The 20 Interview Questions Employers Rely On (And How to Answer Them Perfectly)

These are the exact formulas and sample Answers for the 20 interview questions you must master in a competitive job market.

These are the questions interviewers rely on.

The most, and you'll hear some of them in nearly every interview. The reason why my videos have led to hundreds of thousands of job offers landed is because it is not about memorizing scripts because those fall apart under pressure. This is about developing a pattern and an overall strategy to your interview answers so that you are never tripped up.

I've also pulled in a ton of.

New examples from different professions in this video, so comment your profession below so.

That I can use it in an.

Example for a future video.

All right, let's get into the three step formula to answer why should I hire you? And an example answer of this all in action. Step 1 Review the role when asked this question, rather than dive into who you are, take a moment and reiterate what you know about the role and what challenges you see that you'll be facing if hired. This tells them that you're business minded, that you're focused, and that you did your homework. For example, you might say something like from what I understand, this role is meant to streamline the process for X and help clients with Y. And the biggest challenge is is likely going to be Z. This brings us to step two. Tell them about your relevant experience and skills. Don't be a generic Eric here. Tell them about specific skills you have that address those challenges and things that need to be done that you just made. This should sound something like based on those business goals, I can bring my experience doing X in Y industry to achieve goal Z. This is so powerful because at this point you're essentially matching matching the top priorities to your skill set. It is the best way to clearly show your value and then to drive it home and move your answer from mild to fire to diablo. Give a few examples of experiences from your past that are relevant to the challenges this company is facing now. Ease up their sport and remember, you don't have to list every single seemingly relevant accomplishment. Clear and concise answers be long and rambling ones. Step 3 Ask your interviewer now is the grand finale where you turn your answer to why should I hire you? Into a conversation and make absolutely sure that you ace this question. After answering it with the first two steps, I want you to flip the question and ask the interviewer. Is this how you see me in this role? So seriously, this approach is so powerful. It keeps the interview flowing naturally like a conversation, and it gives your interviewer the opportunity to either agree that you are the perfect fit and they'll hear themselves say it out loud of how you're great fit, music to my ears or address where maybe you're misaligned so that you can answer any of those concerns right on the spot immediately. You know if you flubbed this answer or if you did a really great job and you have the chance to expand further in the moment, can't you see why you are going to want them to ask this question? It is an absolute ace in the hole. Now here's a sample answer for how to respond to why should we hire you in the job interview? So with this formula in mind, your answer should 1 clearly review the role to share relevant experience and then 3 flip the question on the interviewer. Here's the example.

As I understand it, this customer success manager role focuses on deepening enterprise client relationships relationships boosting product adoption and improving retention. One of the biggest challenges you mentioned was how that several accounts are using only a fraction of the product capabilities, which limits both their results and your expansion opportunities. So in my last role at Luminate, I managed a portfolio of enterprise customers and introduced a success plan process that increased adoption by nearly 3%. By focusing on like education and proactive check ins. We turned sales several accounts that were at risk into multi year renewals. And across my seven plus years in customer success, I've become known for spotting those gaps early and coordinating with product and sales to remove those blockers and increase client retention. And I also enjoy mentoring newer team members and building repeatable processes that raise the team's performance.

Is that how you see me in.

The role or are there specific customer challenges you want me to focus on first?

Are you interviewing with other companies? This one really trips job seekers up because I've heard them say that they feel awkward that they're considering other opportunities because it feels unloyal or distracted. I don't know, but it's actually the complete opposite of this. It is a very good sign to be wanted by other companies. It shows you have marketable skills. So there is one answer and only one answer to this question. And that is yes, I'm currently in a few interview processes and if it makes sense, you can continue by saying and I'm especially interested in this opportunity because what do you want in your next role? This is a job interview question that you can greatly mess up if you're not careful. And a lot of job seekers forget that. Employers desperately want to make sure that you are not only capable of doing the job, but that you Also sincerely want the job. Too many hiring managers have been burned.

By hiring someone overqualified or wanting to.

Make a career pivot and then settling for this job opportunity and then leaving as soon as they get a better job offer. So your answer here could allay concerns that you are not strapping on your.

