Questions To Prepare Before An Interview
*This is a collaborative post but all thoughts and words on questions to prepare before an interview are my own
Everyone will have had to go through interviews in their life. Either for a brand new job in another company, or for a promotion or new role in your current company. For me interviews are quite scary as I’m still working on my public speaking. And I’m not the most confident of people, although I’m working really hard on this. The biggest thing about going for an interview is being prepared as much as possible. It doesn’t matter how good your CV is. Or how good any task you may have done is. This is the place to sell yourself and your skills and if you don’t nail this the rest of the work won’t matter.
There can be a lot of stress leading up to an interview. It might be thinking about your route (when it’s safe to travel for interview) such as trains to Cambridge, or trains into central London. Being prepared is a great way to help reduce the stress you feel. Here are some questions to prepare before an interview to make sure you’re as ready as you can be.
Questions to prepare before an interview: About you
When you’re interviewing for a brand new company it’s important to prepare for the question: What do you know about the company? Remember some key facts about what they do, any accomplishments or achievements they’ve made and show your passion for the brand/ company. You’re not expected to know everything, but if you want to work there you need to know some background. Google the company and see what news articles come up. Check out the brands social media and dig into that.
One question which is almost certain to come up is: Why do you want this role? Almost everyone will know that money will play a factor into some job roles, but think about the deeper why. Try and come up with something which isn’t too negative about your current/ previous work, even if you hated it and want to get away. Maybe it’s for a new challenge, maybe you want to build your skills against the role you’ve applied for, or maybe it’s just something you know you’d enjoy. This is one of those questions to prepare before an interview so you’re not caught off guard.
Now most of us think about potential strengths and weaknesses, but I’d say think of three of each. I was almost caught out with this as I had two of each in my mind but struggled to think of a third. Try and think of strengths which are more unique to you, but also would be relevant to the role you’ve applied for. And for weaknesses you can also talk about what you’re doing to try and get better at them. How you’re trying to get them away from being a weakness.
Questions to prepare before an interview: Example based
From my experience example based questions will appear a lot about an interview. They’re a good way for people to find out how your brain works, and how you react in real life situations. The type of examples you may be asked to provide may differ depending on the exact role you’re applying for but some example questions to prepare before an interview include:
- Examples of how you’ve worked well within a team
- An example of when you’ve had to make a difficult decision
- Examples of when you may have made a mistake and how you handled it
- An Example of how you’ve managed stakeholders
- Examples of how you’ve dealt with being under pressure
- An Example of how you manage deadlines and what you’d do if you couldn’t meet one
Prepare your questions for them
Questions to prepare before an interview shouldn’t just be questions to you. You should also prepare some questions to ask the people interviewing you. It always looks good to have thought of some questions about the role, company or team you’d be a part of. Some of the questions you could ask include:
- What is the culture like at XX?
- What is your favourite thing about working for XX?
- Are there any particular systems or software I’d be using?
- What would success in the job look like in the first 6 months?
Do you always feel fully prepared before interviews?
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20 responses to “Questions To Prepare Before An Interview”
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All About Me
Rhian Westbury
Travels and Destinations
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One of my favourite questions is ‘How would you describe an average day for this role?’ it really helps me to understand what they are looking for, what the role actually would be and to help me decide if the role is for me.
Yes that’s a great one too, it helps you know if it’s quite scheduled and rigid or different things each day/ week x
This a great post and super helpful too, interviews always make me super nervous but your definitely right that preparation is key! If you arrive at an interview flustered and unprepared it doesn’t exactly give off the right image you want to portray!
This is agreat post for anyone preparing for an interview. I used to interbiewmany years ago and was shocked at how unprepared some people were.
Yeah, especially for the basic questions like what can you bring to the team etc x
I think having relevant examples of situations where you demonstrated specific skills is the key to a successful interview
This is really useful, I always like to be really prepared before an interview. Researching the company is always good and having some practised answers will help you feel less nervous.
Some people are confident, but a lot of us do get nervous by interviews so having some bits pre-prepared is really important x
This is such a useful post . You will be so surprised to know that so many people have not researched the company before they go to the interview.
I did so much research before my current job but they never even asked me about it, I was kinda gutted actually haha x
Some great advice here. I know plenty of people who are having online interviews at the moment so this is really helpful.
There are some great tips here, preparing for an interview can be super stressful and if you have planned some potential answers in advance it can really help!
I has been quite a while since I have been for an interview so it is nice to be refreshed with how to prepare for it. Thanks for the tips.
Now is the perfect time for interview preparation. there are some really good tips here too for sure x
These are great tips – I never ever feel fully prepared for an interview! It has been ten years since my last one now so I’d definitely be incredibly rusty anyway!
Having being self-employed since I was 19, I’ve never had to prepare for an interview. However as my eldest is currently looking at changing his job, these look like great tips to pass along.
Yeah it’s so strange now as a lot of people might not ever have an interview due to the nature of their work x
I try to prepare for interviews but I always feel like a nervous wreck when I’m there.
I haven’t had a proper interview for years! I used to do interviews at my old company and the amount of people who knew nothing about the company was outstanding, even just a couple of facts would be enough
It is crazy how many people just rock up thinking it’s enough and don’t research at all. It doesn’t make you feel they want the job, they just want a job x