Interviewers can obtain factual information about you through simple, direct questions. They must avoid asking questions that would put them in violation of the law. However, some interviewers may not be aware of what the law allows or does not allow, and that can pose some difficult choices for the candidate.
Your Opinions and Viewpoints
Interviewers will also want to know your positions on various issues, particularly those that may affect their organizations. Although your responses in those areas may have little bearing on what you will do on the job, the interviewer will be hoping to learn more about how you might deal with issues once you're hired. Regrettably, few line executives who interview are so well trained that they can interpret your answers effectively to see how the views you express might apply to issues in a broader sense.
Typical questions in this area might have to do with your belief systems. They could include: "Legislation that would affect your field of employment has been proposed. What do you think of it?" "What about ethics in business really turns you off?" "Where do you stand on the issue of foreign competition?"
Your Temperament or Personality
In this area, interviewers will seek to find out where you fit in. They may want to know whether you are oriented more toward Approach, meaning that you prefer to work with people, or more toward Avoidance, meaning that you prefer to work alone.
Numerous lists of personality types are used to describe managers, but these types seem to come up most frequently: analyzer, balancer, blamer, boss, catalyst, computer, collector, compiler, compromiser, destroyer, detailer, director, distracter, dominator, facilitator, influencer, justifier, leveler, overseer, placater, planner, relater, socializer, stabilizer, and thinker.
The labels are self-explanatory, but they are simply that: labels. In an employment interview, the potential employer may want to put you on a particular shelf. Everyone likes to know where things, including people, fit into his or her life.
However, this kind of labeling in particular is distortive and fails to take into account what the candidate might be like in less stressful situations: how he or she might come across on the job.
It is important to keep in mind; however, that sorting by personality types does not mean pigeonholing. It will best serve an interviewer who is willing (and has the skills) to continue to monitor and check observations as the interview progresses. Few interviewers may be able to do that.
Still other interviewers may attempt to sort their candidates more specifically by traits, labels that would tell them more about the applicant's temperament. Lists of such traits, and methods for arriving at them, are endless. Once again, however, one would have to question the average interviewer's skill and qualifications for conducting such testing—even through an interview.
Nonetheless, the people who interview you will want to know what makes you tick, what you might be like on the job. They will gather this information in the best way they know how: through their own personal filters, which may not provide accurate readings.
The solution, if there is one? Just be the best that you know how to be. Don't try to second-guess, and don't try to pretend to be something you're not. In the long run, your honesty will take you through the door into the position that is right for you.
Down to Specifics
Sooner or later, the business aspect of every interview comes down to this: the questions you are likely to be asked and how you will answer them. If you regard all questions as opportunities, you'll be most likely to have a successful interview no matter what subjects are raised and no matter how the questions are phrased.
Since the legality of a given question may depend on varying state laws, who is asking the question, why the information may be needed, and the way the question is phrased, I have included "questionable" questions so they don't come as a surprise later on.
