Common Interview Questions & Answers

 Common Interview Questions & Answers

1. Tell me about yourself?

The FIRST & BEST question for any HR interview. The answer to this basically sets the tone for the rest of the interview. The good news is – You can earn a lot of points if this is answered right.

• Give a brief of your educational background (up to plus two is fine, your family and location, any of your hobbies, etc.
• You can also mention one of your major achievements if it fits the circumstance.
• Keep the answer to just about 3-4 sentences and not more than that.
• No need to explain your strengths & weakness at this point (as that will definitely come along).
• A common mistake seen in most HR interviews is to start a sentence like “I am basically from...” No need to start a sentence like that.
• Keep the answer simple, and to the point, and give space and time for further questions. Do not stretch it too much.

Example For Freshers:

“Hi, I am Kiran, and hail from Bangalore. I did my B. Tech in electronics and communication from Rameswaram College of Engineering, which is under Bangalore University. I completed my plus two from Chinmaya Vidhya Mission School and secured 98% in CBSE Boards. I have four members in my family and I am the youngest son. I love outdoor sports, specifically athletics, and was a member of the college athletic team.”

Example For Experienced Person:

Hi, I am Rahul, I am from Hyderabad. I have worked at TCS as a Junior Software Developer for 2 years. (Please Mention Your Skills and Work You Have Done In Previous Company). I Completed My B.Tech in JNTU with 91%. I have three members in my family and I am the eldest son. I love playing chess & also I am an international master of chess.

TIPS

• Concentrate More On Your Job Experience.
• Freshers Concentrate on your learnings for a particular role.
• Mention Your Projects & Assignments that suit for Job Description.
• Start with a brief introduction: Begin by stating your name and a sentence or two about your background or education. This will help set the tone for the rest of your response.
• Highlight your relevant experience: Discuss your previous work experience, focusing on the most relevant and impressive achievements. Mention any skills or knowledge you gained from those experiences.
• Mention your qualifications: Talk about your education and any relevant degrees, certifications, or licenses you hold. This can help demonstrate your expertise and suitability for the job.
• Discuss your strengths: Mention a few of your key strengths that are relevant to the position you're interviewing for. Give examples of how you've used those strengths in the past.
• Explain your career goals: Share your long-term career goals and how you see this job fitting into them. This can show that you're focused and have a clear idea of what you want to achieve.
• End with a question: Wrap up your response by asking the interviewer a question about the company or the role. This shows that you're interested in learning more and can help keep the conversation flowing.

2. What are your key strengths?

This is another most common question in any HR interview. The idea here is to understand how much you know about yourself and how confident you are about your strengths.

• Just stay positive. Even a simple answer like “I am a very positive person” is good enough.
• You can also change this as per the requirement of the interview. Knowing a bit about the profile you are being interviewed helps as well.
• Explaining your strength with an experience from the past is desirable here.

Example:

• “Sir, my greatest strength is my ability to learn things quickly. For example, I had to represent my college in an inter-college science exhibition and was introduced to the team at the very last minute. I was able to understand our exhibits and artifacts and present them with great success”.
• “I think my greatest strength is my positive attitude, even during the hardest of times. During my college project, there have been a couple of occasions, when our idea was not falling in place and the results were negative. I had to believe and think positively and keep my team motivated to persist on our idea, and finally, we got the desired result.”
• “My best skill would be my verbal ability and articulation skill. I have worked as an editor for our college magazine and have been involved with various literary forums during my school and college days.

TIPS

• Know Your Strengths
• Try To Give An Example Of  Your Strength In Your Professional Life.
• Be Confidence.

3. What is one thing, which you want to improve about yourself? (OR) what are your weaknesses?

This is a trick question. The expectation here is to answer a negative trait with a positive twist. Something which in general a weak point of a person, but is alright from an organizational perspective.

Example

• “I tend to try to take up too many things, leaving little time for myself.”
• “I am a perfectionist and sometimes, concentrate too much on one single task to get it to perfection, using up time from other tasks”.
• “I tend to say Yes, when someone asks for help. I am working on learning to say No at times”.

TIPS:

• Make it easy.
• Do not focus more on your weaknesses.
• You should say it positively. EX: I Believe People Easily I am trying to overcome it by learning with my friends and elders.

