The Most Important Question to Prepare for When Interviewing

Whether interviewers or interviewees know it or not, there is only one interview question in the top 10 questions asked most often that really demonstrates anything. Know it and be prepared for it.

One area that has been carefully studied by psychologists is job interviews. Dr. Allen Huffcutt of Bradley University has been studying job interviews for two decades. His list of the top ten most common interview questions is below:

1. Why should I hire you?
2. What do you see yourself doing five years from now?
3. What do you consider to be your greatest strengths and weaknesses?
4. How would you describe yourself?
5. What college subjects did you like the best and least?
6. What do you know about our company?
7. Why did you decide to seek a job with our company?
8. Why did you leave your last job?
9. What do you want to earn five years from now?
10. What do you really want to do in life?

Only one of these questions have any real power at all according to Dr. Huffcuff (http://www.themunrofund.com/Documents/Mind_Matters.pdf). Question 6 can help reveal the level of background research that a candidate has actually done. Still, not a great question but an important one to be prepared for. The rest of the questions generally allow candidates to shine rather than demonstrate anything of real use.

As a side note: Using structured interviews are six times more effective than unstructured interviews at predicting a candidate’s job performance.

Know the company you are interviewing with. Do your research. Know: the history, the direction, key players, key player’s backgrounds, competitors, industry, industry trends, key initiatives, core values, financial trends, why the position is open, what happens if they don’t fill the position, etc. This is not the time to throw slop up against the wall to see what sticks. Aim, prepare and focus.

Gook luck!