This article is for candidates who are interviewing, hr departments on duty, and employers who are recruiting in-house. The job interview is a must for everyone in the field of recruitment. Let’s review together 10 classic questions and the why of these questions.
As we are talking about executive positions where leadership is an essential skill, this question is central to a successful job interview. We’ll see how to approach it.
In person or on video, which candidate did not have to answer the question “Tell me about yourself?” or “Why are you the ideal candidate?” How to answer such broad questions while avoiding pitfalls? If you are an employer, you can also increase the effectiveness of a job interview by reading our article 4 questions to ask yourself to improve your in-house recruitment.
For candidates, good preparation remains essential. These questions are not always asked in order. Of course, the wording could also change. That’s why we present them as a theme, strategy and risk associated with each.
1. Tell me about yourself
Objective: validate the information
Strategy: Synthesis
Pitfall: Inconsistency
Risk level: low
Your interlocutor already knows you through your CV and is interested in you. No need to look back at EVERYTHING you’ve accomplished in your professional life. This is usually the first question asked in a job interview so remember that there will be several more! Your interlocutor expects a coherent and succinct summary of your professional career. Normally, he should learn a little more than in your resume. But the CV and the summary should overlap. Go chronologically. If you are a junior executive, the best way to respond is to first talk about your training, internships and first work experiences. On the other hand, if you’ve been an executive in the job for years, the recruiter expects you to focus on the main positions held by focusing only on the most important experiences.
2. What do you know about our company?
Objective: to assess your knowledge
Strategy: Documentation
Pitfall: Ignoring everything about the company
Risk level: medium
This question is very important to the employer or recruiter. The latter wants to evaluate your motivations and your interest in his team and his work, or even his field of activity. Do your research before the interview, even if you think you know everything about the coveted company: website, social media, Google, relationships, etc. Here we are talking more about the company than the position. Whether you are a junior executive or a senior executive, you should always come to a job interview with a clear picture of the mission and the general context in which the company operates, its internal organization, its culture and values, or even the service you want to integrate. This way, you will be able to ask questions about what you don’t know, because you can’t know everything. If you’re there solely for compensation, it’s not very flattering to the company and its people. The idea that you can leave as quickly as you arrived, after receiving a new offer even more enticing elsewhere, could cross their minds.
3. Why are you interested in this position?
Objective: to assess your interest
Strategy: Coherence
Trap: Pretending
Risk level: medium
By asking this question, the recruiter seeks to verify your motivation for that particular position. Normally, this should be an easy question, as it is at the heart of the job description and your personal approach. So if this position is close to your heart, now is the time to indicate your interest in it. If you have prepared your job interview well, you have probably already linked the various components of the job description to your achievements and professional skills. A job interview is done for two. Every employer has an advantage in presenting the mission and culture of his company. It is a question of the attractiveness of the company. That’s why we recommend that employers who do in-house recruitment read our article 5 tips to increase your chances of hiring the best candidate. If you’re more of a potential candidate, it’s time to talk about the major issues that stimulated you in your last executive positions, and show how well aligned with this new job. Draw the line from point A to point B. You and the position.
4. Tell me about an achievement you are very proud of
Theme: Self-Assessment
Strategy: stay concrete
Trap: too much
Level of risk: high
Let’s call it an open-ended question. The purpose of the question is to see how you perceive yourself in the performance of your executive duties. No one is perfect and normally you should have made one or two mistakes in your career. The more senior managerial responsibilities the coveted executive position, the more important this issue is because it draws on the qualities associated with leadership. Let’s call it the question of qualities and defects. The best way to deal with it is to start from the concrete and go from the particular to the general. Whether you are a junior or senior executive, take a project X and “work on it”, analyze it. Make it a case in your management style, a summary of your leadership in action. See how you managed to make THIS challenge a success. Thanks to this project, which is particularly successful for you, you will be able to present your strengths, whether it is your ability to withstand the pressure, your interpersonal skills (with the team, with customers, etc.) and your technical skills. Your interlocutor wants to know 1) if the candidate has a leadership personality, 2) if he knows his field, and 3) how it will react to complex situations. Above all, he wants to understand how all this is articulated in the head of the person in front of him. Don’t forget your weak points! Talk about “things to improve” rather than “flaws”… But add a certain degree of imperfection. If it’s too smooth, it’s suspicious.
5. How do you see your career?
Theme: Your Career Plan
Strategy: looking to the future
Pitfall: Not having a plan
Level of risk: high
What are your career aspirations? What is your career plan? How will you get there? Are you happy in your job? This question is multifaceted and very personal. It is one of the trick questions asked in job interviews because here we are not talking about the past, but about the present and the future. It hires you personally and at the same time hires the company and the position you want. Basically, this question makes it possible to determine whether the candidate has set long-term goals based on the ambitions that drive him. For that you have to know yourself. There are bound to be things that make you more or less happy at work. Make a list of the pros and cons of your current duties. Think of concrete actions such as “inspiring a team” or “developing a new market” or “giving more visibility to the company’s mission”. Think about what makes you vibrate and what you would like to achieve. Faced with this vast field of possibilities, draw up a set of specific actions allowing you to achieve, in the long term, your professional goal. In fact, your interlocutor wants to know if it is part of your career plan! If your interests intersect and if your paths cross. It is necessary both to remain humble, but also to show that you have enough ambition to project yourself in time, both in the position in question and with the possibilities of evolution offered by the company. Show how you will concretely create the conditions for joint success. The famous win-win. Do not hesitate to ask the question of the possible evolution of the position over time. Talk about growth. Talk about the future. Create a dialog.
