Ways to Prepare for your Job Interview
Most HR Departments use a variety of interviewing techniques. Being prepared for any of these interview methods could ensure you succeed to the next step in the hiring process.
When they ask specific interview questions, what are they looking for in your answers?
Traditional Questions
There are the traditional interview questions – you can search the Internet or your local library to find out how to answer these pretty confidently. These include some common ones like:
Do you prefer to work alone or with a group?
What are your greatest strengths or weaknesses?
What did you enjoy most about your last position?
Next, the situational questions become a bit harder to answer. Applicants are evaluated on how they would handle specific situations, such as:
How would you handle making a decision in a situation where you had conflicting information?
What would you do if your supervisor instructed you to do something unethical or illegal?
Competency-based behavior questions help interviews learn whether a candidate has the technical skills and knowledge, the functional skills and abilities to do the job, and can show their individual competencies.
A competency is a skill or ability that describes the expected performance for a job function. Thus, this interviewing technique is developed through an extensive process of evaluating the job functions, developing questions based on that competency-based information of the job, and training the interviewers in properly administering this questioning technique, to include using an objective rating scale.
These questions focus on actual behaviors rather than hypothetical scenarios, and would help the interviewer determine how well you actually handled situations, rather than how you might handle them if they came up.
One of the best ways to prepare for an interview is to make sure your resume sells the value that you can bring to the next employer. That type of resume will give you the confidence you need to answer interview questions effectively.
