You’re about to go into a small room where someone will ask you questions and they’ll be judging your answers. No, this isn’t an interrogation, it’s a job interview, but it can feel just as stressful. When you’re applying to entry-level jobs, the job requirements and interview questions can make it seem like you need years of experience, a blue ribbon, and a Pulitzer Prize to land the job.
Relax. You’ve got this. Not every job applicant makes it to the interview round. If you’ve made it this far, it means that the hiring manager liked what she saw on your resume and wants to get to know you. She’ll ask you questions about yourself and your experiences to see if you’re a good fit for the job and can grow with the company. Here are tough interview questions you might be asked and best practices for answering them.
Behavioral Interview Questions:
Behavioral interview questions ask about examples of past performance. “Hiring managers use behavioral questions as they recognize past performance is a good indicator of future performance,” says Lisa LaRue, a career coach at the London-based firm CareerWorx.
What is your biggest weakness?
This is a tricky one because you don’t want to say something boring like that you are a perfectionist or that you are your biggest critic. “The hiring manager is looking for an honest answer and wants to see how self-aware you are of your weaknesses,” says Elise Gelwicks, founder of InternView, a Chicago-based firm that helps companies build internship programs.
But you also don’t want to share something that is directly related to your performance on the job like if you are applying to be a breaking news reporter but you freeze up when you have a tight deadline. Instead, try to stick with something that isn’t related to the job but also sounds legit and focus on how you are working to improve it. If public speaking makes you nervous you could say: “Sometimes I get nervous before speaking to a crowd of people, but I started taking improv classes once a week and now I feel much more confident.”
What was a time that you failed at something?
The strategy here is to talk about an actual failure, but one that wouldn’t affect your ability to be successful at this job. Everyone fails or makes mistakes sometimes, but not everyone recovers gracefully. (Think: Shaking everyone’s hand after a close soccer team versus throwing down the ball and storming off the field.) Gelwicks recommends always sharing something positive that happened or what you learned from the experience. “The hiring manager wants to see that you can be honest about times you have failed and own up to them. They also want to see you learn from your mistakes,” she says.
Let’s say you were in charge of leading the style section of the school newspaper and you were working on a street style photography article about spring fashion on campus. You had a lot of homework and it was finals week so you didn’t start taking photos until the weekend before it was due…and it rained all weekend. You decided to take some photos of people’s rainy-day wear outside and also took photos of people in the dining hall. You could say that you learned to always have a backup plan—which you did!—but that you prep for the articles at least two weeks in advance now.
Situational Interview Questions:
Situational interview questions ask about how you’d act in a hypothetical situation. “While the responses to these questions can demonstrate a candidate’s knowledge and understanding of best practice, it doesn’t require them to provide specific examples,” says LaRue.
How would you manage a difficult-to-please customer?
You have to be ready for this one if you are in a customer-facing industry. “The hiring manager is looking for insight into your communication and interpersonal skills,” says LaRue, “Think about how you would handle this situation including your approach and the steps you would take to ensure the customer’s concerns were dealt with leading to a positive outcome.”
You could say something like: “If I were new to the job, I’d speak to my manager to find out company policies and her preferences for talking to tough customers. My first instinct would be to listen to the customer, stay calm and professional, and either help solve the situation if it’s an easy fix or talk to my manager if it’s something that I think I should get approval on like returning an item with tags on it even though the customer doesn’t have the receipt.
What would you do if you were faced with multiple, conflicting deadlines and a heavy workload?
There’s likely to come a time when you have a zillion and one deadlines. “The hiring manager is testing to see how well you cope with pressure and if you can successfully prioritize your workload to meet demands,” says LaRue. She says to consider possible solutions like how you’d prioritize, delegate, or ask for help. “Describe, step-by-step how you would successfully manage these challenges.”
You could say something like: “As editor-in-chief of The Columbia Spectator, I’m used to dealing with tight deadlines and a heavy workload. I would order my to-do list by due date and priority, but if I wasn’t sure of what mattered most to my manager, I’d ask.”
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