How many times have you walked out of an interview (or today, ended the Zoom call) and wished you would have said something else or used a different example as an answer?
Practicing interview questions is one of the top interview preparation tactics that will help you land the job. It is natural to need time to self-reflect on past skills and sort through the tenure of your experience to highlight the best answers in an interview.
This article provides sample interview questions to help you self-reflect and bring the best examples to the forefront to use in the interview!
Sample Interview Questions
1. Tell me about yourself.
2. Tell me what cultivated your interest in __(field, role, industry)___.
3. How have you've demonstrated initiative?
4. What do you know about our company?
5. Why do you want this job?
6. Why should we hire you?
7. What are your greatest professional strengths and weaknesses?
8. What is your greatest professional achievement?
9. Where would this position fit into your career development goals?
10. Tell me about a challenge or conflict you’ve faced at work. How was it resolved?
11. When you worked on multiple projects, how did you prioritize?
12. What are you looking for in a new position?
13. How would your colleagues describe you in one word?
14. Describe a major challenge facing your major/industry today?
15. What are your short-term and long-term goals?
16. What can you do for us that other candidates can’t?
17. Give an example of a time you felt you went above and beyond at work.
18. Are you willing to relocate?
19. Tell me about a time you missed a deadline.
20. Where would you like to be in your career 5 years from now?
21. What attracted you to this company?
22. When were you most satisfied with your job?
23. What is your greatest failure, and what did you learn from it?
24. What is the most difficult decision you’ve made in the last two years, and how did you come to that decision?
25. Why did you leave your last job?
26. Do you consider yourself successful?
27. What have you learned from mistakes on the job?
28. Discuss your resume.
29. How can you contribute to our team?
30. Scenario: you are working on a large team project that a colleague of yours is leading. The team lead has been unreceptive to feedback and not sharing details of the project. What would you do?
31. Is there anything that is not on your resume that you feel is important for us to know?
32. Tell us about a time you provided feedback to a peer?
33. How do you stay up to date in your industry?
34. Some of the best ideas are born out of an individual’s ability to challenge others’ thinking ways. Tell me about a time when you were successful in doing this.
35. What are your salary expectations?
36. Tell me about a time when you disagreed with your boss.
37. What professional development activities have you been involved in over the past few years?
38. What was the best constructive criticism you've ever received?
39. Describe a time you solved a technical problem?
40. Tell me a few things about you that are not reflected in your resume?
41. When you worked on multiple projects, how did you prioritize?
42. Scenario: You are given multiple projects with competing deadlines. How would you go about handling this situation?
43. Do you have any questions?
Quick Interview Tips
Always have at least three questions prepared to ask the interviewer. Draft questions that you cannot find the answer to in the job description or on the company's website.
You control the pace of the interview. It is okay to take a moment to think about the question and provide the best answer.
Not all interview questions have a right or wrong answer. However, all interview questions have an intention. For example, interviewers will ask a general question such as "tell us about yourself" to see if you can form a specific answer from a general question.