Apr 24 2009
Interview Questions — Ready?
Wow, what a day! I had 2 interviews with 2 very different types of companies – 1 for profit, the other non-profit. One handling complaints all day, the other handling families. I definitely prefer one over the other – but that deciding factor is based solely on location at this moment in time. We’ll see what happens.
All things aside, I wanted to share with you the questions I was asked today in hopes that they prepare you for a future interview (and so I remember them as well for my next set of interviews next week!). Here goes:
- What is your desired salary? (this was my first question of the day — no how are you? how has your morning been? – but “what is your desired salary). I gave a range — but what I really wanted to ask was — how much are you offering and I’ll let you know if I can live with that or not.
- Why are you better than the other candidates interviewing for this position?
- Describe a time where you had to deal with an unhappy client.
- How old are you? (hehe, the person asking actually got reamed for this. I never answered the question
) - What strategies would you use to increase the customer base?
- Do you speak Spanish?
- Have you been in a position where you had to hire and fire individuals — explain that process.
- What would you do if something in another department was amiss – would you fix it? tell someone? etc?
- What is your biggest strength?
- What did you do to prepare for this interview? And would we have seen another person if you hadn’t prepared?
- How do you feel about the surrounding culture?
- I see that you have worked in the wine and the cheese industry – does this mean that you enjoy the finer things? – OK, had to laugh at that question! I informed them that whereas I do enjoy fine things, those were actually the two industries where I’ve made little or no money at. But that I did enjoy fine things, I mean who doesn’t?
- You mentioned that you enjoy challenges – what do you do when all of the challenges have been resolved?
- Do you enjoy fundraising?
- Where do you see yourself in 5 years? What are your career goals?
- Why work for us?
- How would you handle a volatile situation?
- What would you do so that your staff gains trust and respect for you?
- How would you gain respect from others?
- Why did you leave your last job?
These are the questions that currently come to mind, although I’m sure that there are more that I just can’t remember at this moment. I was prepared for most, taken aback by the “age” one, and upset that I may have priced myself out of a position that I really wanted with the salary question. The good news is that I should know something about those two positions some time next week.
A couple of other questions that I used to prep with were:
- Why should I hire you?
- What is a mis-perception people have of you? (courtesy of Zappos.com’s tweet)
- Why should I not hire you? (again, thank you zappos!)
- How would you handle an irate customer?
In the mean time, next interview is Tuesday!
