Each interview is a new door to a fantastic career opportunity.

However, to pass the threshold, there will be the recruiter asking for answers.

Top 10 job interview questions you should be prepared for

For each meeting, you need to prepare yourself more than just training your charisma in the mirror.

So, here are the top ten interview questions that you shouldn’t let them take you by surprise.

1. Why are you a great fit for this job?

Many recruiters open the interview with this question. You should definitely prepare from home for this situation, which can increase your hiring chances or send you home. Answer honestly by listing your work experiences that recommend you for this position. You can resort to the objectives you wrote in your resume.

Each type of career has its own set of ideal purposes. You can read more about the difference between stack vs heap memory for example to answer this question with a more targeted answer.

2. Why did you apply for this job?

The intent here is to make sure that your dream job aligns with their own job descriptions. There are many candidates that apply for any opportunity, just for the sake of landing a job. However, an employer will be interested in knowing that you share the same values as their company.

You can simply answer this by showing that you read about the company and the job description. Thus you know that the environment of the company is the perfect setting to start or continue your professional career.

3. Why are you leaving your job?

The recruiter won’t want to hear about the tensions from your previous job. You can state the factors that turned your position into an unfavorable one for your professional development. A regrettable change in management or managing direction is enough to justify your intention to change your job.

4. How did you solve a difficult work situation?

This one is a more specific version of the usual question “How do you handle the pressure?” The modern workplace is a challenging environment, and you need to show that you have what it takes to control difficult situations. So, prepare a competent example from your professional experience where you didn’t succumb to stress and saved a project from a disaster.

5. Where do you see yourself in five years?

This is the right moment to show off your ambitions.

It is important to include the presence of a company that has similar features with the company in question.

Continue by describing how you want to progress in your career. Maybe you ultimately want to assume a leading position in your field, and five years is enough time to learn technical and soft skills by starting with the available position.

6. What are your greatest weaknesses?

No one wants to share their weaknesses with anyone, especially a person that holds your future in their hands.

This is why it is important to be prepared for this question. Usually, the weaknesses that you can confess at an interview are some manageable character traits. Also, it is important to state that you are doing everything to improve them.

Some examples of weaknesses are time management, leadership, perfectionism, being too critical of yourself. You can fix all these with persuasion and the right colleagues by your side.

7. What are your greatest strengths?

This is your moment to shine.

However, for the majority of people, it is hard to take an objective look at themselves. The right answer to this question takes the time to assess, so you need to prepare for this ahead of time.

Some examples of qualities that the employers are looking for are discipline, honesty, adaptability, dedication, loyalty, enthusiasm or punctuality.

Also, prepare some personal experiences that back up these traits of yours.

8. Tell me about yourself

Many capable candidates feel lost when hearing this request.

It can take hours to develop a comprehensive answer, and you know you have a limited time at your disposal to create a good impression. So, it is best to put yourself in the recruiter’s shoes, and understand what points they are expecting you to cover.

They certainly don’t want to hear about your club nights or birthday parties, but much rather your professional history. Talk about your previous jobs and what skills you learned there for two or three minutes. Then ask them if they want further details.

This is how you know if you can stop or continue with proper examples.

9. What are your salary expectations?

This is probably the trickiest question that is more likely to come up at any interview.

You don’t want to undersell yourself. Otherwise, the employer will take advantage of your skills without a proper reward. And you don’t want to pick a way too high number. Otherwise, you’ll compete with other candidates who asked for less.

The simplest solution is to increase your former income by 15% to 20%.

It will be the right incentive for you to tackle your new position with enthusiasm.

10. Do you have questions for me?

At this point, the interviewers might start fidgeting as if they might be under the impression that the meeting is over.

However, don’t let them go so quickly. This is a vital moment to work more for earning their attention.

Prepare a set of smart questions that will show them your interest for the available position. You can inquire about the team you’ll work with, their plans for company growth, the reason why this position is available and other important matters.

All in all, your training for these top ten questions will bring you many benefits. The answers you prepare will be able to cover other questions too.

Thus. you will take all the necessary measures to rock any interview for your dream job.

How do you prepare for the interview? How do you handle interview questions? Have you experienced the same ones as outlined in the article? Let me know in the comments below!

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