Sneakers and I'm going to pull a Runaway Bride.

We got to go, got to go. We got to go meet Bob. A mistake is to be abstract here or say something super vague like, I am looking for roles with a lot of creative problem solving at an innovative company. Translation, I don't know what I want and I'm keeping my options as open as Denny's at 2am Good value for 40 years at Lenny's.

Denny's, Denny's.

Instead, say the exact job titles you're targeting, which should be essentially the same.

As the role you were interviewing for.

And then pretty much describe the job.

You'Re interviewing for without saying you're describing it. It sounds like this. Let's say I'm going for a director of finance role at Hyatt. My answer would be, for my next role, I'm targeting director of Finance. Opportunities focused on financial management, leading a team and finding areas for cost efficiency and revenue generation. Perform preferably in hospitality. And that's it.

That is going to make them so confident in you. And heck, I'm just pulling this straight.

From the job description now. In addition to knowing the answers to top questions, there are more advanced strategies you will want. So I put them all in my book. Reverse the search. You can go over to bookstore, library and grab it.

I know.

We'll see if we should keep that in or not.

There are three key rules of thumb that you need to keep in mind when you're answering the question, why are you leaving your job? Why'd you leave your last job? The first one is make sure your answer is short. I'm talking one to three sentences. A grave mistake people do is they give too much description and detail. This question is a quick check the box question. They're just trying to understand, did something go wrong in your past role? Is there something about your past role that you didn't like that's actually the same here? So you're going to come here and then leave us? They're trying to check for a few skeletons of closet, quick peek, then they're closing the door. Number two, keep your answer positive. And I see a lot of job seekers find this very challenging, especially if your last role was oh so toxic. But what's going to be going through interviewer's head is if you say anything bad about your previous boss or company, they're going to think this person's going to speak this way about us. And we also don't want this employer to dwell on your past drama and instead we want them to focus more on your future. Number three, you have to be confident. We often forget that we write our own narratives. You get to tell this story however you want to, and the employer will only see it as a sob story or a difficult situation if that's how you make it out to be. So answer quickly, confidently, and make like a cow and move on. Now let's walk through a bunch of different scenarios and have example answers for for each that follow these criteria that I just said. So let's say you were laid off. Say something very brief. This wasn't your fault. So bonus points if you reference how big the layoff was if it was sizable. So you could say something like the company went through some tough financial times and laid off 40% of the workforce. Unfortunately, I would have loved to stay there. It was a great place to work.

Okay, now let's walk through some responses.

If your reason for leaving your last job wasn't really related to that job or possibly even your career at large. So let's say you left for family reasons, you could say something like, I took some time off to take care of a family member. Now I'm eager to get back to work. If you had to relocate, you could say something like I recently moved to this area because my spouse is getting their master's degree at the University of Alabama and I'm looking for a new job in the city. Or if you were pursuing education, you could say I took time to get my MBA and now I'm excited to apply what I've learned to my next role. I've actually had quite a few clients who are entrepreneurs who I help them transition back into the workforce, which is very challenging but absolutely doable with job shopping strategies. So here what you want to do if you're in that situation to make it a hundred percent clear that you are moving on from your entrepreneurial endeavors. Such as I took time to do my own freelance consulting, which was a great learning experience, but I greatly miss being on a team and I'm eager to get back into a company. Next, let's talk about how you're going.

To explain if you were fired.

You should avoid saying that you were fired by any means necessary. Necessary. A good way to frame it is to agree with the termination. Such as the company hired me for one role, but then it changed to be outside of my skill set and that led to an amicable split. Which is why I'm so excited about this role at your company, because it focuses on my strength areas of X, Y and Z. Now, let's say you're still at your job or you left your job voluntarily. I want you to keep in mind the rules we set at the top of this video. Okay? So you may not want to give your real reason. Instead give a more secondary reason or a bit of a watered down story. We'll call it the Disney version instead of the gritty documentary version. So if the real reason you're leaving your job is because the workplace is toxic or your boss is a loon, your co workers are mean, leadership is completely out of touch with reality. We are going to leave that fodder for your memoir and instead focus on a bit more of a secondary reason. What could that be? Well, first you could blame it on the company's financial situation. My current company is going through some tough financial times, so I'm looking for something more stable and secure in a company that has a really strong future. It's also really easy to blame it on the commute. I enjoy the work, but the commute is long and it's taking a toll on me and my family. I'm looking for a position closer to home to reduce my commuting time. You could blame it on a recent merger. The company underwent significant changes due to a merger that changed my team and role significantly and shifted away from my career goals. Or talk about how you want to change industries to something more exciting. Such as I have a deep passion for artificial intelligence and it's my dream.

