While an interviewer could ask you anything, chances are most of the questions they will ask are common to all interviews. Here is a list of the most common interview questions and how to answer them. Practice answering each of them as you prepare to have your next great interview.
- Tell me about yourself / run me through your resume
- Why are you interested in working for this company?
- Where do you see yourself in 5 years? 10 years?
- Why are you leaving your current company?
- Why were you fired, let go, or laid off?
- What are your salary requirements?
- Tell me about a time you made a mistake?
- Tell me about a time you disagreed with your boss?
- What are your strengths?
- What are your weaknesses?
- What were your boss’s strengths and weaknesses?
- How would you fire someone?
- What questions haven’t I asked you?
- What questions do you have for me?
Tell me about yourself / run me through your resume
Start by speaking about your current job. Explain the scope and include an accomplishment or two.
Follow that up with how you got there and explain any relevant experience. Finally, connect your answer back to the job you’re applying for.
The formula is straightforward: present, past, and future. It’s so simple that most people fail to adequately prepare their answers and ultimately do a substandard job. Every hiring manager will ask some form of this question, so take the time to prepare.
Check out our article Tell Me About Yourself – An In-depth Interview Guide to Answering Well
Why are you interested in working for this company?
Answering this question well is all about research and specifics. If your answer could apply to any other company, you haven’t answered the question well enough. Use one of the following prompts to craft your response to this common question:
- Point to something that makes the company unique.
- Talk about how much the company has grown and changed.
- Talk about future opportunities for the company and explain how you would contribute.
- Share information about any interactions you’ve already had with employees.
Where do you see yourself in 5 years? 10 years?
Don’t tell your boss that you see yourself in his position. That will come off arrogant at best and threatening at worst.
Instead, keep it more general. Perhaps you see yourself getting into management. Or maybe you see yourself taking on increasingly complicated work.
In ten years, maybe you want to open your own company. You could also say you want to find a company where you’ll still be working there in ten years, not in the same position, but you want to grow with the company. Any answer that shows loyalty, initiative, or growth will serve you well, but remember to keep it general.
Why are you leaving your current company?
Always keep your answer to this question positive. This is not the time to vent about your crappy boss and terrible benefits. Talk about how this new job fits your career path and focus on the future opportunities it enables.
Of course, if your last employer let you go, your answer will be different.
Keep it short and sweet. Be honest that you were let go (aka fired) or laid off. Then be prepared to answer the inevitable follow-up question.
Why were you fired, let go, or laid off?
If you were fired, you’ll want to reframe this as a learning experience.
Example answer: Sometimes, it can be hard to admit your shortcomings or even realize they exist. I had a hard time juggling my work life vs. my home life and wasn’t performing at the level I should have been. So I’ve taken advantage of the time off to work on my organization and planning at home. Everything is in order now, and I’m ready to perform even better now.
If your last employer laid you off, your answer is straightforward. Just tell them precisely what happened; no reframing needed.
Example answer. My company restructured, and unfortunately, they eliminated my position.
What are your salary requirements?
There are two ways to answer this question. If you’ve done the research, you can give a number.
You’ll want to check sites like Glass Door or Payscale as a basis for the fair range. Always shoot for the higher end of the scale, but let the hiring manager know it’s negotiable. But if you are still unsure what number to give, you can choose to defer to later.
Example (answer): Not knowing the benefit costs or bonus structures, I’m looking for somewhere around $105,000 for the annual salary.
Example (defer): Before answering that question, I’d really like to understand more about the position’s details and the benefits offered. All of those things have value to me and would affect my answer.
Tell me about a time you made a mistake?
This question is about self-awareness and the desire to be better. Search your career history for a great example that shows you learned a lesson and took action to ensure the mistake never happens again. Everyone makes mistakes, but not everyone grows from them, so take this opportunity to prove you’re different.
Tell me about a time you disagreed with your boss?
You can describe a time where you disagreed and handled it in a very professional manner. Or you can frame the disagreement as a time where you learned something important.
What are your strengths?
Use this question to showcase your strengths and relate them to the position. Connecting them back to the job is the part that most people forget to do when answering this question, so don’t just ramble off a list of a dozen unrelated qualities. Instead, pick the strongest one or two, and make them more memorable by incorporating a story of how you’ve used that strength in your previous positions.
What are your weaknesses?
The interviewer is trying to evaluate your self-awareness.
Try to find something that you are actively working on improving and share what you are doing. It could be a fear of public speaking that you are working on getting over by regularly volunteering to present at meetings. Or it could be that you have a terrible memory, so you obsessively take notes and regularly organize them into to-do lists.
Whatever you decide on, never say you have no weaknesses. If you genuinely believe that, then your answer to this question is arrogance, which is also a terrible answer.
What were your boss’s strengths and weaknesses?
Interviewers use this question to evaluate your loyalty and also your honesty. You don’t want to be overly critical, but you want to be honest about flaws. It’s also an excellent way for your potential new boss to determine if you’d be a good fit to work with them. If you list your previous bosses micromanagement of staff as a negative and the new boss shares this flaw, you probably won’t get the job. But who wants to have a micromanager as a boss anyway.
It pays to be honest here.
How would you fire someone?
Answering this question well is about finding balance between being caring about employees and understanding the importance of firing underperformers. It’s also about showing that you have a rational process.
Example answer: Before we ever got to the firing part, I’d make sure that the employee had a clear understanding of my expectations and that I shared their performance relative to those expectations on a regular basis. For anything where they were underperforming, I’d create a performance improvement plan with milestones that they needed to achieve. If they fell short on those milestones, I’d initiate the process for termination with HR. If I were to ask them during their termination, “Do you know why you’re here?” and assuming they were honest, my goal is for their answer always to be yes.
What questions haven’t I asked you?
This is your opportunity to highlight anything you didn’t get a chance to say in the interview already. It takes some skill to answer well, but you’re in full control to make your answer great. I often like to focus on the goals that I have. It moves the conversation to the future, which often isn’t discussed enough during interviews. If you already discussed your goals and plans, consider picking something fun like the last few books you’ve read. Give a fiction book to show some personality and a non-fiction book to show that you’re consistently trying to improve yourself.
What questions do you have for me?
Interviews are conversations. If you haven’t had an opportunity to get any of your questions answered yet, now is your chance. You should have a list of questions prepared before the interview. If anything you spoke about previously sparked a new question, you can also bring it up now. Just don’t make the mistake of saying you have no questions. This is likely the last question the interviewer will ask you, so use this opportunity to direct the conversation for a little and end on a high note.
Check out our article on Great Questions to Ask During an Interview
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