Career Guru India

Typical questions at traditional interviews:

Questions about yourself: your background and your future ambitions:

• Tell me about yourself
• Why did you choose the University of Gujarat / your degree subject?
• Explaining gaps on your Application Form. - e.g. year out; unemployment; travel
• How would the experiences you describe be useful in this company?
• What are your main strengths and weaknesses?
• What other jobs/careers are you applying for?
• Where do you see yourself in five years time? (This is quite a common question: read the employer's brochure to get an idea of the normal pace of graduate career development. Be ambitious but realistic)
• Tell me about your vacation work/involvement with student societies/sporting activities

Questions about your knowledge of the employer, or career area:

• Why do you want to work for us?
• Why have you chosen to apply for this job function?
• Who do you think are, or will be, our main competitors?
• What do you think makes you suitable for this job?
• What do you see as the main threats or opportunities facing the company?
• What image do you have of this company?

Avoid simple "yes" or "no" answers –
if you are asked a closed question, open it up, as in the following example:

Interviewer: "So you're studying History at the Gujarat University?"

Interviewee: "Yes, I've found it a very interesting because..."

Give answers which are relevant and illustrated with examples:

Interviewer: "This is a job with a very heavy workload. Do you think you could cope with that?"

Interviewee: "Well, during my final year I've had a great deal of academic work and I've also been working three nights a week at my bar job and kept up my involvement with the squash club. All that has meant that I've had to be very organized but I've never missed an evening's work or an essay deadline and I reached the semi-final of the squash tournament too!"

Hypothetical questions

Some interviewers like to pose hypothetical questions, or questions that you could not be expected to have anticipated. These questions are used precisely because it's impossible to work out your answer before the interview, thus it tests your ability to think quickly, reason logically, and produce practical solutions.

You may be given an example of a situation that might arise in your work, and asked what you would do about it:

• "How would you deal with a staff member caught stealing a packet of biscuits from the warehouse?"
• "How would you deal with an irritated customer?"
• "Your manager goes ill for a week and leaves you in charge. You hear staff complaining about the way he runs things, and how bored they are with their job - what do you do?"
• "The sales of ‘XYZ’ are falling - what would you do to revive them?"

Sometimes questions may be about non-work situations:

• What is the future of our Indian Cricket Team?
• "How would you solve Ahmedabad's traffic problems?"

Don't panic! Don't try to blurt out your answer. Take a few seconds to think - this shows confidence and assertiveness rather than weakness.

Don't try to form your whole answer immediately - just try to say one or two sensible things first - in the example above, you could say that first you would examine the Traffic problem to see how bad it is. This gives you time to think further.

There may be many possible solutions to the problem. The interviewer won't be expecting a perfect answer. What you actually say in answer doesn't matter, so long as it sounds reasonable, confident and well-thought-out and you show awareness of the issues involved.

How many interviewers will there be?

One-to-one interviews are the most common. In this situation your interviewer is most likely to be somebody from the Personnel department but, especially in a smaller company, may be from the area of work for which you are applying.

Two-to-one interviews may involve both a Personnel and a line manager. This can be trickier for the interviewee as the questions seem to come faster, giving you less time to collect your thoughts between different topics. Don't get flustered.

Panel interviews could involve a panel of half-a-dozen or so interviewers. They are relatively rare but are most likely to be found in the public sector. Direct your attention to whoever is speaking: when answering questions, begin by directing your answer to the person who asked the question, but try and include the panel as a whole.

Questions you can ask

• Keep them brief: there may be other interviewees waiting.
• Ask about the work itself, training and career development: not about holidays, pensions, and season ticket loans.
• Prepare some questions in advance: it is OK to write these down and to refer to your notes to remind yourself of what you wanted to ask.

It often happens that, during the interview, all the points that you had noted down to ask about will be covered before you get to this stage. In this situation, you can respond as follows:

Interviewer: Well, that seems to have covered everything:
Is there anything you would like to ask me?

Interviewee: Thank you: I'd made a note to ask about your appraisal system and the study arrangements for professional exams, but we went over those earlier and I really feel you've covered everything that I need to know at this moment. You can also use this opportunity to tell the interviewer anything about yourself that they have not raised during the interview but which you fell is important to your application:

Don't feel you have to wait until this point to ask questions - if the chance to ask a question seems to arise naturally in the course of the interview, take it! Remember that a traditional interview is a conversation - with a purpose.