Answer Any Question
Focus on your objectives and the value you bring to confidently answer any question. Interviews are about more than trained template replies.
“Explain why we should hire you instead of the other candidates?”
“What are your strengths and Weaknesses?”
“Tell us about yourself.”
There are thousands of potential questions in every interview and a desire by job seekers to be able to answer “better”. This feeds a massive industry of book publishing, career coaching and blogging. Thinking about: “what you want to accomplish?” and “what value you bring?” gives you a way to answer any question rather than giving a laundry list of pre-structured question/answer pairs.
Answering any interview question starts long before the question — identify what you want out of the interview — what is the result. “A job!”. Think deeper. Would you want to work with a manager who treats you badly? A group of coworkers who gossip constantly? Doing work which isn’t satisfying? “Of course not!”. Use the interview and your answers as a platform to evaluate the company. See the discussion as one among equals.
I’ve written about using a boat to understand your motivations. I would encourage you to decide before going into any interview, “what do I want to accomplish during this interview?”.
Ask yourself these questions -
How do I want to feel during these interactions?
What do I want to understand about the company, manager, team?
Why do I want to attend this interview?
When would I know this is the right company for me?
You will end up with a personal interest paragraph similar to this:
“I want to feel positive, challenged and respected during the interview. I need to understand what the values of the company are and how managers and the team actually deliver those values within their work through actual examples and behaviours. I want to attend this interview as I like the company brand and am interested in the core technologies. I will know this is the right role/company for me when I see the challenge of the role and the feeling “clicks” with the team.”
Then you will want to design a value proposition statement around the value you can add to the business when they hire you.
Answer these questions to build a value proposition -
What do other people say you consistently do well?
What do you want to continue to do/build on?
What can you contribute to this role/company/team?
What are you learning/developing?
You will be able to create a value proposition like this:
“I’ve consistently delivered end-to-end project operational excellence across multiple technologies, industries and teams. The people I work with regularly feedback that I’m great at cutting to the point, finding the key issues and driving to an agreed outcome on schedule and under budget. I want to contribute to meaningful projects where I can directly be responsible for and influence outcomes. I can contribute to your company with project delivery and ownership where timelines and outcomes are critical. I’m developing my expertise in coding and system architecture so I can better understand the technical teams that I work with.”
With these two paragraphs, you can answer any general interview question. Specific skill test questions or employment questions are simply a more detailed expansion on the points you have highlighted in these two paragraphs.
It also offers you a framework to fall-back on if you are asked questions which you aren’t sure how to respond to. Like “if I put you on a desert island, who would you kill and eat first?” Just fall back on “I can’t say for sure. Given my focus on operational excellence, I’m sure that I would be able to do it in a painless, well planned and executed manner.”
This article was based in part on my answers to multiple Quora questions over the years:
First posted on LinkedIn on 07/07/2017.