The worst part of preparing for a job interview is trying to figure out which questions your interviewer will ask — and why.
(Photo Credit: BAMCorp/Flickr)
A recent infographic from graphs.net looks into the reasoning behind some of the more popular interview questions, as well as a few that might never have occurred to you to prepare for. The good news is that their explanation for many of these tricky questions isn’t nearly as scary as you might think.
For example, the common question, “Where do you see yourself in five years?” reads to many of us as both, “Can we count on your loyalty to this company, if we hire you?” and “Do you have any ambition at all?” But as this graphic points out, it could just be the interviewer trying to figure out whether your career goals align with the role the company has available.
“Why should I hire you?,” to take another example, can sound like the interviewer is being aggressive or dismissive, but in fact, it’s just a good way to gauge your confidence, especially for roles that require selling skills.
The bottom line is that while you’ll never know with 100 percent certainty why your interviewer asks any of these questions, preparing for them without worrying about the worst-case scenario meaning of each will help you sail through your interview with ease.
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