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Big job interview soon

l3lasphemer69l3lasphemer69 Registered User regular
Greetings,

I got THE big interview coming up next week and I am looking for advice on how to answer certain questions. Any hiring managers out there with tips and such? The questions that trouble me the most tend to be the "Tell me about a time....", "What can you tell me about your previous experience with...". The questions that they are more interested in how you say it, not so much what you say. Also the position requires some SQL experience, I have been exposed to SQL in college, but haven't really used it much since then. I plan on studying up some over the weekend.

Any and all info would be great and helpful

Posts

  • EncEnc A Fool with Compassion Pronouns: He, Him, HisRegistered User regular
    1) be yourself (no really, if you portray yoruself as something else and get the job you will have to keep up the act until it is no longer tenable)
    2) do research about the company
    3) show your research in your responses, share how you can benefit the company in each response.
    4) Ask questions. Ask about the job, the duties, how they have been running things in the past, ask about the office environment, long term potential, standard equipment, etc.

    Essentially treat the encounter as a meeting of the minds, show that you are comfortable and prepared to help them and remember that you also have something of value they need as well.

  • NewblarNewblar Registered User regular
    Not a hiring manager but I went though a bunch of interviews a couple of years ago and have done some interviewing training since.

    The interview questions you are talking about sound like behavioral interview questions. The theory is that the way you acted in the past will help predict how you would act in the future. They're pretty common in professional level job interviews so get used to them.

    Do a search in Google for behavioral interview questions, pick at least 10 of them and make sure that you can provide solid answers for those types of questions. You should be picking not just questions on your own work abilities but ones that show how you can work with/deal with coworkers issues.

    There are a couple of different ways to answer them but the easiest to learn quickly is the SAR model
    S= Situation (Describe what was going on/what the issue was)
    A=Action (what did you do)
    R=Results (how did it turn out)

    If you need time to think of your answer to a question that is ok. From my own follies, trust me taking a minute to clearly organize your answer to a question is much much better than to just blurt out an answer that ends up turning into a train wreck because you thought you could make it up on the fly.

    As Enc mentioned, do some research on the company. Generally speaking replacing people and getting someone new up to speed in a position is time consuming and expensive so interviewers want to hire someone that wants to work there instead of someone that just wants a job. Showing you know something about the company helps demonstrate this. Every interview should have some time set aside for you to ask the interviewer questions. Use that opportunity to show that you've spent some time researching the company by asking them questions. Prepare at least 5 questions you would like to ask the interviewer and you can figure out during your question time whether to ask all of them or just a few of them.

    Most important in an interview is to do your best to appear confident (confident not arrogant). If you can't manage that at least make sure that you maintain steady eye contact (lots of people are afraid to look an interviewer in the eyes), sit in your seat with decent posture (I once swiveled through a whole interview), are speaking loud enough to be heard (way to many people whisper) and don't appear to be playing some sort of secret game that involves your pen (which a ridiculous number of people do). It's kind of crazy the way people unknowingly act physically while under a lot of pressure so be aware of what you are doing.

    [SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
  • ShadowhopeShadowhope Baa. Registered User regular
    edited March 2013
    Do a search for common job interview questions and make sure you have good answers. The absolute worst IMO is when you can't give a decent answer to what you feel should be a simple question.

    Some questions I'd be prepared for:
    -Tell us about yourself.
    -What do you know about the company?
    -Why do you want to work for the company?
    -Where do you see yourself in five/ten years?
    -What is your dream job?
    -How do you define success?
    -Think back to a time when you encountered a stressful situation at work. How did you deal with it?
    -Think back to a time when you had too little time to complete all of the work assigned to you. How do you prioritize? What was the result?
    -Think back to a time when you were uncertain with how to proceed with a given task, and no supervisor or subject matter expert was available to help. How did you proceed? What was the result?
    -Have you ever had a conflict with a manager/coworker? If so, how did you resolve it?
    -What is your greatest strength? How heavily do you rely on it? Provide an example of when this strength helped you to succeed.
    -What is your greatest weakess? How do you overcome it? Provide an example of how you overcome this weakness in the workplace.
    -How do you think your references will describe you when we contact them?
    -How would your coworkers describe you if we were to speak to them?
    -Define what professionalism means to you.
    -What new skills or talents have you learned or developed within the past year?
    -What are your hobbies?
    -What abilities do you have that you feel make you an ideal choice for the position?
    -What do you feel you bring to this company over other applicants?
    -What are the greatest difficulties and challenges you foresee in working for the company?
    -What was your biggest challenge in your previous position?
    -Provide an example of a time you helped a coworker to succeed.
    -Provide an example of a time when you went above and beyond job expectations to complete a task.
    -Provide an example of a time when you do not succeed at a task. Why did you fail, and what did you gain from the experience?
    -Provide an example of how in past positions you have maintained a high standard level of performance.
    -Provide an example of how in a past position you improved your performance.
    -How you generally deal with stressful situations?
    -Why are you leaving your previous job?
    -Do you do any volenteer work?
    -If we're to remember one/two/three things about you, what should we remember?

