Experience and Education

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Experience and Education

Get the job you interview for -- without ‘interview jitters’, embarrassment, or being stumped by trick interview questions. Matt & Nan DeLuca and the job-interview.net experts will prepare you for your interview with the Complete Interview Guide.

Answers to more than 50 of the Toughest Interview Situations - follow-up calls & letters, illegal questions
Control your nerves and give natural, unrehearsed answers
Questions to ask the interviewers
Review hundreds of skills and abilities questions and answer tips

Answers to the Toughest Interview Questions

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Education

How does your experience and education qualify you for this job?
How does your education qualify you for this job?
Why did you choose to attend the college that you are attending?
What aspect of your education applies to this position?
What training have you received that qualifies you for this job?
What have you done outside of formal education to improve yourself?
What training opportunities have you taken advantage of and why?
What additional training will we have to provide for you if we hire you?

Experience

Tell us about yourself.
Focus on the aspects of your experience that apply specifically to the position that you're applying for.
How are you qualified for this job?
How does your current job qualify you for this position?
How does your experience qualify you for this job?
Describe a typical day at your present position.
What were your three greatest accomplishments on your last job?
What are some of the things on your current job you have done well?
What is the most difficult assignment you have had?
What accomplishment on the job are you the most proud of?
What steps have you taken to improve your job skills?
What significant contributions have you made to the operation of your work group?
How has your current position prepared you to take on greater responsibilities?
What makes you more qualified than the other candidates?
Why do you want to leave your current job?
How has your job prepared you to take on greater responsibility?
Tell us about your qualifications for this position.
What actions have you taken in the past 10 years to prepare you for this position?
What steps have you taken in the past two years to improve your qualifications?
In the areas where your experience falls short for this job, what steps will you take to make up for this shortfall?
Describe yourself.
What skills and abilities do you have?
Recall an incident where you made a major mistake. What did you do after the mistake was made? What did you learn from this mistake?
What is the greatest failure you've had? What would you have done differently?
What action on the job are you the least proud of?
Tell us about a difficult situation that you encountered and how you resolved it.

Resume

Take us through your resume.
What are you most proud of on your resume?

For more interview questions and answer tips, order the Complete Interview Guide.

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INTERVIEW IN DEPTH
A detailed answer and analysis of a tough interview question from Matt & Nan DeLuca, authors of the best selling "Best Answers to the 201 Most Frequently Asked Interview Questions" and "More Best Answers to the 201 Most Frequently Asked Interview Questions"

Tell me a story.

Many interviewers like to hear 'stories' or examples from your worklife. So pick something that is more usual than not (not the day of a plant explosion and you saved 10 lives!) but a story that shows how you handle yourself, handle difficult people or situations. Can you think on your feet? Do you adhere to the rules? Consider the type of organization you are aiming at...each has its own culture. The World Wrestling Federation entertainment culture is different than the American Bible Society and also different from Amazon.com. Gear your stories to give the listener a feeling that you could fit in...you could do the job here.

In what way do you think you can contribute to our company?

Preparing to answer this question requires a 2-step preparation: assessing your skills and researching the needs of the company. An integral part of skill assessment (looking at your own experience, education and talents) is to 'skill-match'. Considering the job opening, what are the skills needed? Make a list of the requisite skills (in priority order) and then list concrete examples of your possession of the skill. For example: a sales representative would need good interpersonal skills, the ability to deal with difficult people. For 'proof' of this skill, you could list experiences and examples of how you were successful in a difficult situation. These matched skills are your key selling points.

Next, what appears to be the current problems at the organization, based upon your research? What are their needs that you can meet? In other words, given the specifics of the company, what value can you add? After these two steps, you are in a great position to come up with concrete examples of what you can offer the company. This question, by the way, is just another version of "Why should we hire you?". In the interview, when asked this question, you could respond with: "In my experience in sales, I know having the ability to deal effectively with all types of people is not merely a positive element --- it is an essential one. With your plans to expand into ____ market, a sales representative with a proven ability to meet with all types of people and to be able to assess and meet their immediate needs would be a great asset. In the past __ years, I have increased sales __....."