Organisations ask questions to their candidates to get a clear picture of what they can bring to the company. These questions include those that are simple and difficult ones. Using these questions they can intimidate an individual to screen out and find the one best suited for the job. They start with simple questions to get information about them personally, then progress to difficult questions about an individual’s career development.

The interviewer sometimes asks their questions to access the thinking process of a person. To do that, he or she may ask unexpected questions to realise the logic of one’s answer. This article will help identify the simple and difficult questions asked in an interview and the reason behind.

Simple Questions

To begin with, there is a list of ten simple questions asked in an interview :
1. Tell me about yourself
2. What is your greatest achievement so far?
3. Where do you see yourself in the next five years?
4. Why should we hire you?
5. Why do you want the job?
6. How do people describe you?
7. What are you passionate about?
8. Why do you want to work here?
9. What do you know about us?
10. How did you find this job?

These questions are mainly about the one looking for a job so that they know about their career aspirations and educational advancement. They want to know how they can match your career plans with the work at hand. The organisation asks so as to know how you got to apply for that job and why. They also want to know your values and what you consider to be your best achievement in life. With these questions, they can see what positive improvement one can bring to the company. The rest of the questions that follow are hard and tricky to answer.

Difficult Questions

Personal Questions

1. What are your greatest weaknesses?
2. What is your greatest strength?
3. Why do you want to leave your current job?
4. Why did you leave your former job?
5. When can you start?
6. Do you have any questions?

These first six questions are asked to find out more about the individual and create an argument about whether they should hire you or not. They also want to find out how you used to work with others in the other company. These questions are aimed at seeing your worth and dedication to the job. From the questions, they can find out the individual’s strength which they need in their company. If one is really interested in the job they the manager will know by asking that person if they have questions. When they ask questions about the organisation, it means they are interested.

Salary questions

1. What is your current salary?
2. What are your salary expectations?

These two questions asked by the employer are used to find out one’s worth. They want a range of your expectations for salary in correspondence to their budget. The interviewer might be ready to hire you and now they want to negotiate the payment plans.

Career Situations Questions

1. Why did you quit your last job?
2. Why were you fired?
3. Why were you laid off?
4. How do you explain your gap in employment?
5. Tell me about a time you overcame an obstacle.
6. How do you handle stress?
7. What are your career management experiences?

These are mainly questions to understand an applicant’s behaviour. They want to know how the individual solves problems that arise in the workplace. They want to know what experiences you have had in the past that can be of interest to them. In every workplace there’s a time of pressure, so the organisation would want to know one’s ways of handling themselves in such times. Through this, they find out communications skills one has. They finally decide if you are best fitted for the job when the interview finished