    Expect at least one off the wall question, like "What hobby would you never ever take up, ever, and why?" Or "Tell us a joke." There's no real way to prepare for the question, but most people will ask at least one like it, so be prepared for a question of that nature. While that question can be used to tell something specific about a person (for example, someone applying for a safety management or an actuarial position might be asked a risk based question like "Would you ever go skydiving, why or why not?"), more often then not it's trying to see how you respond to the unexpected.

    In the interview itself: don't fidget, be sure to make eye contact, speak with confidence, don't just trail off at the end of sentences...


    At the end of the interview, the interviewer will usually ask if you have any questions. I would suggest considering saying to them that you hope to get the job, but then to ask if it's OK that in the event you do not get the job for you to contact them to discuss why they did not select you, and what they want to see from you for you to become their ideal candidate.

    Be sure to remember the names of the people interviewing you, and thank them by name when you're done.

    It goes without saying, but dress nice.



    One other thing, fairly minor. If you arrive for an interview and there's a secretary or security guard outside, learn that person's name and be courteous to them. If on your way out you casually thank Mary the security guard by name as you hand her back your temporary building badge/keycard, hiring people will sometimes take notice of that sort of thing. It can make a really strong impression.

    Shadowhope on
    Civics is not a consumer product that you can ignore because you don’t like the options presented.
  • alexandreialexandrei Registered User new member
    Hi blasphemer, my answer is definitely a bit self-serving (to some extent), but figured I'd offer my two cents. I'm a co-founder of Big Interview an online, job interview training system. Sort of like Rosetta Stone for job interviews. You can go through the entire interview curriculum there (including the big behavioral question like "tell me about a time..."). And also practice mock-interviews by industry and experience-level with your webcam & mic.

    Most people when they answer a behavioral question, usually give a long, meandering answer that doesn't put them in the best light. So you need to spend time dissecting the job description to pull out the relevant competencies/skillsets you'll be asked about - and then you'll look to create 3-4 interview stories (with a beginning, middle and end) that highlight the competency/skillset. It just take some practice to create thoughtful stories, and then time to really practice delivering them (so they don't sound too canned).

    The model newblar was talking about has a few different acronyms (that basically mean the same thing) - SAR, STAR, PAR, etc.

    And shadowhope's list of questions is spot on - and you'll really need to work on the stories I mentioned.

    Generally you can expect something in this order:

    1. Tell me about yourself
    2. Why did you pick the school
    3. Why this industry?
    4. Why our company?

    Then may some behavioral questions based off the competencies need for the role. So you might need stories revolving around:

    "problem-solving"
    "calm under pressure"
    "people skills / working in a team"

    Then you might get some technical questions

    And then, "do you have any questions for me?"

    The fact that you're getting called in for an interview means that on paper, you seem the display what they need. They usually spend 20-30% of the interview confirming that with technical questions (unless its specifically a tech interview). The remainder of the time is spent on fit and behavioral questions - so they can determine if you'll be a good fit or a pain in the ass.

    You should also check out the biginterview blog that has a ton of in-depth articles on interview answers and prepping.

    You may get an odd question - but don't sweat it. Build up you confidence with the basic ones, and having some strong stories - and you'll be in great shape.

    Either way, good luck :)

    Cheers,

    Alex




  • l3lasphemer69l3lasphemer69 Registered User regular
    Thanks for the link @alexandrei! Been going through the site reading up and studying, awesome site!

  • l3lasphemer69l3lasphemer69 Registered User regular
    So far so good, have an informal lunch interview in a couple days to discuss "details."

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