During the interview you will be asked specific questions. These questions will cover many aspects of your background and experience, your values and feelings, and your aspirations and objectives. As you know by now, the interviewer will be using open-ended questions to get you to reveal as much about yourself as possible. The more you elaborate, the more you'll reveal. The more you reveal, the more data the interviewer will have with which to judge you as a candidate. The interviewer will pursue the subject matter in depth and will be able to do so in a very effective manner.
By asking how, why, what, when, and where, all aspects of any subject can be systematically explored. To prepare for this type of in-depth questioning, you must look past the first question and be prepared for the second, third, and fourth. If the interviewer has asked for the how, you can be sure the why, what, when and where of it will follow.
You must also be able to answer all questions in a manner that indicates you have good mental effectiveness. You should have thought through your answers carefully, so they present you in the best possible light. This means you must play up your good points. You certainly don't want to reveal your bad points.
I've compiled questions that are most likely to come up during your interview and have broken them down into nine categories. These are: early childhood environment, education, job history, feelings about past jobs, feelings toward people, job objectives, your self-image, conditions of work, and miscellaneous. Within each category, I've itemized a set of questions that includes the initial question-generally an open-ended question-followed up by an in-depth probe consisting of how, why, what, when, or where. For each category I've also included the reasons behind the question. If you understand what the interviewer is after, you'll be better able to provide a positive answer. Once again, as you read the questions, formulate your own responses by carefully thinking through your own personal circumstances. Your answers should be ones you're comfortable with and ones that will prove beneficial to you and work toward your being selected for the job.
Early childhood environment
Your early home life and upbringing can provide valuable clues to an interviewer about your character, interests, motivation, values, personality, and sense of responsibility. Because this aspect of your life is personal, it's extremely difficult for an interviewer to get into; he or she must handle it with skill and sensitivity.
To further compound this subject, a number of areas are taboo, according to the Office of Equal Employment Opportunity. However, if the interviewer does get into this area, you should be prepared. Your answers must be thought out beforehand. Make sure your reactions and responses don't work against you by diminishing the rapport built up between you and the interviewer. If you're prepared beforehand, you should be able to handle any question with a solid response. Here are the questions:
- "Tell me about your home life while you were growing up."
- "What line of work was your father in?"
- "What was your father like?"
- "How many brothers and sisters do you have?"
- "How strictly were you raised?"
- "When did you get your first job?"
- "What do you feel were the effects of your early home influences?"
If you have any skeletons in your family closet, keep them there. The interview session is not a forum to air dirty linen. If your father was the town drunk who beat up your mother regularly, keep the information to yourself. Tell it to your psychiatrist, not your potential employer. Even if your father has only one positive attribute, use that one attribute to describe him. Build it up, embellish it, and make him into a super dad.
Everything else you reveal about your early childhood should indicate positive influences on your development. So what if you didn't have a paying job at age fourteen? You did chores around the house; you washed the family car; you cut the grass; you ran errands. You did a lot of positive things that molded you into the person you are today. Tell the interviewer those positive events from your early childhood; make him or her envy you.
