3 Important Interview Questions and How to Answer Them

I've talked about this problem in articles and blog posts, before.  You find these great articles that tell you what you should be doing but they forget to tell you how to do it.  There are lots of articles that tell you what type of questions interviewers will ask.  They also tell you to be prepared with an answer.  That's great advice.  Know what you're going to say when you're asked a particular question.  Great.  Got it.  Um...so, what's a good, prepared answer sound like?  That's the useful bit, isn't it?  And the part that's usually left out.

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After interviewing lots of people over the years and being interviewed myself, I've learned there are good ways, ok ways and really bad ways to answer interview questions.  We're just going to talk about 3 of the more common questions.  Even if you're not asked these questions exactly, you'll probably be asked something similar.  So you can use a similar answer.

We're all fine talking about our greatest strengths but how about our weaknesses?  Here's the first one:

1.  Tell me about a work related weakness?  Or sometimes, Tell me about your strengths and weaknesses.  Here's how you answer that:  Your strengths are easy.  Just talk up your accomplishments and how you achieved them.  But the weakness, that's the harder one.  Everyone sees through the cliche answer of "My weakness is not asking for help because I work so hard".  Don't say that.  Everyone works hard, it's not a weakness and we all know it.  Pick one thing that you knew was a weak area of yours in the past and talk about how you worked on it and overcame it.  Now you have a valid weakness to share but make yourself look good because you recognized it, worked on it and overcame it.

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2.  Tell me a little about yourself.

This used to be the hardest one for me to answer.  Do you want to know about me personally?  Professionally?  Are they trying to get info that they're not allowed to ask, like if I have kids or how old I am?  I ask this question of people I'm interviewing just to hear what they say so I can get ideas on how to answer it myself.  The best way to answer this is to talk about your professional self.  You're there for a job interview, after all.  So talk about why you became interested in your field.  If it was something that interested you as a kid, mention that.  Talk about what you enjoy about your work and how it gives you a sense of fulfillment and accomplishment.  That segues nicely into talking about your achievements and you managed them.

3.  When was a time you had a conflict with a coworker and what did you do about it?

Ok, here they want to know a few things.  Are you a troublemaker or a peacemaker?  What kind of conflict resolution skills do you have?  Do you actually resolve conflicts or say nothing and keep it inside?  It sounds like a simple question but it actually involves quite a bit.  So, how do you navigate this landmine of a question?

We've all had conflicts with coworkers but openly resolving the conflict may not always have been the best course of action.  But you can't say that in an interview.  They want to see that you resolved it like a well skilled diplomat, so give them that.  It doesn't have to be a work related conflict, necessarily, if you don't have a work example.  Talk about what the conflict was and why it was a problem.  Then go through the steps you took to resolve it.  Make sure to mention that you spoke to the person about it in a non-confrontational way focusing on a resolution, not blame.  Whatever example you choose make sure there was a positive outcome and talk about why it was positive.  And at no point should you ever talk bad about the person the conflict was with.  Even if they were a real jerk.

Interviews are stressful but they don't have to be hard.  You know you have to be prepared but now you know how.

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