To work in that industry.

Or the absolute banger of an answer that so many people have said works really well for them. I hit the ceiling of growth in my role and when I explored new opportunities within the company, I found that they were limited. That's why I'm excited about role. I want to learn new skills and gain unique experiences such as X. Now, I want to be clear when I say give a secondary reason or don't talk smack about the company. Still, whatever you say should be true. It shouldn't be completely made up. I'm more saying that let's take the negative reasons out. We don't want to say bad things about the employer and focus on things that are a bit more neutral. Give an example of a goal you set and how you achieved it or Another version is what is your greatest accomplishment? Depending on your profession, you can usually predict a more specific version of this question, such as if you're an event planner, they might ask what is the greatest event you've planned? Or if you're a salesperson, what is the best deal you landed? Basically, they are opening up the floor to you and saying, I'm giving you a moment to shine. Show us what you got, kid. For this answer, you need to pick an answer that has two components. The first is relevancy. Too many job seekers pick their favorite accomplishment of theirs, such as I've heard job seekers pick that they are proud to be the first person in their family to get an mba. But that doesn't set you apart, nor does it share the value you're actually going to deliver in the role. And then the second thing is to focus on it being impressive. Choose an accomplishment where you did something really well and the results, we're great. Here's an example.

In my role as VP of Talent Acquisition, I was given the goal to reduce time to hire for our critical technical roles, which had been sitting at more than 70 days and causing major delays for engineering and our product teams. And so I set a target to bring that number below 45 days within 2 quarters. Now the first step was diagnosing where the process was breaking down and I found inconsistencies in how hiring teams were evaluating candidates. There were long gaps between stages, there was lack of clarity around what a great candidate look like. And so I partnered with the engineering leadership to rebuild the competency profiles, created structure interview guides, and I trained every interviewer on how to use them. And then from there I implemented a new scheduling workflow that removed bottlenecks and introduced a simple dashboard so leaders could see see the real time Progress. Then within four months, we reduced time to hire to 43 days and increase the number of offer acceptances by more than 15% due to this coordinated, more responsive process. And those improvements allowed the company to accelerate some of their product initiatives. And several of those frameworks we built ended up becoming the standard process across other locations.

Tell me about a time you failed or tell me about a time you made a mistake. When picking your answer, look for a story in your past where it truly was a mistake or a failure. We don't want to dodge this question, but the most important part is how did you react to that failure? How did you rectify it? A story with a strong lesson is the one you should choose. Here's an example Answer in my last.

Role as supply chain coordinator, I was responsible for placing weekly replenishment orders with one of our key suppliers and one week I misread the demand forecast and I placed an order that was significantly lower than what was needed. And I didn't catch the error until the warehouse team notified me that we were about to run short on a high volume item which put production at risk. And immediately I took ownership. I called the supplier to request an urgent shipment because it was my mistake. I also worked with our logistics partners to secure expedited transport and reorganize the production schedule so that the team could prioritize work that didn't rely on that item. We avoided a full shutdown, but it was definitely a stressful thing that I put the team through that didn't have to happen. Afterward, I met with my manager to walk through what went wrong and I realized I had been relying too heavily on a stage single forecast view. And so I built a simple cross check process that compared the last four weeks of demand and open orders and safety stock before submitting anything. And since putting that system in place, we didn't have another replenishment issue. And that experience taught me the importance of validating data from multiple angles, slowing down and making sure that you are protecting accuracy.

