidate that I was interviewing said no to this question, I would spend a lot more time having a dig around the subject to see what I could find out. The best answer here is to be direct, swift and honest. “Yes we have had arguments, never major, we are both adults, and therefore we can talk about it, understand each other point of view and then between us, work out a solution”.
If You Knew Your Manager Was 100% Wrong, How Would You Handle This? What Would You Do?
This is a complicated question to answer, and for this reason, interviewers will often ask the question. The honest answer depends on the relationship that you have with your manager and how easily they are to speak to. A manager that does not like it when their authority is questioned would be handled very differently to a manager that is easy to talk.
My Advice – Use the word “new” to your advantage and mention that you would not question a senior manager on a new job given that each company has a different way of achieving the same object and rather than trying to install your way of thinking in a new job, it would be better to listen, understand how business takes place and either adapt you way of thinking to achieve the set goal or try to change the process later in your working career when you’re more settled into a company.
What Working Environments Do You Enjoy Working In The Most?
When an interviewer talks to you about anything involving what you like or don’t like, what they’re really making sure is that you’re going to fit into their working environment. In all these situations, it’s essential to remain neutral and emphasise flexibility and adaptability. An example, “I work best in my private office”. If your new company is not going to give you a private office and you have mentioned that you need one to work at your best, then the company knows that they will never get the best out of you and therefore you’re not right for them.
My Advice – Emphasise your flexibility and adaptability by telling the interviewer that you can work at your best with set goals to achieve.
Do You Consider Yourself a Risk-Taker?
This is another question where you need to think about the job that you’re interviewing for. There is no point telling the interviewer that you love taking risk’s when you’re interviewing to be a doctor.
My Advice – Companies also don’t generally like risk-takers as this could show that a candidate for disregard corporate policy. It’s a good idea to mention that whilst you’re happy to take some risk during your working career, you need to make sure that you have focused on mitigating as many of these risk’s as possible before starting.