Common JOB INTERVIEW Questions & HOW TO ANSWER THEM: Insider Tips from former HR Director

tell me about yourself what is your greatest weakness why should we hire you tell me about a time when you failed what are your salary expectations oh my gosh if you've been through any interviews in your life chances are you've been through at least one if not all five of these common interview questions in this video i'm going to teach you how to answer these questions what to avoid and why they ask so whether you are a fresh graduate from college or a ceo or anywhere in the middle this video is definitely going to help you coming right up [Music] hey supercharger welcome my name is sonal behl former hr director and career strategist and in this channel i share practical tips to help you stand out so you get that dream job get promoted and leave a richer happier and more purposeful life if this is what you're after make sure you subscribe hit that bell icon so you do not miss another video and let's dive in so um in this video what i've done is i've taken a live training that i did and snippets from that live training which are relevant to these five interview questions so definitely get your cup of tea or coffee get your notebook and pen and a couple of things before we get started number one add your own personality to these answers your own personal touch because you don't want to sound like something like someone you're not and second is um there will be detailed videos for some of these questions that i will include in the description in the comments and in the video itself so with that said let's dive in shall we so tell me about yourself it's like oh man like kill me now yeah they ask this question because they want to see what are you like when you get something like this which is open and uncomfortable the second reason they ask you this question is they want to know what's important to you and we'll come to that because the composition of your answer tells them what's important to you and the third reason oh this is a little secret that i bet you didn't know unless you're a recruiter and if you're a recruiter tell me you agree with me because if you don't agree with me you're probably lying when you have back-to-back interviews do you have time to do your homework and actually read every single resume properly cover to cover no you don't no you don't you don't so you want to be in control of this question and how you answer it so avoid anything that can come and shoot you in the foot personal information you're married how old you are it has absolutely no relevance to the job the other thing i want to say is avoid selling yourself at this stage too much too much there is a way to do it and i'll show you how to do it but don't dive in and start like attacking on the offensive when it might be a bit premature so how do you answer this question there's a driver's seat formula and i'll explain it to you there's four parts to it stop at pleasantries describe what you do today very briefly okay there's a subtle achievement that you sneak in there which is related to what they are looking for very sneaky and the fourth is why do you want this job right so pleasantries when you say hey so you know chances are it gets down to business really quickly and you're like oh i didn't get any you know there was no warm-up time sometimes there's no icebreaker um some people are like that so if you find that a little uncomfortable what you can do is very basic pleasantries no more than a sentence say first of all you have the guy interviewing you is john um john it's a pleasure to be here thank you so much for taking time uh to see me today i really appreciate it done do you know what that does it forces the other person to say oh no problem and when they do that it gives you a nano second to think about your next move b describe what you do today you can say yes i'm a senior financial analyst i've had about 15 years experience and for the last three years this is what i do it's to the point it's very brief you don't have to get into description of your job why a lot of it will be mentioned in your resume you don't have to repeat everything there now you sneak in a subtle achievement you know i'm a financial analyst and i'm not in any i make these reports for senior manager in fact i'm working on this project today where i'm leading a team of about i'm leading a team of four people and we are working on how big data has an impact on management decisions key decision making and the bottom line why are you sneaking this in are you silly no you are smart you're sneaking it in because you saw in the job description that they are looking for something like that and you're connecting the dots for them and if you speak their language you will even use the same words that they have in the job description so it's like keyword matching seo but in real life uh if i'm the recruiter oh my antenna just went up i'm listening to you there is no way i'm sleeping through this but you kept it brief right and finally why are you here why do you want this job get into that immediately what have you done you've taken control of this entire conversation that's why i call this the driver's seat formula why do they ask you about your weakness and development areas why do they do that they barely know you and it's such an uncomfortable question right it's very simple they want to know are there any red flags that they should know about and they want to know how well do you know yourself which is why one thing you never do is you say i'm actually perfect i have no don't do that because nobody is we all have certain flaws certain weaknesses certain areas of development and avoid giving rehearsed responses canned responses like i'm a perfectionist i don't know how to delegate don't do that you know why these recruiters and interviewers have grown up in their career watching and reading the exact same books and videos and they can read you like a book so don't give out those negative positive twisted into a negative don't do that the flaw approach right what is the flaw approach it's um talk about something that is