- I have an interview soon! Quick, give me examples of exactly how I should respond to the top interview questions. Yes, I love the urgency. In this video, I have compiled footage of the best crafted answers of each of the top interview questions. This is so much information quickly. So this is perfect for the person who has an interview soon or needs a refresher on the best interview tips and doesn't wanna sift
through hours of videos. These are the interview
tips straight to the vein. If you're joining us for the first time, I'm Madeline Mann, this is an award winning channel, Self Made Millennial. I have helped thousands of people land career defining jobs, and have been featured in Forbes, Newsweek, Business Insider to name a few. So subscribe to this channel and hit the bell to get new career and job search tips on Thursdays. So you will see quick rapid fire examples of top interview questions. Please excuse the differing audio and lighting quality from video to video. Every answer you see comes with a full video explaining exactly how to answer it, how to craft it yourself. So if you do need further details, I will link every one of those puppies in the comments, in the description. And I'll also link a full playlist of each of these questions. So you can just, boom, just watch them all if you want to go in depth. It's like taking an online
course for interview skills. Because I care about you and your success, your beautiful mess. Stay to the end because I will tell you the number one most important question that they will ask you in the interview and how to avoid saying the worst answer that's so many people give. Please don't say this. I'll tell you what to say instead. I got your back. So make sure you listen to that one. Let's dive in. (air whooshing) Here are the three steps to answer why should we hire you. First, reiterate what
you know about the role especially the biggest challenges this role has to address. I mean, you're recognizing that the company isn't going to hire you because you are a great person or do you really deserve this role. Nuh-uh, they are hiring you if you can address the
specific business needs. So show that you are business focused. Second, talk about the skills and results you've had that will specifically
address those challenges. Third, flip that bad boy right back at the interviewer, ask them a question like is this how you see me in this role? Would you add anything? This is important to keep the interview feeling like it's two-way conversation and then get them telling you either why you are spot on and correct and you're a great fit or addressing other areas where you may be misaligned about the role so that you can engage
them immediately on those. So here is an example of these three steps in action. I've found that there are at least 12 highly active accounts that this account coordinator
role will help support. And through my research it appears that many of these clients require increased PR
resources during award season. With award season about six months away, I could come on now and build systems and report with each client, which something I did from the ground up during my time at the agency. Then when the requests start to ramp up in the role of account coordinator, I will act as a buffer for the team to allow the team members to focus while I address the client's
questions and issues. The more I can keep the clients at bay, the better work the team can do. So I specialize in keeping clients happy and up to date. I do that now at the agency. I keep all of the details organized and have served over
100 different clients. Many of them especially request me to work with them. I'd love to bring this expertise to the accounts coordinator role. Is that how you see me in this role? Did I miss any key challenges that you see for this job? Yeah. I know this kind of sounds like a lot of things to say, but heck this shows that you've really been paying attention, that you wanna address
their specific needs and you are business freaking focused. (air whooshing) So how do you answer this question? Well, I have a rule for you and that is always be telling stories. You glorious qualified starfish. What I mean is when someone asks you what's your greatest weakness? Name something that maybe
you aren't as good at, describe how you've
been working through it and building that skill and some results you've had. I'm sure this is all clear as mud. So I'm going to give
you an example response. About a year ago my boss mentioned that she wanted me to be a bit more precise and detail oriented, and I thought a lot about this feedback and why she was saying it. And what I realized is that I'm a very action oriented person. I love to dive into a project and just start getting it done right away. And what I saw is that I did not pause ahead of time and ask enough probing questions before I started an assignment. By not asking enough
questions ahead of time, I didn't fully understand which details were the most important. Once I realized that, I've been practicing, digging into the why behind each assignment before beginning. It's different for me because I like to jump in and figure things out on my own. But I've been able to find the balance between asking the right questions and working independently. And I've seen dramatic improvement in the last year of me delivering exactly what my boss wants. This example shows that you
take criticism seriously and that it fuels you to be better. (air whooshing) I'm telling you right now, everyone will ask you this question. It might drive you a little mad. The reason is they did not prepare for the interview. They didn't read the notes that I hope exists from the previous interviews and they're buying some time to review your resume as you're sitting there. So here's how to answer this. I'll give you the formula and then we will launch into a sweet example. Part one, who you are. Part two, what I call your highlight reel. Part three, why you are here. Let's see what this all looks like in action, shall we? Here's an example. I have been in the renewable
energy industry for seven years and I'm currently the
Customer Success Manager at ABC Company. I was promoted into this role within two years of being at the company because I developed new
