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March 18, 2022
There are some interview questions that come up time and time again, and they never fail to trip you up. Knowing how to answer tricky interview questions is a key interview skill, and it all starts with preparation. If you’ve already had a chance to formulate an answer to these questions in advance, you’ll be far more confident in your delivery.
Remember that preparation can only get you so far; you also need to be able to think on your feet. While a second of silence can feel like an eternity when you’re on the spot, the interviewer will appreciate it if you take a moment to think. You can also ask them to repeat the question if you aren’t sure what to say. And failing that, simply take a sip of water to give yourself time to formulate your answer.
The following questions are 6 very common yet very difficult questions to answer. Employers know they’re difficult, so they aren’t looking for perfect answers. In many cases, they are simply looking to see how you think on your feet. We’ve shared a few tips on what interviewers are looking for and how you might answer these tough questions.
This is such a broad question that it can lead many people to ramble. They aren’t asking for your life story, they are simply asking for your elevator pitch. This is a short summary of your work experience and education. You might also include information about what brings you to this point in your career and what you are hoping to achieve next.
When answering this question, you should be honest but not too honest. For example, employers don’t want to know that you’re always late or you can be lazy, even if this is true. Instead, they want to see that you are self-aware, able to reflect on your performance and actively learning from your shortcomings.
For example, you might say that your weakness is that you get excited to share in meetings, but that you have been told that sometimes you interrupt people. You would then outline the steps you are taking to be able to bring that same level of excitement without cutting off your colleagues in the process.
If you left your previous role on bad terms, it can be tempting to trash talk your old employer, but don’t fall into this trap. Always remain positive when talking about previous employers, and highlight things that are easily remedied when asked to mention something you disliked.
For example, instead of saying that you didn’t get along with your coworkers, you could say that the team dynamic didn’t work very well and there were clashing personalities. Or instead of saying that you didn’t like the high staff turnover, you could say that frequent changes in staffing made it difficult to form bonds with your co-workers.
This is another broad question that can be difficult to answer. All they are really asking is for you to demonstrate that you are familiar with the job description and that your experience is ideally suited to the role. Try to match key competencies with examples of times when you have demonstrated these skills.
For example, you might mention that you have proven experience increasing website traffic by 25% year-on-year in a previous role and that this knowledge and experience would come in useful when developing an SEO strategy for this company.
Saying that you don’t get stressed is not as impressive as you might think. Instead, it’s better to acknowledge that you get stressed and that you know what steps you need to take to limit how this impacts you. Accepting that stress is a normal part of working life is far better than trying to deny that it exists at all.
For example, you might say that you like to stay organised to help limit the impact of stress on your working day. You might also say that when you feel stress is becoming overpowering, you take a step back and assess the situation to find the source of the stress. You then break down what needs to be done to remedy this into smaller steps so that you can tackle it without feeling overwhelmed.
No one likes to talk about their failures, particularly in an interview, but interviewers love this question for obvious reasons. It forces you to think about a situation that you have learned from. You shouldn’t share something that was a complete disaster and you took nothing from it. Instead, you should think about a situation where something went wrong, but you used it as a learning opportunity.
For example, you might say that you were involved in a project and your part of the work was delivered late. Rather than ask for help, you tried to get it finished alone and this resulted in the entire project being pushed back. You learned that communication is key when working with others and implemented a weekly check-in with your team to make it easier for you and your colleagues to share important updates. You might also mention that you haven’t delivered a project late since this time.
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