How to Answer the 8 HARDEST Interview Questions | Job Interview Tips

there are certain questions that I think we are all panicked about being asked in an interview and these are the hardest questions to answer so today I am here to help you out and give you sample answers some suggestions on how to go when being asked the eight hardest job interview questions now if we haven't met my name is Cassandra and I help motivated professionals build their careers through practical tips to gain career confidence so let's get started so to me the absolute hardest are the crazy quiz style questions these are the riddle type questions that Google is infamous for asking but I've seen a lot of other companies do it as well I will say these tend to be more Industry specific in higher ed I'd never get asked one of these questions but in anything with engineering computer science it's very very often the case that you will same with any kind of tech company so what are these types of riddle questions something like well how many pennies would it take to be stacked on top of each other to reach the height of the Empire State Building I don't know right these are questions where they're not actually looking for a right answer it's more about your thought process so you want to go through and really explain out loud how you came to your answer so for my internal processors we have to really work on this to share all our thoughts you can't just sit there and go hmm eight million five hundred like I don't think that's not the right answer I have no idea but you can't just spout an answer you got to tell me how you got there like well there are you know ten pennies roughly in an inch and then twelve inches would be a hundred and twenty pennies so that's a foot and it's so many feet and go through it all so don't be afraid to ask some questions like you know first thing I need to know is what is the height of the Empire State Building could could you let me know the height and then if they want you can say okay well what I would do is I would find out the height of the building and then I would figure out how many pennies would be in an inch how many would then be in a foot and then multiply that blah blah now even that y'all please do not take that as being the right way to answer this question I am just sharing my thought process you could figure out some other crazy way to do it so just don't be afraid to share it out loud now I've shared this next tip on this in another video don't be afraid to ask for clarification I know I kind of just said that with the Empire State Building one but I really want to emphasize it this was something I didn't know you could do for years like I thought they asked you a question and I'm just supposed to go off that and answer it and I didn't realize that sometimes they actually are testing you to see if you'll ask clarifying questions so I have a friend who asked people I'd like you to statement but I would like you to make me some eggs that's a question in a job interview he automatically rules out people who just dive right into how they make eggs he wants people to go okay well where are we all right so what equipment do I have like do I have a frying pan um how do you like your eggs do you like them scrambled do you like them over easy he wants them to ask questions back it's not a matter of making eggs the right way he wants you to ask clarifying questions so with any of those riddle type ones explain your process and don't be afraid to ask questions in return okay so the next one that's really hard for people why are you leaving your current position first off I don't think this gets asked nearly as much as people panic over it I see a lot of y'all in the comments on Linkedin etc saying how do I answer why I left my position and I've been unemployed or why I want to leave my current position how do I answer that you know I really don't think it gets asked that option but it can be asked that's why it's still on this list so if you are asked I want you to focus on the positive of the new job not the negative of the I have had jobs where I sat there and stared at a screen with nothing to do I have had jobs where they drilled me all day long and I was on a phone like a telemarketer even though it was not a telemarketing job and I just wanted to I mean I broke a tooth of that job it was not great but when I went to the next job I couldn't be like well I'm here because that job made me break a tooth because it's so stressful like that's not gonna go over well so instead you want to be forward-thinking it's not so much why you're leaving the position it's why you're interested in this new position so you can briefly touch on why you're leaving well you know I feel like I have risen to the level of all the opportunities available to me at this time and I'm ready to move in that position and I'm ready to move forward in my career and that's why I'm really excited in this because this will get me to that next step where I get to do this thing and this thing and that thing and I'm very excited about that we don't touch on the bad boss we don't say I'm bored out of my school we just say you know I've gotten the opportunity to really learn I like ham in this position and so-and-so has been a great mentor and boss and yada yada if they have been if they are a horrible human being you don't have to say that so-and-so has been a great mentor and boss but I really realized that in order to take the next step in my career trajectory I need to kind of spread my wings and fly and head somewhere else and so that's why I'm very interested to be here okay so always focus