With interview questions, HR managers want to find out whether you have all the qualifications for the position to be filled and get to know you personally. The important thing is whether you fit into the team and have the necessary social skills for the job. Trained personnel managers use the interview questions to analyze whether you have dealt sufficiently with the advertised position. Therefore, the same questions are always asked. In preparation for a job interview, we present the most important ones below.
At the beginning of the interview, there is usually a small round of introductions of the persons present. This is followed by questions about your professional and educational qualifications and an invitation to present your career with the most important stages and your current job.
Frequently asked questions about qualifications - career: Briefly introduce your career.Often the applicant will give a boring chronic list of your previous fields of activity, which the interviewees know from your CV. Briefly describe your studies and explain why you have chosen this course of study
Our tip:
Present your career in a lively and interesting way. Chronological enumerations bore personnel managers. Focus on your strengths and try to include them right at the beginning of the interview.
The most frequent questions about qualifications - job advertisement:
Why are you the right person for the job advertised?
Why do you want to work in this particular field of activity?
If an applicant indicates that the job advertisement was very interesting and he thinks he would fit in well, the interviewer is perfectly aware of this, otherwise he would not have applied. It is important here to show the real motivation for the application.
Our tip:
Address the requirements and prepare yourself to give a conclusive answer also with regard to your next logical step for your career. Application professionals include counter-questions in the presentation.
"I think the position gives me the opportunity to successfully contribute my knowledge and experience to the project implementation and to continue to complement it. Have I understood correctly that it is mainly about the external implementation of the project?"
Once the questions about the job and your career have been clarified, your interview partners will want to get to know you better. This is followed by a set of questions about yourself to check whether you have the necessary soft skills for the job. As a rule, the questions focus on your ability to work in a team, assertiveness and flexibility.
Personal challenges and problem-solving skills
What was the biggest challenge you had to overcome in the last two years?
At this point you have to decide whether you want to respond to personal or professional challenges.
Our tip:
Decide for a career success. Mention in this place further training measures, the successful completion of a project or the personnel development of a team with the disciplinary leadership competence. Show what you are proud of and what motivates you.
Have you ever been faced with a task that you could not solve? How have you dealt with it?
Everyone is faced with almost unsolvable tasks at some point, that is quite normal in working life. The decisive factor is how the situation is dealt with. Think in advance how you have recognized, analyzed and solved the problem. Whether with help from outside or suggestions from the internet.
Teamwork
Have you ever experienced that the cooperation in a team or a department does not function and the work result suffers? How did you find a solution for yourself and the group?
Our tip:
Important here is the presentation of open communication. Under the motto "Talk about what moves you", solutions can be found quickly through open discussions with all those involved. Show that you can mediate. A possible answer:
"We have openly addressed the problems in the team round. As moderator, we called in an objective colleague from another department to avoid personal animosities and reproaches. It was found that one colleague felt overwhelmed. As a result, the tasks were redistributed within the team and calm returned to the group, with the result that we reached our goal together.
Strengths and weaknesses
Tell us your strengths and weaknesses
This question is the classic interview question. The presentation of strengths is relatively simple, the more difficult part is the statement about one's own weaknesses.
Our tip:
Go into the strengths of the job you are aiming for and show your inclinations in concrete terms in order to carry out the job successfully. It is more difficult to show your weaknesses. Avoid pointing out your ambitions, which can easily make you impatient. Nobody will believe this solution from career guides anymore. Also the statement that you have no weaknesses. Read through your previous job references and assessments to find clues. When describing your weaknesses, make sure that you are prepared to work on them and that you have already become better in the best case.
Professional goals
Where do you want to be in five years?
What is important here is to list concrete goals in your professional life. One goal can certainly be to become a department head. But more authentic is the presentation of content-related goals.
Our tip:
Think in advance about what you really want to achieve, which can be a stay abroad, participation in international projects or the implementation of process changes in specific departments. But show that you have a goal in mind and do not just look at the prospects for the future.
Motivation
Why should we hire you of all people?
This question is usually asked at the end of a conversation. Take your chance and reflect your personal motivation and attitude towards the job offered from the entire interview.
Our tip:
Summarize your personal strengths again shortly and show what contribution you can make to the company. This is essentially about the advantages the company would have if it were to hire you. Put yourself in the position of the personnel manager and give him as many arguments as possible for hiring you.
