Answering Difficult Interview Questions

During an interview, employers are typically interested in assessing the quality of your work and the extent to which you fit with the company, the job, existing staff and customers or clients. You'll need to be prepared to back up and expand upon everything that is detailed on your resume, discuss your accomplishments and show that you have the skills needed to do an outstanding job.

There are several different types of questions that are often asked in a job interview. Understanding these questions can help you with the task of answering difficult interview questions.

Traditional Interview Questions
There are several questions that are frequently asked during job interviews. These questions are so common, that you absolutely must prepare answers to them if you want to be prepared for your job interview.

Traditional interview questions are usually open questions designed to allow you to provide a detailed answer. Some examples of common traditional interview questions are:

Tell me about yourself.
What are your greatest strengths?
What are your greatest weaknesses?
Why did you leave your last job?

Behavioral Interview Questions
Behavioral questions allow the employer to determine how you have handled certain challenging situations in the past. An example of a common behavioral question is:

Tell me about a time you dealt with a challenging client. How did you handle it?

The theory behind behavioral questions is that the best predictor of future behavior is past behavior. Employers want to hear examples of times that you effectively handled challenging work situations in order to determine whether you are prepared to handle similar challenging situations at their company.

To answer behavioral questions effectively, use the STAR interview technique.

The most common behavioral questions refer to times when you had to deal with a difficult client or customer, a challenging coworker or a challenging supervisor or boss.

Situational Interview Questions
Situational interview questions are similar to behavioral questions; however, with situational questions the employer outlines a challenging hypothetical work related situation and asks how you would handle that situation. An example of a situational interview question is:

Imagine a client comes in five minutes before the office is about to close; you are the only person in the office. They are quite distraught and need your assistance. How would you handle the situation?

Situational questions typically outline the more challenging or consequential situations that could arise on the job you are seeking. By asking this type of question, the employer is trying to determine whether you would take appropriate action in a specific situation.

If you've handled a similar situation effectively in the past, you could say so and describe how you handled it. If not, outline in detail the steps you would take to resolve the situation. Be prepared for situational questions by thinking through the most challenging situations you think would happen on the job and imagine how you'd handle those situations.

Answering difficult interview questions is a matter of good preparation. Take the time to think through the most challenging interview questions so you'll be ready to make a great impression at your next interview.