Questions You Should be Able to Answer

The key to success or failure in a competitive employment interview often hinges on how you answer five questions, says Challenger. Those questions and why your answers are important to the interviewer are shown below.

• "Why are you interested in us?" Most jobs that job seekers accept have not been publicized and may not even have been created yet when the job seeker comes to call. Rather than answer how you can fit in, tell the interviewer how good you are at what you do and demonstrate that you are so well qualified that the company cannot do without you. Let them figure out how you can best fit into their plans.
  
• "Tell me about your current and previous employers." Don't criticize current or former employers because it will reflect unfavorably on you. But don't go to the other extreme and give your superiors all the credit for your professional development. Take as much credit for what you've done as you can. This is what impresses the interviewer.
  
• "Tell me about your strengths and weaknesses." Concentrate on the strengths and avoid the weaknesses. Even a seemingly harmless statement such as "lack of patience with inefficiency" is dangerous.
  
  
  
• It From a press release, June 25, 1984. This comment and Challenger's list of the five questions you should be able to answer are still valid today.
  
• Can be read as a sign that you have a quick temper, are hard on subordinates or can't handle a difficult situation without losing your cool.
  
• "What are the best and worst aspects of your present (or last) job?" As far as you are concerned, there are no worst aspects. It is much better to talk in terms of the challenges that confronted you and what you did to meet those challenges.
  
• "Tell me something about yourself." Responding correctly to this directive is very important to your success. Think in terms of what the interviewer wants to hear. He or she wants to know how good you are, but also if there is anything about you that could cause problems. Tell about all the good stuff, and avoid the latter.
  

Challenger's questions are the easy ones. As an unemployed older executive, the toughest questions are those that go for the jugular the questions that show age bias or touch an emotional nerve say, why you're not currently employed.

The preceding questions are general and could be asked in interviews with applicants for almost any job. You will also be asked questions to elicit more details about the information, achievements, job responsibilities and duties you listed on your resume. Many of these will be strictly job related questions. A person applying for a sales position, for example, might be asked questions such as:

• What kind of products and services have you sold before?
  
• What were your typical customers like?
  
• How would you go about selling our products (or services) to a typical customer?
  
• Which type of selling gives you a greater satisfaction: frequent small successes or many turn downs followed by a really big success?
  
• Do you think selling requires better health than inside work?
  

Your ground is safer on job related questions. You can answer the questions in a straightforward manner, without feeling trapped. Answer both the general questions and the specific job related questions according to your analysis of your interviewer. If you think your interviewer is a High D or High I, use a broad brush in your responses. Offer detail only if you are asked for more. With a High S or High C, respond fully and in detail from the beginning. A High S or High C considers broad brush responses to be dissembling.

Following are questions that you might expect to be asked on an interview. Develop a good answer for each of these questions. Most of them are "loaded," even those that seem straightforward.

Related to your last or current job:

• Why did you decide to leave your present (last) job?
  
• What are some of the things that your company might have done to be more successful?
  
• Describe a typical day in your last job.
  
• What is (was) your boss's title, and what are (were) his/her functions?
  
• What did you do on your last job (current job) to make yourself more effective?
  
• What kind of references do you think your previous employers will give you? Why?
  
• How do you explain the diversity of jobs that you've held? The positions don't seem to be in a logical progression.
  
• How did you like working for your last employer?
  
• Where do you think the power comes from (came from) in your organization? Why?
  
• How long have you been out of work now?
  
• What suggestions did you make in your last job to cut costs, increase profits, improve morale, increase output, etc.? What results did you get, and how did you go about getting them? What were you proudest of?

Whatever you do, be positive. Do not bad mouth the company, your boss or other staff members. Try to have some plausible, positive reason why you left: You were looking for a position with more of a challenge; you were interested in making a career change; the company was in financial difficulties and was reorganizing. As a highly paid executive, I was expendable.

You can be very positive about this. You might discuss retargeting your marketing efforts, developing new products, tighten up on purchasing, etc. If asked, why didn't you do these things, your response should be that you did, but not soon enough. In some of the areas, I did not have responsibilities which would have enabled me to do these things.

Choose a day where you had a number of high level, executive actions, with decisions to make.

The questioner is trying to find out if you in fact did the job you claimed to have done. If your boss did not have a title that was commensurate with what he or she actually did, give the title one level higher (if you know in detail what they did). This may have been the person you really reported to, anyway.

Describe training, schooling, seminars, the books and journals you regularly read, the professional societies to which you belong.