Interviews

Understanding why the employer is asking the question can help you prepare your answer. Here are some typical questions and some tips for responding. 

Tell me about yourself. 

Intent: To break the ice and better understand you as a potential employee and how your skills and experience may fit the company. 

Be brief, but be sure to tell the employer all relevant details about your education, work experience related to the position and the reasons why you’re interested in this field. 

Why are you interested in a position with this organization? 

Intent: To validate how much you know and understand about the company, as well as its products and services. 

Show the employer that you’ve done research on their organization (market information, products and services offered and competitors). Show your interest in the company once again by discussing how your skills and experience will benefit the organization. 

What led you to complete your undergraduate degree in (field)? 

Intent: To find out what motivated you to study in this field.  

Show passion for your field. You may also choose to talk about the decision-making process that led you to select your program of study. 

What are your strengths? 

Intent: To assess how well you know and believe in yourself, and whether or not your strengths are in line with the job requirements. 

Describe your strengths that relate to the position and provide examples to support your answer.  

What are your weaknesses? 

Intent: To assess your ability to be self-reflective and critical, to ensure you know yourself well and that you can express that self-assessment honestly. 

Answer honestly, listing your weaknesses and what measures you have taken to overcome them. 

Other possible general questions: 

• If you were hired, what steps would you take to become an effective team member? 

• Where do you see yourself five years from now? 

• What are your salary expectations? 

These questions are based on the assumption that past behaviour is a good predictor for future behaviour. Using concrete examples, you will need to describe a situation in the past where you demonstrated a quality or skill that is essential for this position.  

In your answers, describe the situation, the actions taken and the outcome. 

Describe a situation where you played a key role that contributed to your team’s success. 

Situation — As part of my job as a peer educator, I was responsible, along with my team, for providing students with advice and giving oral presentations about nutrition. 

Action – I worked with my teammates to design and present oral presentations. 

Result – Within a six-month period, we gave a total of 12 oral presentations about nutrition to a variety of audiences. We received positive feedback. 

Sample behavioural questions 

1. Describe the most important presentation that you’ve had to complete.   

2. Can you provide me with an example of a time when you had to meet a tight deadline? 

3. Give me a specific example of a time when you failed to complete a project on time, despite your best efforts. 

4. Describe a situation where you had to deal with a difficult client. How did you handle it? 

5. Can you tell me about a time when you had to reach an agreement with people who didn’t see eye to eye with you? How did you handle it and what was the outcome? 

The employer provides you with a hypothetical situation that you may face in the work environment and asks how you would respond. Your response should include your action and intended result. 

You’re working on a team project and one of your teammates is not co-operative. How do you resolve the conflict? 

Action: My first reaction would be to assume that there may be some sort of problem, either personal or work-related. Then I would meet with my teammate in private, sticking to the facts, and ask if there was anything I could do to help resolve the situation. If the individual shared other problems with me, I would work with them and other team members to find a solution. I would then follow up with the individual and my teammates the following week to ensure that the situation had improved and that we were once again working efficiently as a team. 

Result: I would hope that by following these actions, the lines of communication between my teammate and the rest of the group would open and morale would improve. 

Sample situational question 

A client tells you he or she is dissatisfied with the service you provided. How would you respond?