• Author:Andreas Mueller
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Most Asked Job Interview Questions

“If you were an animal…

The Muse, the female-founded job search startup recently came up with a list of 31 job interview questions, that candidates are most commonly asked. It is a collection of classical themes including

  • your motives
  • your value proposition
  • your development expectations
  • your job history
  • your working (and management) style
  • your behaviour under stress
  • your first couple of weeks in the new role
  • your salary
  • your hobbies
  • ideas to improve

Most surprising to me were

#27: If you were an animal, which one would you want to be?

#28: How many tennis balls can you fit into a limousine?

While there are more questions and answers on the internet, rarely an interviewer misses to ask a final question:

“Do you have any questions for us?

This is, where outplacement service firm First Sun hooks in with its list of 51 job interview questions. While it does not include major surprises, the list might serve well as an inspiration or checklist for the next opportunity.
The questions are covering the fields

  • the job
  • training and development
  • your performance
  • the interviewer
  • the company
  • the team
  • the culture
  • next steps

One more thing…

After reading the animal question, I became curious, what else people might ask and found some more weird questions in glassdoor’s Oddball Interview Ranking. How about these:

  • Describe the color yellow to somebody who’s blind.
  • What’s your favorite 90s jam?
  • Who would win in a fight between Spiderman and Batman?
  • If you were asked to unload a 747 full of jelly beans, what would you do?

Click here to see the answers of the interviewees.

Digging Deeper

Surprisingly, not one of these expert portals is referencing to a list of competences, which could serve to describe the requirements of the job or the candidate. The larger search firms have developed their own competence frameworks. Here are some examples:

Michael Page lists individual, managerial, analytical, interpersonal and motivational competencies – followed by a hint for competency based interview.

Korn Ferry builds all their activities on a recently updated framework of currently 38 competencies, sorted in four large factors: Thought, Results, People, Self – have a look at their overview table.

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Source: HBR Oct 2011

Spencer Stuart is assessing six leadership qualities in their interviews, which are business judgement, recognising & applying interpersonal dynamics in decision making, people management & team building, humility & substance, people development and the ability to drive change.

Egon Zehnder focusses on eight leadership competencies in three clusters (business, people & organisation, thought): results orientation, collaboration & influencing, team leadership, strategic orientation, customer impact, change leadership, developing organizational capability and market insight. More than this, the firm is looking at an executive’s potential with respect to his or her knowledge, skills, identity, traits, and motives.

 

Match Making

Among all preparations, remember:

  • first practice a job interview with an organisation, where you don’t expect to be taken (as an exercise for your dream job)
  • it is only about match making and about leaving the interviewer with an authentic impression, don’t panic

Good luck with your next interview!

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