6. Why are you the ideal candidate?
Theme: your qualities
Strategy: the spirit of synthesis
Pitfall: Not standing out from the crowd
Risk: High
Again, be careful to talk too much about yourself. Obviously, the question is about you, but more about your strengths and your talent, about your experience acquired at the cost of long and patient efforts, about the collaboration of a great team that you have been able to inspire, but also about many mistakes of course. You see the difference between the two attitudes. It is in fact a kind of synthesis of the previous questions. Obviously, if you have a secret card, play it. More generally, by this simple question, the recruiter ensures that the candidate has understood the stakes of the position to be filled. We are in the middle of the job interview and a lot of things have been said. The recruiter wants to make sure you’re on the same page as him. Everything should be coherent: past, present and future. Above all, there should be a link between your motivation and the coveted position based on the most significant experiences of your career. This requires a good spirit of synthesis. Be careful to highlight only your successes without including other team members. Even though you think you have all the skills required to get the job and meet the needs of the company, others have them too. What makes the difference?
7. Are you a leader?
Theme: Leadership
Strategy: Define your leadership style
Pitfall: Talking too much about technical skills
Level of risk: high
This question is extremely important for executive positions because they are the foundation of inspiring leaders, in addition to having the technical or professional skills related to their work. Leadership is a set of rather intangible human qualities. We can develop them, but some are natural leaders. Being a leader is not a function, nor an official title, but a set of behaviors and attitudes that make a person listened to. If you’ve encountered them in your life, and it’s impossible not to have met them, you know what it’s all about. A leader doesn’t just effectively manage high-performing teams. He inspires them with his personality. Of course, there are different types of leadership. So what is yours? Your interlocutor is very interested in knowing this, because he has in mind certain types of leaders he is looking for and others less so. The best is to play cards on the table and clearly show how you are leading the boat to port. The recruiter here expects you to expose concrete cases where you had to show leadership in an X situation. The ability to communicate well, to set clear goals for your team, to outline effective action strategies, and to encourage successful initiatives are all facets of well-taken leadership. They are distinct from technical skills. It is important to highlight them to your interlocutor.
8. Tell me about your former employer
Theme: your professional assessment
Strategy: Diplomacy
Trap: washing dirty laundry in public
Level of risk: high
The general rule of thumb is not to denigrate your old business. This is generally quite poorly perceived and can be a significant obstacle to the next steps in the recruitment process. So it’s a trap. That is not the purpose of the question. On the other hand, if there is a major point of dissatisfaction that justifies to some extent your presence at this interview, why not talk about it openly? This will let you know what other people think. But remember that you are on slippery ground. It has to be done with a certain detachment. Any overly critical attitude exposed openly is a path full of obstacles and this critical attitude will not be useful to you unless it is founded and well documented. So it’s up to you. Instead, make this trick question a springboard to take stock of the positive aspects of your previous position. Be as factual as possible by listing the skills you’ve learned, the relationships you’ve built with your former colleagues, and the team accomplishments you’re proud of. That is the central objective of the question. “Stay focused” as they say and keep a cool head.
9. What are your salary expectations?
Theme: Compensation
Strategy: negotiation
Pitfall: only look at the salary
Level of risk: high
A delicate question in this time of labour shortage/scarcity, isn’t it? The price of talent is on the rise. For this kind of inevitable question at one time or the other of the interview, I suggest you avoid a precise figure if you are a candidate. Instead, you will need to define a salary range. The salary range represents the difference between the minimum wage and the maximum wage allocated for a function. There is the market, but there is also your field of activity, your experience, your responsibilities, and the offer proposed in the job description or advertisement if applicable. You cannot ignore the offer made by the employer. On your side, you must have a number in mind otherwise it may pass for indecision. Do your research on the Internet too. There are many sites or forums that deal with compensation sector by sector. Salary negotiation must also take into account the various benefits potentially offered by the company: company car, medical care, insurance, bonuses, participation in the shareholding, etc. It is on this global offer that you will make your decision. Not just on salary.
10. Do you have any questions?
It is up to each candidate to ask the recruiter all outstanding questions. Make your case for the job by asking concrete questions about a typical week or something else. Also ask your contact person how the follow-up will be done if your application is selected.
Happy interview! If you have any questions about any of these questions, we are job interview experts and we can advise you. Do not hesitate to contact us.