Do you have experience with specific tool or software like Salesforce? This is a quick check of your skill set, so answer briefly and confidently and they will ask follow up questions if necessary. If you don't have that skill, share how you're working on it or share how you've built similar skills. Your answer can sound like Do I.

Have experience with HubSpot? Well, I am doing HubSpot Academy courses so that I can get comfortable with the platform and I also have a lot of experience experience with platforms that are similar like Mailchimp and ActiveCampaign where I'm setting up sequences, tagging, logic, reporting, all that. Now you can study all of these.

Questions and still get really nervous in.

The job interview and not sell yourself, right? If you need to boost your confidence, I will link a free class called Unshakable Interviews down below.

What did you like doing most in your previous job? Have you been asked this in a job interview? This is a common strategy to to understand what motivates you in a job, what gets your juices flowing, what gets.

You in the zone, auto zone where.

You can go wrong Here is focusing on a part of the role that isn't relevant to the role you are interviewing for. So if you're going for a heavily.

Customer facing role and you talk about how much you love project management and managing stakeholders.

That's not really the main feature of this role. So the interviewer might think this person isn't going to enjoy this work. So think of something really core to the role you're currently interviewing for and then explain what you liked about that.

In a previous role and even throw in an accomplishment for good measure. This could sound like here's an answer for a Director of HR interview the part of my role that I enjoyed most was building systems that made work better for employees, such as in my last position. Our onboarding experience was inconsistent across departments, so I redesigned it from the ground up. I partnered with department heads to map out their needs and created a standardized framework and introduced manager training so that expectations were clear. And within six months the new hire engagement scores rose by 30% and early turnover dropped significantly. What did you not enjoy about your previous role?

Oh, be very careful if you were.

Asked this in a job interview, but I do have the perfect answer.

The interviewer is trying to understand what about previous roles motivates you less so that the team can properly place you.

In the right role and manage you.

That being said, if you say the wrong thing, it is very easy to get yourself to disqualified here. So make sure that the thing you like the least is not something that.

Is core to the role you're doing next, such as don't say you didn't.

Like that you didn't get much credit.

For your work if you were doing more of the behind the scenes administrative work.

Additionally, don't say something that looks a little poorly on you, such as don't say how you don't like working with.

Jerks and then continue to complain about.

People who you've worked with in the past.

What's the advice you give to your younger self? Spend less time with the kids. Spend less less time with the kids. They just waste your time. I can't believe a father would say spend less time with your kids. No dickheads. What's he saying?

This just makes you seem hard to.

Work with and quite negative.

So choose something that is relatably not.

Enjoyable, such as in my previous engineering role, my least favorite part was when requirements would come to us very loosely defined. I am able to work through ambiguity, but having to guess at what a product owner really wanted sometimes led to unnecessary rework. And so I found that when expectations were clear up front, I delivered faster with fewer revisions. And now I ask so many more clarifying questions early.

Here is the best formula for how.

To Answer Tell me about yourself in a job interview. Part one is a concise statement of the type of professional you are in.

Relation to this job.

If you are pivoting, don't focus on your previous career. Only focus on the new skills you have built towards this new career and your transferable skills. They already invited you to this interview. Don't talk them out of it by pointing out how you might not be the perfect fit.

Oh, and I will link below a.

Worksheet with this three part formula with examples as well.

And this is my most popular resource. Folks have sent me thousands of emails.

Saying it was a huge help, so you can just grab that in the comments and the description to go along with this video. Part 2 your highlights now is the.

Time to dive into your past experience, touch on your most recent work experience.

Give a couple of highlights about it.

And then move to your role before that, and then speak more briefly about.

Roles farther back in time.

You don't need to walk through your whole whole work history, just the important roles.

And you can round it out by.

Saying something like and I held several.

Junior level roles and internships prior to that.

What's so important here is to not explain your past roles super accurately, but instead explain them where you're only focusing on tasks and accomplishments that are most.

Relevant for the opportunity you're interviewing for, such as if you're going for a.

Program manager role, but your biggest accomplishment from your last role was closing a.

Big business development deal.

Now Mr. Wolf of Wall street, that is impressive, but don't mention it because that's not going to help you land this role. If you're a recent grad or switching.