processes from scratch that allowed our team to work much more efficiently. That's what I love to do. I love to find inefficiencies and build solutions. Prior, I worked at DEF Company which is where I dealt with a high volume of requests. And I also got experience doing white glove support for our elite customers. And your company and this role caught my attention because what you're building in the renewable energy space is exactly in line with my passion and my expertise. And with my range of experience I see this as a chance for me to make an impact quickly. But also I see this as a major opportunity for my growth due to the scaling team. How long was that? Maybe a minute. That's all you need folks. I've seen people take 15 minutes to answer this question and that can really screw you over. Tell me about yourself is the most common interview question and consistently one that I see people completely flounder when answering it. So I've created a helpful guide for how you can craft your own perfect answer to this question. You can get access to that free guide by going into the comments or the description. (air whooshing) For this question, what type of environment do you work best in? They are really asking you do you understand what it's like to work here, and will you be able to thrive? Knowing this is the intention
behind the question. Here are three rules to
crafting your answer. First, emphasize flexibility. Second, call out things that you noticed about
the culture that you like. Third, for the love of God, don't talk too much. Here are some examples. The first is good and the second is better. So if you don't know much at all about the culture, you can say I've worked in a variety of environments from high pressure to casual to highly collaborative, to having to find my own way. I adapt well to most. I'm not familiar with the environment is like here. Could you tell me a bit more about it? Here you're showing flexibility and making the interview into more of a conversation because you have no clue what they're looking for. Well done padawan. But we can do better and we will do better, dagnabbit! Alright. And improve answer is if you've done your research and ask good questions in your interviews. So here is an example of what it can sound like. From talking to your team and everything I've
read about the company. I discovered that your organization prides itself on being fast paced, high-achieving, and innovative. I thrive in those kinds of environments. Does that match up with the way you would characterize the environment? This final question you're asking is to make the interview, again, a two-way conversation and also make sure that you are addressing the question under the question. (air whooshing) First of all, no one knows where they
will be in five years and the hiring manager is well aware of this. I don't even know how old I will be in five years, impossible to tell. But the reason they're asking is to understand how this role fits in with your actual hopes and dreams and to put it bluntly, they're trying to see how big of a flight risk you are. So three things to know when answering this question. First, focus on the value that this role will give to your career. Second, show enthusiasm
for the opportunity. Third, be realistic with your answer. Think about where this position could realistically take you and how that aligns with some of your broader
professional goals. So what does this look like when you take some of these points and mishmash them into a response? Here are two example answers. This first one is from someone who is more junior and or isn't quite sure what they want in their
lifelong career yet. My goals are that I want to obtain this associate position and take the next year to fully learn my role and the company's needs. Then the following years establish myself as the go-to person for building financial
models at the company. I'm also focused in the coming years on getting to know my
strengths as a professional. And I read that your company has a mentorship program which I am eager to take advantage of. Would you be able to give me a little bit more information about that? Always feel free to flip this question around on them and ask what growth path they've seen for this role. The second example is an answer that may come from
someone more experienced. I imagine them as someone
making a lateral move but into a different industry. This role presents new challenges for me. And I want to spend the next five years developing deep expertise
in the publication space. I know this role deals a lot with contract negotiation which is a skill I would
like to fully master in the coming years. After I've built up my credibility and experience in the next two, three years at your company, I hope to mentor others coming into the publication space as mentorship is a big passion of mine. (air whooshing) (upbeat music) You may be leaving your previous role because it was Internet
Explorer level awful but know that positivity is key. Make sure to be optimistic, take ownership of the situation and never blame others. So if you're coming from a big company interviewing at a small company instead of saying, "I'm bored, "the work just isn't interesting." You could say, "I want more ownership "and able to make "a bigger impact in an organization." If you're coming from a small company and interviewing at a larger company instead of saying, "Things are too chaotic "and unclear at startups." You could say something like, "I want to work in a more
structured environment. "I'd like the potential "to have more resources "to achieve big goals." If you're interviewing in a company that's in a different industry than the company you're at before find something that intrigues
you about that industry. Additionally, we talk
about how you're looking for a company that is the
right culture fit for you, and then point out something about that company's
culture that you like. For example, my current
job has great people. It's more of the organization as a whole is a bit more transactional. It doesn't focus as much on fostering meaningful relationships, but based on your company's website and your blog posts, I can tell that you will have a lot of initiatives around building this inclusive culture. And that's really what stood out to me and made me feel like I could be a good figure. Cool. So let's move on
to the second section which is being laid off, which is a total bummer and I'm sorry that happened to you. (upbeat music) The best thing to do here is explain the situation and try to focus your story as more of an organizational issue versus like a team or individual issue. Here's an example of how someone I interviewed answered this question. The past six months, the company has been reorganizing due to the fact that revenues were down because new competitors
had entered the space. They made several rounds of layoffs and I made it through the first two, but ultimately in the
