[0:00]Hey, it's Annemarie with Speak Confident English, and welcome to this week's Confident English lesson. This is exactly where you want to be every week to get the confidence you want for your life and work in English. This week, we're focused on how to answer some of the most common job interview questions in English. Now, before I go there, there are a couple of things I want to acknowledge. Number one, interviewers actually love to ask unexpected questions. This is something I talk a lot about in my Confident Job Interviews course. The truth is, interviewers want to see how you perform under pressure. Part of doing that is asking you questions that you didn't prepare for. However, there are a series of questions that are commonly asked in job interviews, and it is important to be as prepared as you can to answer those well. Being prepared doesn't mean memorizing an answer to a specific job interview question. If you try to memorize answers, you're more likely to forget them in the moment. And if an interviewer asks you a different question, your memorized answers won't help you. One of the things I teach in my Confident Job Interviews course is how to be flexible, how to adapt your answers to a variety of questions, how to be prepared no matter what kind of question the interviewer asks. In this lesson today, I am going to focus on 10 very common questions that you'll likely get in an interview. With many of these questions today, I'll also include alternatives, other ways that interviewers might ask for the same information.
[2:05]Question number one, what do you think it's going to be? If you've been preparing for a job interview in English, you probably already know what this question is going to be. Almost every interview starts with the question, tell me about yourself, or some variation of that question. In this lesson today, I'm not going to provide too many details on how to best answer a question like tell me about yourself, because I already have a very in-depth confident English lesson on this topic. I'll share a link to that lesson just below this video. But there is one thing I want to say about how to answer tell me about yourself. One mistake many people make when they try to answer this question is they summarize everything on the job resume. That is not what your interviewer is looking for. Instead, your answer to this question should be a brief, big picture overview of who you are professionally, what some of your accomplishments are, and how you will transfer the skills, knowledge, and expertise you have to this new position and be successful. Common question number two is why do you want this job? You might also hear, why are you interested in this position or why are you interested in working at this company? The best way to answer these questions are to make sure that you are fully aware of the responsibilities in the job description, the company's mission, and the company's values. In your answer, you should address why you are excited about fulfilling those responsibilities and what makes you excited to work at this particular company. Question number three is why are you leaving your current position or why did you leave your last company? These are tricky questions to answer. One thing that is critical is to avoid speaking negatively about your previous employer, colleagues, or talking negatively about your past position. Instead, you want to focus on the opportunities you want going forward in the future. This might be looking for a new change or wanting to grow your career. Common question number four is what makes you the best choice for this position? You might also hear what makes you the best candidate for this job, or why should we hire you? This question can be uncomfortable because it's a question asking about you. What are you good at? What are your strengths and your areas of expertise? But that is not the only thing about this question. What the interviewer really wants to know is what skill set, what expertise, what abilities are you bringing to this position and how will you use those to be successful? The interviewer has one job. Their job is to hire the right person, the person who is going to do the job exactly as it's written in the job description. So, when you're answering this question, what you need to do is show them how you will be able to accomplish that. Common question number five is more of a category or a theme of questions: behavioral questions. Throughout an interview, you will get several behavioral questions. And these often begin with something like, tell me about. For example, tell me about a time when you successfully dealt with an angry customer. Tell me about a time when you did more than what was expected of you in your job. Tell me about a time when you made a mistake. How did you handle it? The best way to answer these questions is to use a specific story from your past experience and when you can, make it quantifiable. What that means is it's measurable. For example, you could tell someone that you helped increase sales, or you could tell someone you helped the company increase sales by 3% in the second quarter. Which one is more compelling to you? The one with specific measurable details. Common question number six is what do you know about our company? You might also hear, what do you know about our products and services? What do you know about our competitors? What the interviewer wants to know is, have you done your homework? Have you spent time getting familiar with the company? When interviewers hear your answer to this question, they know immediately if you have spent time in advance getting familiar with who they are, the products and services they offer, what values they have and goals they have as a company, and so much more. Spending time getting familiar with the company before your interview will help you know exactly how to answer this question. It'll also show that you are someone who prepares well for a job, and someone who pays attention to details. Question number seven, what are your goals for the next five years? This is always a surprising question. Why do interviewers really want to know about your future goals? Before I answer that, there are some other ways that interviewers might ask this. They might also ask, what would you do in your first 90 days in this position? What would your goal be in the first year if you were the successful candidate? With these questions, the interviewer isn't really looking for your future dreams. What they want to see is, do you set goals and how do you accomplish them? Your answer also provides insight on how you solve problems. The best way to answer these kinds of questions is to identify a clear goal that you would have for the future and include examples from your past experience of how you've set goals when you're in a new position and how you've achieved them. Common question number eight, what is your top strength or what are your top three qualities? Other ways that you might hear this kind of question are, if I asked your supervisor to describe you, what would he or she say? If I asked your colleagues to give me three words to describe you, what would those three words be? Talking about strengths can be uncomfortable for many people, but it's unavoidable in a job interview. The best way to handle these kinds of questions is to identify a skill or a strength you have and highlight how you use that to do your job well. Again, an interviewer's job is to find the right person for the position. The person who can fulfill all the job responsibilities and be successful in the position. So this is an opportunity for you to highlight skills or strengths you have that have helped you be successful in the past, and how they will help you be successful in this position. At some point in the interview process, your interviewer will ask you a series of questions related to specifics about the job. That might be specifics about availability, job location, and possibly questions about your salary expectations. It's important for you to be prepared for these in advance. Be clear about your availability, be truthful about what you're willing to do. For example, if there's a lot of travel required for the position, but you don't really want to spend time away from your family, this would not be a good position for you, and it's important to be very honest about that at the beginning of the job interview process. If there is a discussion about salary, again, you want to be prepared for that in advance. Talking about money is uncomfortable no matter what the situation is, but especially in a job interview. If you want some tips on how to best answer questions about salary, I've got an example for you in my online lesson on the Speak Confident English website. And finally, do you have any questions for me? What do you think your response should be? Should you ask questions at the end of a job interview? You absolutely should. 100%. You should absolutely ask questions at the end of a job interview. If you're curious why you should definitely ask questions, and if you're thinking, well, what kinds of questions should I ask, I've got a lesson for you. I already have a lesson called Five Smart Questions to Ask at the End of an Interview. I'll leave a link to that lesson below this video so that you can watch when you're finished here. We've now covered 10 common questions or common topics that are discussed in a job interview. Again, this is not an exhaustive list. There are a variety of additional questions that interviewers might ask and yes, they like to ask you questions that are unexpected. If you want to know more about that, if you want to know how to be prepared for any job interview question, I have a full course dedicated to that topic. But for right now, I want to hear from you. What job interview questions make you feel the most nervous, or what job interview questions are you unsure of how to answer? I'd love to hear from you so that I can continue providing lessons that will help you be successful in a job interview in English. With that, thank you so much for joining me. If you found this lesson useful to you, I'd love to know. You can tell me in three simple ways. Number one, give this lesson a thumbs up on YouTube and subscribe to this channel so you never miss one of my confident English lessons. Number two, share it with colleagues on Facebook and LinkedIn. And number three, if you know someone getting ready for a job interview in English, email this lesson directly to them. Don't forget that I also have lessons on how to successfully answer, tell me about yourself, and a lesson on five smart questions to ask at the end of a job interview. Have a fantastic week and I'll see you next time for your confident English lesson.
