Contents
You have completed your long years of education and now you are about to step into business life. At this point, the thing you need the most is to enter the most suitable job and position for you. At this stage, as a result of many applications (we hope you do less), companies and institutions will invite you to conduct job interviews. Basic Interview Questions and their top answer are very important in this step.
If we briefly list these classical questions:
- 1- Could you briefly tell us about yourself?
- 2- In your opinion what are your strengths?
- 3- Are you open to development? Are there any of your weaknesses in your opinion?
- 4- Why should we hire you?
- 5- Where do you see yourself in 5 years?
- 6- What is your salary expectation?
- 7- Can you tell us a difficult situation that you overcame and how did you handle it?
- 8- What motivates you?
- 9- Why did you leave your last job?
- 10- What do you do in your spare times?
Briefly tell us about yourself?
Here, the Human Resources Specialist or the employer does not expect a long and detailed introduction from you. In fact, they have your CV and how you can briefly introduce and express yourself are important here. Tell your date of birth, then indicate in which city and dates you completed your primary, secondary and high school education, and then say to them which department you completed at the university and when. After this brief educational life entry, it will be useful to mention your achievements, certificates and internships, if any. No need to be overly modest about it 🙂
At this stage, if you extended the university period, you should explain it with the reasons. On the contrary, if you graduated from school with honours or high honours, you can also highlight this achievement. At this point, in some interviews, HR experts ask you for examples about the problems you have experienced in university life and how you solved and managed these problems. We suggest you that before entering the job interview, you should think about these issues and find some examples to tell them.
What are your strengths?
What the employer or human resources specialist asking the question here wants to learn about you is how your strengths will contribute to the position you are a candidate for. So, at this point in the interview, it is important to show how you use these strengths for the job. Additionally, it is obvious that the most powerful way of showing this is to give some real examples from your past experiences. Instead of saying “I am a very patient person.” it will be much more effective to you give an example of an event that challenged your patience during your student life or at your previous workplace then how you solved it.
On the other hand, please do not forget that the examples you give should not be imaginary. If your example event is imaginary or if he suspects, then, the HR specialist will ask you details about this example event you have given in order to understand if it is a real example or not.
Any of your Weaknesses?
This question is actually one of the most challenging questions for the candidates and the human resources specialist is also aware of this situation😊 the important point here is that you do not underrate yourself too much while stating that you are aware of an aspect of you that is open to development. In other words, when expressing your weakness, never give the impression that you are a loser. At this point, it will be useful to act a little politically.
At this very moment, instead of saying “I do not have any weaknesses for improvement.”, for example, if you are in a job interview for a position related to sales and marketing, you can say: “I am aware that I need to improve myself in cross-selling area and I am taking online trainings and courses on this subject. Thanks to this, I am aware that I have made progress recently and I believe that I will be much better in a short time at cross-selling.” If you say like this, you will leave a positive impression on the human resources specialist who asks the question.
About hiring Interview Questions
In the first moment, you want to ask: “Why wouldn’t hire me?” don’t you 😊 However, some such questions asked in job interviews are also an necessary part of job interviews in order to know you more in a short period of time. 😊 The main issue in this question is whether you know enough about the open job position and whether you are aware of whether your competencies match with this position.
Again, to give an example from sales and marketing sector, if you applied for a marketing officer position and you have 5 years of experience in this field, for example, “I think I comply and match with the conditions in your advertisement and I believe that I will make a great contribution to your company, considering my 5 years of experience in sales and my past successes in sales.” A similar explanation would be helpful.
See yourself in 5 years?
This is one of the most classic job interview questions 😊 Please do not say: “I want to be in your place in 5 years.” this might be a cliché answer. On the other hand, you do not want to trigger the ego of the other person, do you? In this question, what is actually wanted to be learned is the content of the candidate’s future plans or whether they have any career plans. To this question, we do not recommend giving answers such as “5 years is a long time” or “i don’t know“.