Fields, pull from class projects, volunteer work, or even hobbies where you've used similar skills. When you share your highlights, you don't have to pull exclusively from official work.

Experience because once more, say it with me. Focus on what's most relevant.

Also, brevity is your best friend here.

So keep your answer to under two minutes. The resume already gives them your entire discography. This is about making your greatest hits playlist. Part 3 why this role? This third part is the secret to ending your answer with a bang. And keep from trailing off at the.

End of your answer trying to figure out how to tie it up with a bow.

Share why this role at this company.

Is the right next career step for you.

The reason why this is so powerful is it focuses the interviewer now on the future. A future where you are in it because interviewers genuinely want to know are you truly interested in this role, are you likely to stay in it? You shouldn't recite the company's mission statement like a robot. Instead, share some things that interest you about the job description and the company to show that this role fits with.

Where you see your career going.

Maybe you're interested in the product. Maybe the role has a global scope that excites you. Maybe your friend works there and says, this company is simply the best.

Whatever it is, connect the dots.

This final part of your answer tells.

Them I know what I want. And it's this here's an example of a seasoned finance professional. I am a finance leader focused on operational forecasting and strategic planning in the health tech industry. In my current role as Director of fs, FP and A, I manage planning for a business unit that grew from $90 million to $250 million in three years. I've led budgeting cycles, built forecast models, and partnered with product and sales teams to align investments to company strategy. Before that, I spent several years in corporate finance where I improved reporting processes and led a team responsible for monthly close variance analysis and board level presentation. Earlier in my career, I held several analyst roles where I developed my foundation in modeling and business partnering. And what interests me the most about this senior finance manager role is the focus on building forecasting discipline during a period of a rapid scale. And that aligns very well with what I've done in the past of creating that clarity, reducing those surprises, and helping the leadership make informed decisions. And so I feel like I could make an impact right away.

What are your salary expectations? Simply ask, what is the salary range for this role? And you can tell them whether or not you're comfortable with it. If they don't have a range, you can say that you're flexible and looking for the best overall package. If they really want a specific number, you can say, based on the other similar roles I'm seeing, companies are paying X to Y. Does that fit in your budget?

Now, a bonus question I'm going to throw in here, which is actually one of the most important interview questions you'll be asked is do you have any questions for me? And well, I put together a free download of 15 excellent questions you can ask in the job interview. I will link that below.

When can you start?

Now.

They might be interested in knowing if you can start right away, and if you can, that's great. But you also may need to give your employer a bit of notice to make sure you preserve that relationship. An answer can sound like I can.

Start within a week of A signed offer. Does that work with your timeline?

Tell me something not on your resume. We always need to ask ourselves why would someone ask this question? And what I uncovered, because I personally would never ask this question is the interviewer wants to see you as a a whole complete person and see if you're a culture fit and what truly drives you. Okay, sure, we can play that game. So knowing this, I would say something that connects to your values and shows something about your character. So it could be volunteering for a cause that you believe in. It could be a side project that you've been building that shows you're a self starter. It could be that you're upskilling in something to show that you have a growth mindset.

Here's an example, something not on my resume is I've been building a small side project for about a year now. It's a simple productivity app for my own use because I could never find one that specifically matched my brain. And I'm not trying to turn it into a business or anything, but I've just loved teaching myself the basics of user flows and testing features and improving it based on just experimenting with it. It's just another way that I love just experimenting and tinkering with.

Describe a situation where you had to deal with a difficult coworker, or another version is where you had to resolve an interpersonal conflict. Raise your hand if you've been personally victimized by this question. Oh, this is a very common question, and one that I've had to help my clients with a lot because this answer could make you come off the wrong way, like you're talking smack on your coworkers. Essentially, the interviewer is asking you this because we've all worked with difficult people in our day, and they're trying to understand your ability to communicate and adapt. So pick a scenario where there was a bit of tension and where you.

Were the bigger person.

Don't share that you avoided them, or you had any sort of attitude about it. A good answer would sound something like this.

