Common Interview Questions and Answers

Common Interview Questions and Answers

In brief: “During a job interview, the interviewer can ask many questions. Some of the common questions are the ‘Tell Us about Yourself’ interview questions. Your answers to these questions are crucial. Make sure that you are prepared for these types of interview questions.”

A job interview is one of the most important personal interactions that an individual conducts. It is therefore of utmost importance that a person is well prepared for every aspect of a job interview. In fact, most of the interview time schedule is spent on many aspects of the tough interview questions – “Tell Me about Yourself” and your interview answers.

Common “Tell Me about Yourself” interview questions and answers

1. A brief summary of your personal details: You have to give your name, where you are from and a brief review of your resume. You may also provide any other personal detail that you choose to provide.

2. Education: You should tell the interviewer about your educational qualifications and any relevant miscellaneous educational qualifications that you might have amassed.

3. Professional experience: Standard questions during a job interview are “tell me about your professional experience”. Depending on whether you are a novice or an experienced professional, you should share your previous job experiences. If you are a novice, then, you could tell anything that you think would be relevant for the job. You may provide a scope of your educational capabilities and strengths or any of your hobbies, etc.

4. What are Your weaknesses and strengths: One of the tricky interview questions that you might be asked is “tell me about your weaknesses and/or strengths”. Therefore, you should prepare for such questions. A common mistake is to take strength and present it as a weakness. You should be honest. You may share one-two of your weaknesses and the way you have (successfully) corrected or handled these weaknesses. On the other hand, do not boast your strengths. Tell about some of your strengths as having a positive impact on your professional capabilities.

Try to be as clear, precise and frank as possible. When interviewing and answering “tell me about yourself” questions, you should avoid common mistakes and stick to the facts as follows:

1. Keep the information crisp and relevant: One of the first things to remember is to keep the information crisp and relevant. Try to speak in short sentences and moreover, try to give them as much information as possible in the least amount of time. Here is a brief idea of what you would be saying, refer to: How to Describe Yourself in an Interview.

2. Do not repeat information from the CV: You should ascertain that none of the information that you provide about yourself is repeated or duplicated from your curriculum vitae. Therefore, even your curriculum vitae should only contain the necessary and relevant information, while all other miscellaneous information should be disclosed during the ‘tell me about yourself’ answers.

3. Fabricated or false information: Another important thing that you should remember is that you should not give any fabricated or false information while answering the Tell Me about Yourself Interview question. Background checks today have become very important and strict. Companies are known to sack people even after years of working, simply on the basis of some false information provided to them during the initial interview.

4. Irrelevant and unnecessary information: It is very important that no irrelevant and unnecessary information is given out during the question. The question seems to be quite simple, but it is actually one of those make or break questions, from which an interviewee can never recover and hence loses the job opportunity.

5. Facts and figures: While telling about yourself, be prepared to be asked further questions about any facts and figures that you have provided. For example, if you have said that you have a Bachelor’s degree, make sure that you carry a copy of the same. Any information given without the relevant proof may be deemed suspicious and ambiguous.

6. Do Not Tell them about: You should not disclose too much information . You might tell the interviewer that your hobby is fishing, but telling about your last fishing trip in which you missed a big fish would be too much information, unless the interviewer is a big fishing fan and actually goads you into telling the details. Also, you should not give them too much information about your family members. Of course, you would have to inform them about the number of family members that you have, and whether they work or not, and if yes, where, those kinds of details, but telling them anything apart from that is not suggested.