1. "Tell me a little about yourself."
You should take this opportunity to show your communication skills by speaking clearly and concisely in an organized manner. Because there is no right or wrong answer for this question, it is important to appear friendly.
Short Answers
"I attended MIT where I majored in Electrical Engineering. My hobbies include basketball, reading novels, and hiking."
"I grew up in Korea and studied accounting. I worked at an accounting firm for two years and I enjoy bicycling and jogging."
"I’m an easy going person that works well with everyone. I enjoy being around different types of people and I like to always challenge myself to improve at everything I do."
"I’m a hard worker and I like to take on a variety of challenges. I like pets, and in my spare time, I like to relax and read the newspaper."
"I’ve always liked being balanced. When I work, I want to work hard. And outside of work, I like to engage in my personal activities such as golfing and fishing."
Long Answer
"I went to the University of Washington and majored in English Literature. I went to graduate school because I really enjoyed learning. Afterwards, I started my career at Boeing as a web content editor. I’ve been there for 3 years now. Although my emphasis is in writing, I like numbers. I think solving logic problems and riddles are quite fun. I also enjoy jogging, reading, and watching movies."
There is no right or wrong answer for this question. Most important thing you should remember is how you deliver the message. The example above shows a short answer telling a little bit about the person. The answer went from education to career, and then to personal interests all in a smooth flow.
2. "What are your strengths?"
This is a popular interview question. They want to know what you think of yourself. Although this is a general question, there is a wrong and right answer. The wrong answer is a generic answer saying you are organized and friendly. Although it will not hurt you during the interview, it will certainly not help you either. Answer this question based on the type of job you are applying for.
Short Answers
"I believe my strongest trait is my attention to detail. This trait has helped me tremendously in this field of work."
"I’ve always been a great team player. I’m good at keeping a team together and producing quality work in a team environment."
"After having worked for a couple of years, I realized my strength is accomplishing a large amount of work within a short period of time. I get things done on time and my manager always appreciated it."
"My strongest trait is in customer service. I listen and pay close attention to my customer’s needs and I make sure they are more than satisfied."
Long Answers
Let’s say I am interviewing for a management position. You should mention traits that are important for managers.
"A couple strengths I have are planning and execution, and working with people. I’ve always been very good at planning and detailing all the steps. Even in college, I would spend time organizing my week and planning a strategy to tackle each class or assignment. Executing a plan has always come easy for me as well. I believe it’s due to proper planning. I also work with people very well in a way where I use the strengths of each individual in a team to produce the best results. Because of my easy going personality, I’ve been told by my directs that it’s easy to approach me."
If you are applying for an accounting position, you should mention strong traits an accountant should have and claim them to be yours.
"I’m very detail oriented, good at managing time, and very honest. I always incorporate managing time and being detailed together. By nature I’ve been detail oriented, and that resulted in taking too much time on a particular task. After incorporating time management into the mix, I found that my work and efficiency increased dramatically. I plan better and produce higher quality work in a time constraint environment. Finally, I’m a very honest person. When I was working as a valet attendant during college, a lady gave me a twenty dollar bill to pay for the three dollar fee. She almost drove off the lot, but I stopped her and said here is your change. My co-workers said I should have considered the change as tip, but I know what I did was honest and right. You can fool other people, but you can’t fool yourself. That’s what I believe."
The second example can seem a little wordy. But the power of an example is greater than any great words you can string together. Everyone can claim they are honest, but with an example, it is much more believable.
3. "What are your weaknesses?"
For this answer, you should display a weakness that can be seen as a strength. There are many types of answers that will work. Some answers will be good answers for certain jobs, while the same answer will be a bad answer for a different job. Select an answer that will work for the position you are applying for. Here are a few examples.
Short Answers
"This might be bad, but in college I found that I procrastinated a lot. I realized this problem, and I’m working on it by finishing my work ahead of schedule."
"I feel my weakness is not being detail oriented enough. I’m a person that wants to accomplish as much as possible. I realized this hurts the quality and I’m currently working on finding a balance between quantity and quality."
"I feel my English ability is my weakest trait. I know this is only a temporary problem. I’m definitely studying hard to communicate more effectively."
"The weakest trait I struggled with was not asking for help. I always try to solve my own problems instead of asking a co-worker who might know the answer. This would save me more time and I would be more efficient. I’m working on knowing when it would be beneficial to ask for help."
Long Answers
"I think my weakest trait is my impatience. Whenever I work in a team and a member is not performing up to my expectations, I can get impatient and annoyed. I understand if they are working hard and their portion is difficult, but sometimes a person can’t do the assignment due to incompetence or laziness. A while back I would get frustrated and start complaining, but I realized that I can help out by explaining things to some people and encouraging lazy people by reminding them of deadlines. I know it’s bad to be impatient, but I’m definitely working on it."
"I’m too detail oriented. I never want to leave anything out and I want everything to be perfect. This is bad because it slows down my work. Initially, I tried to work faster to compensate, but that only made me sloppy. So I decided to put more emphasis on priority and planning. By doing so, I’m hoping that I can make the proper decisions on what to work on and what to intentionally leave out."
Both of these examples show an answer that is acceptable. Although being impatient is not good, it shows that you are a quick learner and that you like efficiency. The second displays a person that is detail oriented, which can be seen as a good trait. Finally, both answers identify the weakness and show the actions of correcting it.
Thu Aug 04, 2011 1:06 pm by Khách viếng thăm