forward and positive the next one that a lot of people say is really hard to answer is are you willing to fail so first off I think any company that's going to ask you this question wants the answer to be yes I think companies that don't want you to fail aren't even going to broach the topic because they don't want to even give you the idea that failure is okay so if a company is asking are you willing to fail yes needs to be part of the answer okay but with the guests you need to give some examples of how you've been willing to fail and what is failing look like to you you know are you willing to fail safely like within certain parameters or are you willing to fail when a boss is given permission you want to know what they are looking for in the project so keep those sorts of things in mind don't be afraid to expand on what failure looks like to you and how how willing you are you know you're not gonna fail with millions of dollars of the company's money but you're willing to fail on small things depending on where you're working you know SpaceX might want you to fail with millions of dollars I'm not quite sure but be willing to share a little more than just yes dive into it okay the next room that's hard to answer tell us about a time you've had a conflict at work now I believe I talked about this in another video like just unto its own but the key things on this are you want to use the star method do not be afraid to lay the groundwork and give me the situation and the task what was going on that led to the conflict then with the situation the task you'll share it's part of the situation what the conflict was right so-and-so and myself didn't see eye-to-eye on this piece of the project and then you're going to give your action to resolve it so I went to her and I asked to speak bla bla bla and you give that action but the piece everyone forgets unless you've watched these videos the piece everyone forgets is I want the result I don't want to just hear that you took initiative and you went to talk to them to really hash this out I want to hear that the two of you went on to complete the project got wonderful remarks from your manager it was the highest selling product that you've made the friendship is stronger than ever and you two have worked great as a team for the last three years whatever it is I want that result the money is in the result so when you're at answering a conflict make sure to give me the full star method on it and then the other reason why I think people have a hard time with this is depending on where you are in your career you maybe haven't had a conflict at work like my first couple of part-time jobs I didn't have a conflict so don't be afraid to use some other piece of your life what they want to know is that you can handle conflict and you're not afraid to resolve it to deal in conflict they don't need it to be in the workplace so don't be afraid to say you know I've been really that I haven't had a lot of conflicts at work or really any conflicts at work but I did happen to do a team project at school and this happened or you know last year at church I worked on planning a retreat with the team and there were some conflicts there is it okay if I share with you a story from that totally fine they just want to see how you resolve conflict it doesn't have to be at work okay the next question that's hard to answer has to deal with well really it's kind of a category anything dealing with past managers so tell me about a time you didn't get along with the past manager tell me about a time you and your manager didn't see eye to eye the reason these are hard is because if we're talking about this it probably means the manager like if you had a bad boss all you want to do on this is go okay so I had this boss who was kind of a jerk and he didn't understand that as much as I worked I couldn't make the person on the other end want to act a certain way or want to buy a product or whatever you just can't badmouth the boss so these questions take some finessing this is why we practice this is why we prepare if you need help on preparing there's a video in the description box but you need to really practice ahead of time what is my answer if they ask about an issue with the past manager or a past supervisor what is my answer and my story if they ask by the time we didn't see eye to eye or what is one thing I wish my boss did differently and why without completely bad-mouthing them if you practice you can find a way to get there but if you don't practice you're gonna trip all over yourself in the interview okay number six what is your greatest weakness no once again I have a whole video on this that will be in the description box as well as in a card right here but this question needs to be answered one with an actual weakness please do not give me any of this like oh I'm just such a a workaholic I just work work work I don't understand work-life balance shut up we all know you're a lot like great you're gonna work really hard for us no I want a real weakness but this is again a reason you have to prepare because if you didn't think about a weakness when they ask in the room you're gonna be like I don't know your weakness needs to be something that is an actual weakness but it is not super relevant to this position and you have to show how you've worked on it so you want to talk about something that is not going to kill getting the job for you so if it's sales right you're not gonna say oh well I'm really shy that doesn't work so think through how you're going to share an actual weakness and how you've worked on it also you have to give the working on it