TOP INTERVIEW QUESTIONS AND BEST ANSWERS

Where do you see yourself in five years?

Employers don’t necessarily care to hear that you expect to climb the corporate ladder and be a supervisor. If the job you’re interviewing for is not a supervisor, they probably aren’t concerned about your management skills. You can share how you’ve been a mentor to others and led projects with little to no supervision. That should indicate you have leadership potential.

Focus on them: In five years, you should have made a significant impact to the company’s bottom line. Think about how you can achieve this in the role you’re interviewing for. In technology careers, advancing your skills is important, too. You should be able to share what areas you want to strengthen in the near term (but be careful that they are not areas of expertise that the company needs now).

Why should we hire you?

This is a differentiation question. What you want to tell them is: they’d be crazy not to they hire you.

Focus on them: You need to not only share how you meet almost all the criteria they seek, but also have two to three additional abilities that they might not even know they need…yet. They need to know you are a candidate who can meet their needs now, but also be valuable for where they want to go. Are they likely to need another skill set as they grow as a company? Or maybe you have skills that you noticed are in another job description they are looking to fill; you can help out with those deliverables until they find someone (or be a backup to the person they hire).

How well do you work in a team?

Almost everyone says yes to this question. But you need to need support this with examples.

A sample answer: “Yes, I’m very much a team player. In fact, I’ve had opportunities in my work, school and athletics to develop my skills as a team player. For example, on a recent project…”

Talk about the strength of the team above the individual. And note that this question helps the interviewer know how will you resolve a conflict in a team in case it arises.

“Do you have any questions for me?”

Depending on the rounds of interviews, ask at least 1 question about what they envision you doing at their company. You need an idea of their expectations of you there.

Ask about their tech stack.

How old is the codebase?

Are you agile? waterfall?

release cycles?

Anything to understand their day to day activites.

If you are in round 2 or 3 of the interview process and they ask this question again I would state that all your questions were answered by (insert previous interviewers name) and that anything else will be answered once you look under the hood.

“Why our company?”

This i rarely see unless it is a startup. If you “REALLY” want this startup, I hope you saw some future with it and state as such. eg: This looks awesome, and I envision you guys being the uber of greyhound buses or something of the like. I only got this question early in my career. Now a days, they gotta pitch me their company. Ive seen it all. Startup, fortune 5 and anywhere inbetween. If you are truly senior and in high demand this question is rarely asked.

Beyond these questions will be technical ones related to your field. Ive seen some whack questions when a job first opens up. Avoid interviewing if the position just opened up and the company is mid sized. They are gonna ask some stupid questions no one knows, and then back off once no one can answer them. Usually after a week they will set the bar a bit lower. Unfortunately they usually pass on a person that was an almost perfect fit and settle for someone mediocre just to fill the seat.

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