Interview is like going to the dentist

The bad news is, to progress with your career, you will have to attend job interviews. Memang terpaksa

The good news is, interview questions are very predictable. Soalannya sama je.

What the hiring manager wants to know is about yourself, your behaviour and your attitude so they will try their best to find out about all of that during the interview process.

They will use more or less the same questions

So I memang pelik, I really dont understand why people come to interview unprepared to answer the basic interview questions

These are top 10 common interview questions

- Tell me about yourself

- Why are you the best candidate for the job?

- Tell me one big achievement that you are proud of

- Tell me about a project that failed and what did you learn from that?

- Tell me 3 strengths and 3 weaknesses

- Why do you want this role?

- What do you want to work for Company X

- Why do you want to leave your current job

- What’s your 5 year plan?

- Do you have any questions

Memang those are the questions yang selalu ditanya.

So I will give you some tips how to answer the questions

Tell me about yourself 

For this your answer should be only about 1-2 minutes long. Not a 10 minute monologue. Jangan panjang-panjang.

The aim is to give a great overview about yourself to make the interviewer want to ask you more questions about you. 

Include what you are doing now and a brief overview of previous roles. Then include 1-2 key achievements. You can finish off with a one liner about why you are interested in the job

Why are you the best candidate for the job?

Give them 3 reasons why you are the best candidate. Choose 3 things that will differentiate you from other candidates applying for the job.

So you need to think who else are applying for the job, who are your competitors. Then think about 3 things that will give you an advantage over them.

For example, if you are applying for a Medical Science Liaison role in a pharmaceutical company, most likely the other competitors are pharmacists and doctors. So you need to come up with 3 things that will differentiate you from the other pharmacists and doctors. 

Maybe you have done an audit project in the hospital that you worked in before, maybe you did a 6-month internship in a pharma company or maybe you are an active committee member of Malaysian Pharmacist Society. 

Tell me about one big achievement that you are proud of. 

Choose one big successful project. It’s better to be work related rather than a personal project. The more recent the more better.

Be specific about the achievement. Give numbers to help them understand the magnitude of the achievement. 

If you can, choose a project where you have to work with different teams. Hiring managers love cross functional achievements.

Tell me about a project that failed and what did you learn from that

Choose one project that didn’t go to plan. Project yang tak menjadi. The more recent the more better. Choose one where there is a clear learning from it so that you can answer the question what would you do differently if you have to do the project again

What the interviewer is looking for is accountability for the failure and awareness of what went wrong and how you can do more better next time

Tell me 3 strengths and 3 weaknesses

This is a simple question that everyone should be able to answer. Once in an interview I was asked to give 5 strengths and 5 weaknesses! So 3 is actually not too bad.

When choosing strengths, choose attributes that you can give a good story or examples. Don’t give vague ones like Honest because how do you show honesty? Also don’t choose common boring ones like Hardworking because everyone says they are hardworking.

When choosing weaknesses, choose attributes where you already have an action plan or taking steps to overcome the weaknesses. Don’t be too honest though. One time, a candidate told me that she is lazy. It’s hard for me to imagine her working for me then.

So those are my guide to the first 5 questions. The guide for the last 5 questions will be in the next edition of the newsletter

Doktor Az 🩺 The Careerlogist 📈 

p/s if you have any questions about interview prep, just email me to ask

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