part don't forget that when they say what's a weakness don't just go I talk too much like that doesn't work or I've had people say just kind of random things I mean y'all people say weird stuff I've had people just go public speaking for something really like not related to the job but also a strange skill like what's your week not strange skill but just so not related to the job and a technical skill but it was like so out of left field so it was a position where they would be doing nothing creative on the computer at all and the person when I said what's your greatest weakness at Photoshop okay okay it was just so awkward like it doesn't apply to the job in any way there was no explanation of why they thought this was a weakness they needed to bring up it just didn't make any sense so use something that's actually part of who you are as a person in your personality and share how you're working on it the reason you want to give an actual weakness is you want to show them I recognize I am not perfect and there are things I have to work on and here is how I am doing so so keep that in mind okay similar to weakness is what have you learned from your mistakes this one's hard cuz it's kind of a weakness offshoot right it's once again saying I'm willing to say I've made mistakes but you don't want to give something so big that they think why would we why would we bring this person in so talk about what you've learned like you have to think about it ahead of time what is a mistake I can give that's not the biggest to this job but I can show I've worked on it like I know how to find solutions to problems let's say I know my attention to detail has been bad before and so I I had a position where I did this thing and I messed up on something because I put a zero in the wrong foot like nothing huge but something that shows oh I made a mistake so what I learned was I need to prep more ahead of time and I created a checklist for myself to make sure I get every piece of the project whatever it is to show how you made the mistake and learn how to fix it for the future and then the last one tell me about yourself still seems to be tripping everybody up for some reason we all have a very hard hard time talking about ourselves so I really want you to practice how you answer tell me about yourself remember that it is not about what you think is most important its what you think is most important to them so I've been doing a lot of mock interviews lately if you didn't know that is something you can do with me there's info on that below too but I've been doing a lot of mock interviews and I always start by asking tell me about yourself and people start going off on things that they've deemed important oh I need to tell them that I did this at this company and this at this company this thing at this company and then this thing at this company and that other thing and some of them I think wait why are you telling me that right now like that's not important to me you always want to go through your work history maybe the last couple of years and tell me what you've done and one thing you learn from that job that's relevant to this job okay then you want to move on to the next thing the other issue I've seen happen is somebody will go well at this position I created this campaign and the campaign did really well and we got a lot of sales off of it and my boss really appreciated it and they said that it was a great campaign and because of that they put me in charge of 10 other campaigns above and then I'm not hearing about you I'm hearing about the campaign so don't get lost in the weeds don't start going down the rabbit hole you're gonna touch on one thing from each position hey I did this here and I think it really helped me learn blah blah blah and then I move on to this position where I was in charge of this and from that I gained yada-yada-yada and then I moved here and did this thing and from that I got this other skill and that's why I'm so excited to now be here today because this is kind of the next step in my progression love of above that like highlight next job highlight next up highlight do not get lost in the weeds of starting to tell me about a project you're no longer telling me about you you're telling me about that project so stay focused on those things and then the other part we don't get personal I don't need to hear and this how you drink iced coffee every day even though I do right don't let the mugful you it's iced I don't want to tip it possibility I don't need to hear how you love to Zumba and stand up paddleboard on weekends that is not what goes into this if they want to know that they will ask you like so just tell me about like you know what do you need to do for fun what do you see is what's what is social or like weekend's mean to you they will ask if they want to know that more personal side so don't incorporate that and then tell me about yourself oh that's a lot of things okay y'all I hope this has been helpful like I said there are more resources in the description box below as well as two videos here that's it for today please subscribe and give this one a thumbs up if you liked it and I'll see you next time bye

Channel: Cass Thompson Career Advice

Views: 51,440

Rating: 4.9460268 out of 5

Keywords: career tips, interview questions and answers, hardest interview questions, how to answer the hardest interview questions, hardest job interview questions, job interview questions and answers, interview tips, job interview, interview questions, how did you handle a difficult situation

Id: bxqNBmnCkgY

Length: 16min 44sec (1004 seconds)

Published: Tue Jun 09 2020