Types of job interview questions

The list of possible interview questions can be quite large and overwhelming. Fortunately, there are only five different types of interview questions. This structure helps put these questions into a manageable framework. The five different types of interview questions:

1. Resume Related Questions (You Ask)

2. Qualifications for work questions

3. Behavior questions

4. Interview question box

5. Personality questions

Summary – Related Questions (you ask)

This group of questions can be described as “you” questions because they tend to focus on what “you” have done. Examples of interview questions could include:

• tell me about yoursame?
• What did your specialization in college?
• What did your do in this position?

The main focus of these questions is to try to find out if the information on your resume is accurate and if you have overstated or understated your credentials. This is most often done by asking questions based on the information shown on your resume.

Job Qualification Questions

These questions will be generated primarily from the job description and may overlap somewhat with the resume-related questions. They are designed to see if you have the experience or qualifications for the position at a general level. They will ask you sample interview questions such as:

• Have you ever managed a team before?
• Do you have any experience in conflict resolution?
• Have you ever made a presentation to external clients?

behavior questions

These questions are specifically intended to determine if you have the right level of experience or qualifications for the position. They tend to go deeper than Job Qualification Questions by asking you to provide answers based on your previous work experience. These questions give you a basic problem scenario and hope that you can answer it based on an example of past work experience. Examples of interview questions could include:

• Tell me about a time you used your conflict resolution skills.
• Tell me about a project where you implemented a process improvement idea.
• Give me an example of a time you weren’t able to complete a project on time and how you fixed the problem.

These questions can take the form of a positive or negative, so it’s a good idea to have thought out examples ahead of time that you’ll want to use. It’s also a good idea to try to identify ahead of time what skills you’ll be basing your behavioral questions on. For example, a salesperson might expect to gain presentation skills based on behavioral questions. One of those questions might be give me a time you gave a successful presentation to a client or for customer service skills, tell me about a time you used your customer service skills to help keep an upset customer with the business.

Box Interview Questions

These types of questions tend to suit customer-focused positions such as consulting and sales. Basically, they involve providing you with a list of facts related to a business issue and asking you how to address the issue. Depending on the role, this may include doing things like performing math calculations or creating presentation aids. Regardless of the position, you can expect to present your findings and answer follow-up questions.

The purpose of these types of interview questions is to see how you think, if you can perform in a stressful situation, and to determine if your personality is a good fit for the team. These interview questions are usually asked on an individual basis; however, you can also answer these questions as part of a group as a way some companies judge your interpersonal skills.

personality questions

These types of questions usually take two forms. A form is a formal standard test that asks you lots of questions about what kinds of things you prefer or would choose to do based on a list of options. The second form of personality questions are the informal type that can occur at any part of the interview process and are geared towards determining if you are a good personality for the position. Examples of interview questions could include:

• What was the score of the Cowboys game last night?
• What did you think of the latest episode of American Idol?

The purpose of these questions is to see if you are comprehensive enough to be able to talk to a prospective client about a general topic like football or a popular TV show.

By gaining a basic familiarity with these types of sample interview questions, you will help reduce your overall learning curve. Although interview questions tend to receive most of the attention in other interview guides and books, you should instead divide your focus between all aspects of the interview process. By having a more comprehensive perspective of the interview process, you will tend to get better results by appearing more complete and professional to your interviewers throughout the interview process.