Common Interview Questions and their Responses

Apart from the technical questions related to the role you have applied for, the following are the general common questions interviewers ask:

Tell us about yourself and describe your background in brief.

What are your strengths and weaknesses?

Do you prefer working independently or in a team?

How do you deal with pressure or stressful situations?

What are your salary expectations?

Click on each one to find the suggested appropriate responses.

Tell us about yourself and describe your background in brief.

This is where the interviewer is trying to connect to you with a story. The best you can do is provide a story where the interviewer begins to want you to have the job.

• It is good to speak about what made you interested in your current profession and how your relevant academics and experiences make you an excellent fit for the role.
• Structure your answer in a way that demonstrates your hunger and passion for learning new things and growing.

What are your strengths and weaknesses?

It helps if you do a self reflection exercise before the interview to list down your strengths and weaknesses.

• Strengths can be either knowledge-based (what you have learned in your degree and work experience), transferable skills (soft skills that do not depend on the job role) and personal traits (who you are as a person).

Examples of strengths could be:

1. Any technical ability (programming, graphic designing, computer skills, accounting skills etc)
2. Communications, interpersonal skills, problem solving, analytical skills etc
3. Hard-working, team player, punctual, creative, disciplined, honest, versatile etc

• More often than not, you should expect to be asked about your weaknesses, and this is a question quite dreaded by most.
  • A mistake a lot of people make is saying they do not have any weaknesses - this shows poor self-awareness on the candidate’s part. The best way to deal with this is by minimizing the trait itself and focusing on the positive.
    • For example: ‘I do not have great public speaking skills, but in general I don’t have to speak in public as I've mostly had desk jobs in general. However, I would like to get better at it and have been practicing speaking up more at team meetings and also trying different techniques to help overcome this fear’.

Learn more here and here.

Do you prefer working independently or in a team?

The answer to this particular question depends on how much research you have been able to do on the company.

• More often than not, expect the company to have a team culture and as such, it is beneficial to speak about how you enjoy both working independently and also as part of a team.
• A good answer could be: ‘I enjoy taking assignments that require me to work independently, however, having a team to learn from and take feedback from is critical to my personal and professional growth. As such, I enjoy a blend of both working styles’.

How do you deal with pressure or stressful situations?

The interviewer wants to know if you can handle job-related stress and if you would be able to deal with certain high pressure situations at work.

• The answer to this question could be to reflect on past situations when you have had to deal with stress or pressure. It is best to show how pressure can drive action in the work you do or that you thrive under pressure.
• For example: “Pressure of upcoming deadlines motivate me to get the work done. Too much pressure may lead to stress, but I have a good planning mechanism that helps me plan my day out to deal with the number of projects I have to work on. In my last job, I had the pressure of delivering 3 different projects in one week and while it is easy to let that contribute to stress, I created and stuck to my timetable to avoid unnecessary stress’.

Learn more about how to answer this question here and here

What are your salary expectations?

You will almost always be asked about your salary expectations at some point in your career. This question is used by employers to understand if your services can be afforded by the organisation you are applying to and also to see how much you value yourself and the work you do.

• This question is particularly tricky because in most cases it may be difficult for you to know about the budget of the position and you may end up negotiating an amount which may discourage you from being productive.
• In such scenarios, it helps to research the market for the salary in similar roles you are applying to, factor in expenses such as food, accommodations and travel you have to incur for the role and choose a salary range that helps you have a certain amount of savings after your expenses have been covered.
  • It is good practice to identify a bare minimum you would want to work for and then place that at the lower end of the salary range you are proposing in the answer.
• If at all possible, divert the question back to the employer to understand more about the day-to-day of the job so you have a better understanding of how much money you would like as salary for the job.
• Avoid choosing an exact amount and avoid being underprepared for the discussion. It is good practice to go into the interview with a realistic idea of how much you would like to be paid for your services.
• Some example answers to this question could be:
  • ‘My salary range is flexible, but I would like to be fairly compensated for my work. I would be open to exploring exact figures once we have discussed more about the details of the position.’
  • ‘I have an idea of the range of similar companies in the industry for this specific role and as such would like to be paid in the $XX to $YY range as per industry standards. I would like to be paid in this range taking into account my education, experience and skills. The exact amount would be contingent on what my exact job description may entail.’

Learn more about how to answer this question from here and here.