When I worked as a staff nurse, I had a co worker who often changed patient care tasks without communicating it to the rest of the team. For example, she would adjust medication timing or move a dressing change earlier in the shift, and the rest of us wouldn't find out until we checked the chart and it led to duplicate work and more importantly, confusion to the patients. I asked if we could talk in a quieter moment, and I approached it from the angle of patient safety and teamwork, not blame. I said something like, I've noticed a few times the care plan gets adjusted without the rest of us knowing and this makes it harder for us to coordinate. And I just want to make sure that we're giving the patients the most consistent care. Is there a way that we could sync more clearly? And she explained in her previous unit, the nurses were encouraged to update tasks on the fly to move quickly, and she didn't realize that our team relied so heavily on verbal confirmation. We agreed to do brief check ins at the start of each shift, to go over any plan changes, and to send a quick message through our internal system whenever adjustments were made very quickly within days are her whole workflow smoothed out, the whole team communicated better, and she later told me that she appreciated me coming to her with explicit expectations rather than everyone having to guess if.

You were an animal, which animal would you be? Or really any offshoot of these wacky questions that have nothing to do with the role or your competency. Not that you asked, but boy do I hate these questions.

Let the heat flow through you.

Yes, they're asking you this to see what your personality is like and they likely have some convoluted pseudo psychology rationalization of what different answers mean. But really, this question is a bit of a power trip where they are watching you squirm. For any of these types of questions, a special trick to think of a really good answer is to think of the trait you want to exhibit for this role and then build your answer back from that.

An example is if you were a chief of staff and a core skill you would have is anticipating needs. And so I'm thinking, okay, what animal is good and anticipated anticipating needs? How about a seeing eye dog? So you might say, well, if I was an animal, I'd be a seeing eye dog because they are great at watching people and anticipating needs. Or another version of this question is if you were a superhero, what would your superpower be? And so again, we're thinking, okay, anticipating needs, what superpower would that be? You could say, well, if I had a superpower and I would be the power to see into the future because I can predict what's going to happen and I can anticipate needs for the team. So that's the trick to these questions and it is exhausting. But here we are.

Describe yourself in three words. Going into the job interview, you have deeply studied the job description and reviewed your notes from your previous interviews where they gave you additional information about the role. Right?

Right.

So when you answer these questions, use three words from the job description. Here's what you're going to do. You're going to name one trait and then give a quick example from your experience for each trait. So your answer would sound something like.

The first word I would use to describe myself is coach. Because as a director of sales over the past two years, I've helped five reps move into senior roles by giving them structured training and opportunities to stretch. And then do an answer like that for two more words.

When answering why do you want this job? Why do you want to work here? You should touch on three potential areas. The first is the role. This is the most important thing to talk about because they aren't looking for someone who simply loves the company, is trying to get their foot in the door. No, they want someone who is all in on this specific role. The duties, the projects, the goals. They want you to be a master of it and see yourself in this role for years to come. So say specifically why this role is the best next career move for you. Geek out about what you like about the duties, how you're eager to jump in on the projects that you'd work on, and how you feel like you could make a great impact. Next, you can talk about the team. Talk about the people you've met in the interview process. If this question comes up a few interviews in and say their darn names, okay, it's going to sound like you're already a member of the team. Say specifics of what stood out to you in the conversations with them, how you could learn so much from them and vice versa, how you could see you all working well together and how working with great people makes all the difference. You know, you're lobbing on that sweet praise of true things that you noticed about the team. Finally, you can talk about the company, discuss what you like about the product, what you're looking forward to accomplishing, why you're excited about the future of this industry, and how you feel that the company is aligned with your values. Now, warning I would say stay away from an answer that includes things like the location, commute, salary, benefits, because a lot of that is quite similar across roles and companies. Such as a huge mistake I see people making is they answer this question with one of the reasons being I'm really interested in this role because it is remote, okay? Millions of jobs are remote. It's like asking someone why are they interested in dating you? And they say it's because you have brown hair. Not really a reason with any sort of depth that you would feel good about.

