Tuesday Tips: Practice Your Interview Skills

How prepared are you for your next interview? Do you find yourself blanking out, stuttering and stammering, or fumbling your answers in an interview situation?

In this competitive job market, you can’t afford to be anything less than 100% when you step into that conference room for your job interview.

Career coaches will charge you a pretty penny to help practice your job interview skills, but you can buff up on your interviewing prowess on your own, too. Grab a friend or just position yourself in front of a mirror and see how well you can answer these 10 traditional job interview questions.

1. Give me an example of one of your most important professional accomplishments.

2. Do you prefer to work on your own or within a team of others?

3. Where do you see yourself in five years? Ten?

4. How do you handle conflict in the workplace? Give me an example of how you have resolved a conflict with a colleague.

5. What is your greatest strength in your professional life? What weakness causes you the greatest difficulty on the job?

6. Why do you want this job? Why do you want to work with our company/organization?

7. What kind of salary range you are looking for?

8. How do you define success?

9. What three lessons did you learn from your last job?

10. Do you have any questions for us? [Hint: Research the company and come in with at least two questions in mind.]

If you really want to improve your chances of acing your next interview, take 20 minutes of prep time to brainstorm about what questions your interviewers might want to ask you. Not sure? Take a look at the job description for some clues about what matters most.

Tell us: how do you get ready for your interviews?