4. Where do you see yourself in 5 years from now?

This is a question intended to know, what are your career aspirations, how long would you be committed to the organization, are there any immediate plans for you to move on, etc. If you have an actual plan, explain it with reasoning. If you do not have any specific plans as of then, give a generic answer along with some interesting activity you would like to take up.

Example

• “I would like to see myself donning one of the senior positions in the organization contributing to technology as well as participating in business growth. I am hoping, I can position myself with relevant experience by then.”
• “As a fresher, I am assuming by first five years will be a huge learning curve. I want to absorb much of the industry knowledge and also sharpen my technical abilities. In the next five years, I see myself playing various roles in the team from a developer to leading a team.”
• “I would like to see myself as a technical architect in the next five years. My core competency is with technologies, and I would like to work and contribute in the field of the most recent technologies and advancements. I would like to get take up some of the major technology certifications”.

TIPS

• Concentrate more on your skills.
• You need to match your present role with your upcoming role.

5. Have you been in some challenging situations? Explain how you handled it?

This is usually an add-on question to explain the strengths that you mention previously. This is a good opportunity to give a suitable example, as to why you mentioned what your strengths are.

Example:

• “Yes, we did have some challenging situations during our final semester project delivery. Usually, the kind of code logic we were trying to implement, works with a 64-bit processor, while we were trying to make it work with a lower configuration, due to budgetary constraints”. Theoretically, it was possible, but the result was not coming through and the team wanted to give up and upgrade the hardware. I was positive, that this will work and that we stick to the plan and figure out our actual problem. It took some effort to convince my team, a lot more hard work, and a few extra hours of reading, but finally, we stayed positive and cracked the issue, and delivered the project.
• The above example, explains your strength like Positive thinking, hard work, etc.
• “I have a huge passion for sports and have been a regular member of the college athletic team. There was an event coming up slightly ahead of one of our exam schedules. Although our coach said, I can skip the competition, I was sure I can win points for the college. So I decided, I will put in extra time in studies late evenings, while also practicing and attending the event. I had to stretch a bit physically & mentally, and also manage my time tightly. But finally, I was able to win the tournament and also come out with good scores on the exam. 
• The above showcases, your multitasking capability, time management, passion for things, and hard work.

TIPS

• Create a story of your difficult situations
• Speak About the Learnings of your difficult situations
• Explain what actions you have implemented to overcome difficult situations.

6. Why should we hire you? 

As a fresher, you can’t commit to any expertise in any specific domain. So this question is intended to understand what quality of yours will be helpful most for the company. Knowledge about the company and what quality of yours suits the organization is the key to answering this. In case you don’t know much about the company, quick learning ability, flexibility, team player, etc are a few common qualities that will fit any organizational needs.

Example:

• “I have had some internships and industry exposure. So being a fresher, it will still be easy for me to adapt to the new environment, which significantly lessens my training cost.”
• “I have a sharp learning curve, which will help the company ramp me up quickly as a productive resource. An example of my learning curve is my final year project, where I have worked on a short time frame on an entirely new technology”
• “I am a strong team player and a good leader. I have been leading teams for technical and cultural activities during my college days. In your company, I will be a great player within any challenging team and provide leadership when the opportunity arises”.

TIPS

• FAB
• Features: What are the features of you and match them with a particular role.
• Advantages: How your skills are advantageous to the company.
• Benefits: What makes a company is benefited from your skills.

7. What are your hobbies and interests? 

You cannot say, you don’t have any other interests, other than academics. Even if you are very studious, your answer should include reading non-textbooks and following cutting-edge stuff in technology. A company looks for a candidate who is more rounded and keeps diverse interests in life. Identify one of your interests other than academics and prepare an answer based on that (Don’t include eating, watching TV, sleeping, etc.)

Example:

• “I love singing and I also play instruments like Guitar.”
• “Outdoor sports is my interest. Specifically cricket”
• “I am a numismatist (coin/ currency collector). I have been doing it since school days”

8. Who is the most inspiring person in your life?

The important part is not who, but why? When you answer this question with a name, you should follow it up with why he/she is the most inspiring person.

Example:

• “My greatest inspiration is Sachin Tendulkar. He had such a humble upbringing & his hard work took him to the greatest heights in the world of sports. He still keeps himself rooted and stays humble. I also believe in hard work and humility”.
• “My greatest inspiration is my dad. He has always thought me to not worry about my weakness and take advantage of my strengths. This has developed a lot of confidence in me during difficult times.”