in the past that you've overcome perhaps you used to be scared of public speaking you're better at it age is hard skills specific things i've learned by i need to work on python i'm currently doing java or i'm learning french we call them hard hard but they're actually easy because they're teachable um and law is the slightly more tricky one livable acceptable weaknesses and that's tricky because you need to know yourself very well and you need to understand what they're looking for and be able to express it and this you don't really need to do unless you are really pushed into this corner and people are like getting into this deep psychological type interview and behavioral and want to know your deep dark secrets etc you can talk about something that you're working on it's not done but at the same time it's not going to be a problem it's not going to self sabotage you or your chances to get a job just like for example if you know the role is individual contributor and if you feel sometimes you have problems with conflicts and you will draw into a shell you can say that but if the role is for a team leader you cannot say that so don't do anything that will shoot you in the foot this is number three why should we hire you why do they ask you this question they want to know can you sell yourself can you influence people can you persuade people so this is your opportunity to shine and see how awesome you are and the second reason they ask is if they've had any doubts about you throughout the interview this is something they usually tend to ask in the end right and that can help them to go this way or that way so you don't want to mess this one up you want to get this right the third reason they ask you and again this is an honest confession sometimes the interview is going really well and you know recruiters have a very busy mind they've got deadlines they have targets they have things to take care of they have unhappy bosses and in all of that brain fog they forgot to ask about strengths maybe this is an opportunity for you to showcase your strengths you can you can slide it in somehow so that's the reason this question is asked what you want to avoid when you answer this question is talking about you and how much you love this company don't do that this is not about you at all ma'am i've always wanted to work at ge it's the company of my dreams but it's not the question the question is why should we hire you and the you is in capitals they can hire anyone else why you the question isn't why do you want to work with us many times that is misunderstood so remember that very well and so now that we've talked about how to what what what to not say you know ideally what to avoid i call this the kennedy approach ask not oops ask not what your country can do for you ask what you can do for your country now fill in the blanks take out country and use my formula ask not what your company can do for you ask what you can do for your company company slash position now how do you do that um break up the sentence i see what i've put in capital letters company you do company is the position what you need to do is you need to go back and read the job description like uh 40 times you're going to be able to read some pain areas why does this position even exist why do they want to spend money in this position there's a reason find out what that reason is and find out how you can address those pain areas and those gaps because that is the reason the position exists today and then you now when i think of you i think of your unique selling proposition usp you've got a unique set of skills and a unique personality that no one else does in the perfect world what they're looking for and what you do well and you know the the the part in the middle that's perfect that's in the perfect world that's why there's something you do well and there's something they're looking for but the reality is there's other people who want the same damn job yeah duh so because of that you want to avoid being in the red zone and the red zone is what i call the zone of failure which is what other competing candidates do well but you don't what you want to focus on is the zone of success the green part what is the zone of success what you do well and what they're looking for and the competing candidates don't have that is your unique selling proper position u s e you cannot get this in a two minute or 20 minute webinar you got to think hard and it's work but it's worth it this is the part 3 do means do some storytelling give examples massive achievements this is the time to shine this is not the time to be humble and the second thing i want to say is um bring something if you can and we're in covet days right now so you may not be able to bring something physical to the meeting the meeting may be on zoom but tell them may i take your permission to share my screen show them some stuff that you've done in any position that you have if you're a designer maybe you've done a website if you're a finance guy maybe you were a response finance guy or finance gal maybe you were working on a deal in m a and the deal is now public show them that question number four is tell me about a time when this is what is called a behavioral question how would you be in their company if something like this happened how would you react they want to know how they want to see they want to gauge how do you handle stress and they want to see do you learn do you give up they can tell how can they tell they can see your body language which speaks louder than words and they can tell with the examples you choose if you choose an example which is a little small and cute and you're like and then it was done you're like oh okay this person's not yet ready for this type of role they're not senior enough they haven't lived enough you know what i mean tell me about a time that you failed tell me about a time there was a crisis right what do you want to avoid when you get this type of question you what you want to avoid is this is a very simple answer i'm not going to go into detail here you want to avoid explaining the context too long and be very careful