Practice Questions

The most important and useful thing you can do to prepare for an interview is practice. Study the common interview questions listed below and practice answering them. It may even be useful to write out the answers and read them several times – including right before the interview. Practice in mock-interview situations. Practice with your friends and family.

Analyze your answers and determine what will set you apart from other candidates. Relate those qualities and characteristics to the kinds of questions that will be asked in the interview. You can also use mistakes made in the past as examples of self-improvement if you have taken the initiative to improve in those areas.

Achievements

• Tell about a time when you displayed excellent customer service.
• Describe your three greatest accomplishments to date.
• When you start a project, what kind of detail do you want and need from the boss, and what do you supply on your own?
• Have you ever introduced a new idea or improved a process? Can you describe what it covered, the steps you took to implement it and why you saw the need to introduce it?
• Give an example of when your persistence had the biggest payoff.

Character

• Describe an ethical dilemma/situation you have faced. How did you handle it?
• How have you most constructively dealt with disappointment and turned it into a learning experience?
• Give a specific example of a policy you conformed to with which you did not agree.

Communication

• Tell about a situation when you had to speak up (be assertive) in order to get a point across that was important to you.
• Have you ever had to “sell” an idea to your co-workers or group? How did you do it? Did they “buy” it?
• Have you ever had difficulty getting others to accept your ideas? What was your approach? Did it work?
• Tell of a time when your active listening skills really paid off for you – maybe a time when other people missed the key idea being expressed.
• What has been your experience in giving presentations to small or large groups? What has been your most successful experience in speech making?

Conflict Resolution

• Tell about a situation in the past year in which you had to deal with a very upset customer or co-worker
• Describe an instance when you had to think on your feet to extricate yourself from a difficult situation.
• Tell about a time when you dealt with a difficult person. How did you handle it and what happened?
• Describe a recent success you have had in dealing with a customer. How did you accomplish it?
• Tell about the most difficult client (or manager) you’ve dealt with. Describe the relationship and how you handled it. What would that person say about you now? Would you handle things differently if faced with similar situation in the future?

Decision Making

• Give an example of a time when you had to be relatively quick in coming to a decision.
• Give an example of a time when you had to keep from speaking or making a decision because you did not have enough information.
• Tell us about the riskiest decision you’ve made.

Problem Solving

• Recall a time from your work experience when your manager or supervisor was unavailable and a problem arose. What was the nature of the problem? How did you handle that situation? How did that make you feel?
• Tell of some situations in which you have had to adjust quickly to changes over which you had no control. What was the impact of the change on you?
• Tell of the most difficult customer service experience you have ever handled – perhaps an angry or irate customer. Be specific and tell what you did and the outcome.
• All jobs have frustrations. Describe some examples of your job which frustrate you.
• Tell about a time when you were confronted with an unexpected problem. How did you deal with it? What happened?

Leadership

• Give an example of when you had to show good leadership.
• What leadership positions have you held? Describe your leadership style.
• What kind of supervisor do you work best for? Provide examples.
• In a supervisory or group leader rule, have you ever had to discipline or counsel an employee or group member? What was the nature of the discipline? What steps did you take? How did that make you feel? How did you prepare yourself?
• Summarize a situation where you successfully persuaded others to do something or to see your point of view.

Teamwork

• Tell about a time when you worked with a person who did things very differently from you. How did you get the job done?
• Think about a difficult boss, professor or other person. What made him or her difficult? How did you successfully interact with this person?
• Describe a situation where others you were working with on a project disagreed with your ideas. What did you do?
• Tell of a time when you worked with a colleague who was not completing their share of the work. Who, if anyone, did you tell about it? Did the manager take any steps to correct your colleague? Did you agree or disagree with the manager’s actions?
• Describe a situation in which you had to arrive at a compromise or guide others to a compromise.

Time Management

• How do you decide what gets top priority when scheduling your time?
• What do you do when your schedule is suddenly interrupted? Give an example.
• Describe a situation that required a number of things to be done at the same time. How did you handle it? What was the result?