SOME TYPICAL QUESTIONS ASKED BY
INTERVIEWERS
1. Tell me about yourself! 10. Why have you chosen this job/career?
2. Tell me about your course! 11. What alternatives did you have and how did you
3. What subject have you enjoyed/disliked most … compare them?
why? 12. Why do you consider you would be particularly
4. What subjects are you best/worst at … why? suited to this job/career?
5. What project work have you done? 13. Why do you want to join this organization?
6. Why did you choose to read for a degree in …? 14. What would you like to be doing in five years
7. Why did you choose the University? time?
8. I see you had to resit in … why was that? 15. What attracts you to your hobbies?
9. What do you think you learned from your 16. What do you see as your strengths/weaknesses?
vacation jobs? 17. Do you have any questions?
Perhaps the question that many find most daunting is the completely open-ended question such as “Tell me about yourself”.
It will help enormously in answering this question if you have decided beforehand those key components of your self-assessment
and other information submitted in your application which are most likely to generate employer interest, and concentrate on
those in your answer.
Focus on two or three points only, i.e. those which advance your case most strongly. Avoid the temptation simply to outline life
history in chronological order from primary school … much of that is likely to be irrelevant to the job you are applying for.
Another demanding question designed to assess your quick-thinking abilities is of the type “How would you solve this problem”.
Here again, if you have done your homework properly and have some feel for the kinds of problems encountered in the
organisation, you should then be able to indicate how you would set about finding the answer. Remember the questioner is much
more interested in the logical method you adopt to tackle the problem, than in the viability of your solution: indeed there may be
no “right” answer. It will also help if you could think of and discuss a similar problem encountered from within your own personal
experience.
SOME QUESTIONS YOU MAY WISH TO ASK THE INTERVIEWER
Although you will be doing most of the answering, nevertheless be prepared to ask questions and try to find out what would
happen if you were to join the organisation – where you would be working, which projects, how much training and so on (do not
ask about holidays, the pension scheme, etc. – leave that ‘till later). Questions might be:
1. The Organisation: What are its major current projects 4. The Location: Where would you be and for how long?
and likely future developments (areas of expansion How much travel, mobility required?
and contraction)? 5. Salary and Prospects: Approximate starting salaries
2. The Work and Training: What would you be doing, and and likely progression over next few years. What has
for how long? Variety of work and typical project happened to recent graduates who joined them?
timescales, deadlines, pressures. What training would 6. General Way of Life: Where do recent graduates live,
you receive and what assistance towards obtaining a cost of living, amenities, limits on free time?
professional qualification?
3. Colleagues: Who would you be working with – the
extent of contact with others outside and inside the
organisation?