third round of playoffs, my team was heavily impacted and I was laid off. When she responded this way it showed she wasn't bitter, she was just stating the facts and it really felt like it wasn't her fault. Moving into section three of how to answer this question if you were fired. (upbeat music) First of all, note that being fired is totally okay. I've had to fire tons of exceptional people in my career and I've also been fired and know that if you're fired that doesn't mean you can't totally kick ass somewhere else. But if you are fired, really take it as a learning experience. Look within yourself, understand what happened and make sure that you
really target opportunities that are gonna be the best for you as your next job. My recommendation is to phrase being fired as something you agree with that it was ultimately the best solution for all parties. An example of this is, I was hired for one role, but over time it started to evolve into something else that
was outside my skillset. So it was an amicable split. And that's why I'm actually so interested in this opportunity because it really hits
on my strengths of XYZ. The important point to take away here is to never bad mouth your previous employer ever. Make sure you take
responsibility for the situation. No one wants to hire a victim. Let's say you had a horrible boss. It happens. It's okay to say what made it a tough relationship. He had an eruptive temper, and it was tough to get
through conversations without him saying something damaging. And it wore on me. Then spin it in a positive and empathetic way. I totally understood where his anger was coming from. This was a crucial time in the role, a lot of high pressure situations. I learned how to be a better communicator and a calming force, but ultimately I feel that I would be best suited working with someone else. (air whooshing) All right. So with this question they're trying to picture
you managing other people which is tough to do. So your job here is to help them picture it. Let's jump into an example. My leadership style has morphed depending on the people I am leading in the type of environment we are working in, such as I've managed a workforce that was very junior, many of them it was their first job. They had to learn many new skills and it was an industry that was heavily deadline driven. And so I found my leadership style in that case to be very hands on, such as when I brought on a team of five very junior new writers, their articles often
needed many rounds of edits and it was a steep learning curve. And I also noticed that many of them didn't know how to conduct themselves in a professional setting. I would work very closely with each writer for their first few assignments. And I was a bit strict like clockwork. If their assignment was due at 2:00 p.m., and I didn't see it in my inbox, they got a call from me at 2:01. My writers ended up being fully trained several weeks earlier than many other sections. And consistently did
not miss any deadlines because I knew that was so crucial to the publication. Now, I have led other teams where the work was longer term projects and it was a bit more creative. And I found my leadership style in that case was to step back a bit, give them a goal and allow them to determine how they wanted to reach that goal and then acted in a
servant leadership capacity of making sure to support
them, remove roadblocks and to also course correct when they got stuck. What types of leadership approaches have you seen work best at your company? Boom, good one. So you will want to create what I call a story toolbox where you have specific
examples of your leadership and also many other situations. (air whooshing) Your answer to this question will really solidify in their minds how interested you are. When answering why do you want this job? You can touch on three potential areas. First, the team. Talk about the people you've met and how you're inspired by them, how you could learn so much from them and vice versa, how you could see working well together and that working with great people makes all the difference you know lob on that sweet
praise with true things that you've noticed about them. Next, you can also talk about the company, discuss what you like about the products, what inspires you about
the company's mission, why you're so excited about the future of the industry and how you feel that the company is aligned with your personal values. And then of course, talk about the role, round it out by saying why this role is specifically going to be the stage for which you give your
greatest performance. Also how you're a great fit and how you feel you
can make a mondo impact. All right, let's talk
through a real world example. I was interviewing at a company who reached out to me to come in to interview for them. And we were several interviews deep and someone asked me why I wanted to work there. Well, I was certainly
interested in learning more, but the position didn't immediately jump out as perfect, but I always look for the best in things about the company. And I was able to craft my answer through that lens. I said, "The reason why
I'm excited about this role "is I see entire industries going "from brick and mortar to fully online "and shipping is the centerpiece, "as well as I see Amazon
Prime revolutionizing "what it means to have fast shipping "and setting the standard
for other companies "and with you all being "at the forefront with this
highly needed technology. "I'm so excited to be on the bleeding edge "of a facet of these industries, "and it's only going to get larger." And then I talked about the role which I would have been the first HR hire for them. And their lack of HR
had been unnoticeable. All the leaders were disgruntled. One even said straight up that the culture wasn't very good. Yauza. So the positive that I saw were, I am interested in the role because I see a lot of low hanging fruit where I could come in here and make a big impact quickly. My specialty is building processes from the ground up. So I would be playing to my strengths and make all of the leaders here, their jobs a lot easier. Notice that I was complementing the company in the first part and then I was focusing on the value I'd add to the company in the second. I mean, you don't even have to be in love with the company to see the great things
about an opportunity. So the most important
question in the interview that people often goof is, do you have any questions for me? Yep. They are judging you hard based on if you ask good questions. So always say yes and have several questions ready. They can be based off of your conversation that you've had in the interview or you may have prepared some questions ahead of time. I'll link a few videos in the comments, in the description of
great questions to ask. So make sure you grab that tell me about yourself worksheet. Like this video and subscribe to this channel. You've got this. Wi fi high five (claps).