Basically, the secret question here is do you have a career plan in the short, medium and long term? And if so, what are they? Here, for example, you can talk about you want to contribute to the company by adapting in a short time and become an indispensable employee. Then, you can also talk about what you can add to the company as added value in the medium term and the highest levels of your career plan in the long term.
Your salary expectation?
The important thing here is how aware you are of your own labour’s market value. In answering this question, we recommend neither flying high nor being too humble. It is reasonable to expect a salary of 10-15 percent above or below the average wages recommended for the same position in the market. On the other hand, if you mention an expectation that is well above or below these ranges, it may raise question marks on the mind of interviewer. (This is one of the classical Interview Questions)
Imagine for a moment that you are the interviewer, and let’s assume that the candidate for the position has a salary expectation of twice the market average. However, we suggest that you consider how it would make you feel if the candidate does not know the market average and is not aware of the salary for the position, he was a candidate for. What would you think about the candidate?
Difficult situation?
This is one of the important job interview questions in the hands of the human resources specialist or interviewer who tries to get to know you in a very short time. At this point, it is important that you describe an difficult experience you had in the past as challenge and explain how you overcame and handle this problem. In this way, the employer or HR specialist will understand and get to know you better. This is important in terms of comparing the position with your features. You can also read our article on Tips for Job Interviews 6 Best Tips.
Interview Questions Motivation
Make sure that the interviewer who asked the question knows that the thing that motivates the employee the most is a good salary 😊 That’s why we say let’s eliminate this answer now 😊 At this point, it is important to focus on answers other than salary. While responding with a balanced attitude, “Of course, like every employee, a satisfactory level of wage/salary motivates me, but it is also very important that the position I work for develops me.” A similar answer may be pleasing to the HR specialist. As we said, while answering this question, it is necessary to consider factors such as job satisfaction, self-development and career opportunities.
On the other hand, motivation is the most important factor that ensures efficiency in a workplace. In this context, employers give a great importance to the motivation of their employees. In this regard you could also help your employer in order to contribute to increasing the overall efficiency in the workplace. At this point, it is very important to be open to the question of what will motivate you most at work. It is a well-known fact that people are motivated by money and this is not a shame. If money is the most important thing to you at work, you should say so.
Last Job Interview Questions
We cannot say that this question actually has just one correct answer. The most important thing in this question is to be honest and tell the truth. Salary dissatisfaction, a bad experience or whatever the reason is, you can state it in the most accurate way by justifying it from your own perspective. Apart from your references, your potential employer may also call your previous workplace and ask for comments or opinions. At this point, it is very important that you tell the truth. By the way this is also one of the most important interview questions.
Feel free to be honest about this topic. Remember that every person gets a job and every person leaves the job when the day comes. So quitting your job is not a bad thing and should be considered as normal. However, if you lie about the reason you left your last job, people will not think well of you. On the other hand, it is very important to leave positive marks or traces in your current workplace. One day in the future, your current boss’s opinions may be valuable to you for your possible next workplace. In this context, please remember that the positive traces you leave today will benefit you in the future.
In your spare times?
It might be said that this question is actually one of the job interview questions asked to get to know you a little bit and to understand what you are doing to improve yourself. Some people can spend time with their family, some people can spare time for themselves, and some people can spend for their personal development. The important thing here is to establish a certain balance between all of them. In other words, there may be a difference for the HR specialist between a person who spend time for himself and his hobbies all his time outside of work, and someone who can spare time for others in terms of sociability.
As a result, many questions may come to the candidates during the job interview. It is clear that being able to express yourself in the best way in a very short time will put you ahead of other candidates in interview. Of course, it is obvious that everyone can give different answers to these questions according to their own characteristics. We have prepared some sample interview answers for these questions just to give you an idea and improve your perspective. Finally, Please remember that to be truly successful in this regard, you have to constantly renew and improve yourself.