Here's an example I'M excited about the Product Marketing Manager role because it's the blend of work I want to be doing next Next. I am specifically interested in patient facing products where I can own the go to market strategy. I also really enjoyed meeting Marcus and Sam. They were honest about the challenges and clear about the direction they want the team to go in. And I'm excited about the company because I've been following your past few releases and the way you're building those AI driven features. It really shows a long term vision. It feels like a place I could be for the long haul.

The first question is are you familiar with our company? This is usually asked in the first round recruiter call. This is not a test. They're really trying to figure out how long they should make their explanation of what the company does so that you truly understand. It is impressive to know some things about the company. Saying things like Yes, I downloaded the app. Yes, I was on your website last night. Yes, I saw the news article about the new product that launched that will instantly put you in an advanced bracket above other candidates and then say but I'd love to hear more about the company and role from your perspective. Here is the two part formula for answering what is your strength? Part 1 Name a strength or two that matches a key competency of the role. So take a look at the job description and pay attention special attention to the prominent skills you see. Take for instance this job description for the VP of Business affairs and Legal. What are some of these skills that they emphasize? It says here, skilled in complex negotiations and handling conflict resolution. You could emphasize is your strength being excellent at negotiation? Of course, if this isn't one of your strengths, don't say so. But I'm guessing if you're going for this role, I have a feeling you're likely pretty strong at it. Part 2 We've got to give give an example. A major mistake I see people doing with this answer is they list descriptors and only descriptors. Naming cliche adjectives that you think your interviewer wants to hear is not going to set you apart.

Here's an example. For a creative director, one of my key strengths is my ability to translate ambiguous ideas into clear creative concepts that teams can execute on. In my last role as Creative Director at a tech driven wellness brand, we were preparing to launch a new product category with very little creative direction from leadership and so I led a discovery sprint. I pulled insights from user research and I built three distinct creative territories that all aligned with broader brand strategy and this gave cross functional teams, a concrete vision to rally behind and we produced a campaign that generated the highest engagement of the year and it helped drive.

A strong first quarter launch. Now let's move into this second part of the question which is what are your weaknesses? If talking about your weaknesses intimidates you, that tracks because I warn you that you can say a weakness here that could be detrimental and they'll kick you to the curb. Don't necessarily view this question as them trying to bamboozle you. Every human has weaknesses and a good manager wants to understand what are your weaknesses? Weaknesses so that they can best manage you and set you up for success and put you in a role that plays to your strengths and doesn't rely on your weaknesses. Here's the three part formula for answering what are your weaknesses? Part 1 Name something that you're legitimately not great at, but don't choose just any weakness. Choose one that you're already working on and improving and make sure it is not a core component of the job such as A salesperson should never say a weakness that they're working on is cold calling or facing rejection. Those are too important to the role. Here are weaknesses you can say when you're asked the question in a job interview, what is your greatest weakness? A lot of roles require some element of doing a presentation, but it's usually not a huge part of the role. So this is a really good one to say and it's super relatable. Public speaking thinking is the top fear of humans. Besides death. Another weakness could be not taking enough risks. You can talk about how in the past you regretted not making bolder moves.

And decisions in your jobs.

You can talk about how you might feel uncomfortable initiating conversations at networking events.

This is again very relatable.

A lot of people feel like they're not good at this. Part 2 Explain how you're working on it. Describe the steps that you are already taking to improve improve that weakness. Part 3 Articulate the results you've seen from improving. It's not about the weakness going away completely because then they may ask you for another weakness that currently exists, but this shows that you are working to better yourself. The best answers are ones that showcase your ability to take feedback well or demonstrate your self awareness and they prove that you take the initiative to level yourself up.

Here's an example of a weakness also for a creative director. A growth area I've been actively improving is resisting the urge to jump into execution mode too early. I am a hands on creative by nature and earlier in my career I sometimes found myself adjusting designs or copy instead of guiding the team to explore the solution themselves. And so to address this, I've built a practice of asking more coaching style questions in the early reviews and establishing clearer creative principles at the start of each project. And I've also done some leadership training focused on creative empowerment. So now my team definitely feels more ownership. I do like to dabble sometimes, but it's been a lot better now that I've been able to take a little bit of a step back. You've got this wi fi high five.