5 Common Interview Questions and How to Answer
Posted on 06 Jul, 2018
However you feel about job interviews, certain questions are sure to crop up. To give you the best chance of success, here are some of the most common, and some tips on how to answer them.
What motivates you?
Keep answers concise and relevant to the job. Good answers include deadlines and targets, as they give you something specific to aim for, and a sense of achievement when you exceed them. For design jobs, a good motivation is using your creativity to solve problems put before you.
Why should we hire you?
This is your closing sales pitch, regardless of where it appears in the interview, and an opportunity to hit the interviewer with your main selling points. Concentrate on specific and verifiable skills, and your aptitude for the job, while avoiding cliché examples such as being a hard worker and team player.
What is your greatest weakness?
It’s important to be mindful of your shortcomings, but also that you take something positive from them. The best answers tend to mention weaknesses that don’t impact the job in question, or ones that you have taken steps to improve upon.
What are your achievements?
It is important that you link your achievements to the job at hand, and that you remember the STAR method:
Situation: present a recent situation that proved challenging.
Task: Explain what you hoped to achieve.
Action: What did you actually do, and what were the alternatives?
Results: Did the final outcome meet or exceed expectations? What did you learn from the experience?
Tell me about a time when...
These are often negative (“tell me about a time when you missed a deadline”, for instance) and the purpose is twofold. They want you to acknowledge that these things happen to everybody, and that you are not an exception. However, they also want to see how you dealt with the example, and how you answer the question. The key is to be honest and forthright.
Of course, having the answers to these questions only helps if you make the interview stage. Careers in Design are specialists at recruiting for the design industry. Register with us today or contact us for our latest vacancies.
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