here because i used to make this mistake when i was being coached for interviews back in 2009 when i completed my mba i was told by my coach that you're giving good answers but get to the point faster about what you did because you've painted the picture too long and the interview is coming close to an end so be in control of the situation remember the driver's seat formula it's actually going to help you if you don't know what i'm talking about go and watch the replay um so how do you answer this problem action result problem action result this was the problem don't spend more than 20 30 percent of the time explaining it action is where you spend time and the result is the cookie the cookie the cherry on the cake beautiful this is what happened great so i would say do a 30 70 split between p and r a r got it what is with him is an acronym of mine that my uh members of the supercharged club know what i'm talking about with him is what you did wyd what you did and i am is impact um we use this formula particularly in resume building because a lot of people talk only about what they did they don't talk about the impact and impact can be measured not always but most of the time it can be measured so when you say the r the result make sure it's there's impact it's not out of the blue something totally unrelated think about how this can help them think about how this can help them to make the decision in your favor what are your salary expectations so why do they ask this question they want to make sure they don't waste their time uh that there is a fit from the very beginning what you want to avoid when you are asked about salary expectations you want to avoid giving a number or a range so if you are asked this question by default you know those forms that you have to fill out ats etc might come up my personal advice is to put a dot if it doesn't accept a dot put zero or if it accepts text you can write to be negotiated um i have something called a salary approach but i added an h because i needed an h in there so for a second we imagine that we are sean connery so it's a shallow approach so there's sean connery and the sort of strawberry approach got it s stands for sell yourself this is the time to sell yourself so that they absolutely fall in love with you and you know what when they fall in love with you they'll hire you at any cost trust me they make exceptions all the time they say they are the rules but they make exceptions are made all the time i know what i'm talking about h is holding your ground when people say no but you need to give me a number of range it's not easy you're holding your ground you're being assertive it's not easy but you got to do it as much as you can a is avoid avoid giving number or range which i already explained l is let them negotiate let them initiate the topic of money don't be the first one to do it i don't know i just feel personally let it come from them otherwise it might come across that you're a bit money-minded or greedy even if you're not a is answer with a statement which is kind of obvious but what does that mean some people are told by certain coaches when people ask you what are your salary expectations you should answer this question with a question so what's your budget what are you willing to pay me don't do that so answer with a statement don't answer with a question it's a little bit cocky for me r is research why worse comes to worst if you're you know hand on the fire and you have to be able to give a number at least you should know what does this mean in glassdoor on payscale.com on salary.com talk to headhunter friends what does the position like this earn in the market you should know what you're talking about and why is when you answer this question your body talks louder than words so when you answer answer with a smile back straight high energy and not like you know uncomfortable it's embarrassing um something to hide don't do that be confident it's money sure it's important it's important to them as well uh we talked about the top five interview questions the first one was tell me about yourself and we said how do you answer it remember we said the driver's seat formula where you focus on pleasantries uh describe your current role briefly bring in a subtle achievement which has something to do with what they're looking for and you know their pain area and why do you want this job right then we said uh how do you answer the question what are your weaknesses or your development areas and how do you answer this we have the flaw approach which is talk about something that's in the past talk about a hard skill um and then if you dare to go there a livable acceptable weakness that is not going to shoot you in the foot then the third one was how why should we hire you and this was all about the kennedy approach and we said focus on what you can do for the company and what you bring to the table your unique selling proposition remember that graphic we shared um and the do part is very important then the fourth one was behavioral questions tell me about a time when this happened that happened and the chisel hit the van and what did you do they want to know that stuff they want to know because that will happen in their company as well are you going to be one of those people that runs for the hills are you actually going to save the day they want to know that um and the last one was what are your salary expectations and we said how do you answer this use the salary approach which is all about selling yourself holding your ground avoiding giving the number and range etc etc you

Channel: Sonal Bahl - Career Strategist

Views: 111,614

Keywords: sonal bahl, supercharge, Interview Questions and Answers, interviews, job interview questions and answers, interview tips, tell me about yourself, why do you want to work here, what are your strengths, what’s your biggest weakness, why should we hire you, what are your salary expectations, job interview tips, how to answer behavioral interview questions, star method of answering behavioural questions

Id: VytIm4IaqXY

Length: 19min 58sec (1198 seconds)

Published: Sun Aug 22 2021