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               INTERVIEW QUESTIONS

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Interviews are conducted in different manners depending on the level of the job for which you are applying and the recruitment style of the company.  The two main styles of interviews are:

Type 1: The unstructured interview
This is the normal interview, where candidates are asked questions of a general nature and are expected to respond in a way that they feel appropriate. The final call in terms of suitability of the candidate is often left to the judgement of the interviewers.

Type 2: The structured interview (also called competency-based interview)
Structured interviews are interviews whereby the interviewers have clearly identified the skills required to carry out the job for which you are applying and are asking specific questions about the skills involved.  The questions call for examples of situations in which the candidate has used the relevant skill.

• A typical Type 1 question would be "How do you rate your communication skills and how do you feel they could be improved?"

• A Type 2 question would be along the lines "Describe a situation where you used your communication skills to achieve a particular outcome against all odds"

If you require more information about competency-based interviews, click here.

Generally speaking, recruiters tend to favour Type 1 interviews with a few Type 2 questions thrown in (this is because pure competency-based interviews are very difficult to set up since a thorough analysis of the job is required in order to ascertain which questions would best help select the right candidate).

You will find below a substantial list of questions for both types of interviews. All questions originate from real recent interviews.

TYPE 1 (Unstructured interview) QUESTIONS

• Tell us about yourself

• What made you choose this career?

• What is your career ambition?

• Why should you be given the job over another candidate?

• Where do you see yourself in 3/5/10 years’ time?

• Take me through your CV.

• If you were to start your career again what would you change?

• Tell us about your best/worst manager.

• Tell us about your best/worst colleague.

• What makes a successful doctor/lawyer/secretary, etc? [depending on your profession]

• What are your main strengths?

• What is your main weakness?

• Give us three adjectives that describe you best.

• Why do you want to join our company?

• Why do you want to leave your current job?

• What concerns you about the job?

• What do you think will be your biggest challenge in this job?

• What makes a good team player?

• What makes a good leader?

• What makes a good team?

• What is the difference between a manager and a leader?

• How would you describe your management style?

• How would you handle a non-performing colleague?

• What would you do if you noticed one of your colleagues getting stressed?

• How would you react if one of your colleagues was about to do something that might be detrimental to the company?

• How do you measure success?

• How would your manager motivate you?

• I am worried about your lack of experience.

• What skills do you need to develop most?

• Do you work better as part of a team or alone?

• What job have you particularly liked/disliked?

• How do you handle stress?

• How do you handle pressure?

• What difficult decisions have you made?

• Do you enjoy working?

• What would you do in life if money was no concern?

• What concerns you about this job?

• Tell us about your management experience.

• Tell us about your teaching experience/skills.

• What specific skills have you learnt which make you a good teacher?

• What one technique has had the biggest impact on your teaching methods?

• How do you deal with criticism?

• What is the riskiest thing you’ve ever done?

• Why should be employ you rather than any of the other applicants?

• What is your approach to resolving conflict?

• Describe an instance where your work was criticised.

• How would you rate your communication skills and what would you do to improve them?

• What type of things makes you angry?

• Do you ever loose your temper?

• Tell me about your hobbies.

• What do you know about our company?

• Do you enjoy working?

• How would you react if your boss insisted that you carry out a course of action that you knew to be wrong?

• Have you ever been in a conflict situation with one of your colleagues and how did you handle it.

• What could you do to improve the organisation and running of your current workplace environment?

• What information technology skills do you possess?

• How would you cope with criticism and a complaint against you?

• What was the most important event in your life?

TYPE 2 (Structured interview) QUESTIONS

Organisation & Planning

• Tell me about a time when you set and achieved a goal.

• Tell me about a time when you improved the way things were typically done on the job.

• Describe something you have done to improve the performance of your work unit.

• Describe something you have done to maximise or improve the use of resources beyond your own work unit to achieve improved results.

• Tell me about a time when you changed your priorities to meet others' expectations.

• Describe a time when you altered your own behaviour to fit the situation.

• Tell me about a time when you had to change your point of view or your plans to take into account new information or changing priorities.

 Decision making

• Describe a challenge or opportunity you identified based on your industry knowledge, and how you developed a strategy to respond to it.

• Describe a time you created a strategy to achieve a longer term objective.

• Describe a time when you used your business knowledge to understand a specific business situation.

 Customer focus

• Give an example of how you provided service to a patient/stakeholder beyond their expectations. How did you identify the need? How did you respond?

• Tell me about a time when you had to deal with a patient/stakeholder service issue.

• Describe a situation in which you acted as an advocate within your hospital for your stakeholder’s needs, where there was some organisational resistance to be overcome.

 Team focus

• Tell us about a situation where you had to bring a difficult person on board and how you went about it.

• Tell me about a situation where your communication skills did not succeed in getting something done?

• Tell me about a time when you worked successfully as a member of a team.

• Describe a situation where you were successful in getting people to work together effectively.

• Describe a situation in which you were a member (not a leader) of a team, and a conflict arose within the team. What did you do?

• Tell me about a time when you coached someone to help them improve their skills or job performance.  What did you do?

• Describe a time when you provided feedback to someone about their performance.

• Give me an example of a time when you recognized that a member of your team had a performance difficulty/deficiency.  What did you do?

• Describe a recent situation in which you convinced an individual or a group to do something.

• Describe a time when you went through a series of steps to influence an individual or a group on an important issue.

• Give an example of where you’ve had to work as a member of a multidisciplinary team?

• Describe a situation in which you needed to influence different stakeholders with differing perspectives.

• Tell me about a time when you had to lead a group to achieve an objective.

• Describe a situation where you had to ensure that your "actions spoke louder than your words" to a team.

• Describe a situation where you inspired others to meet a common goal.