How to Answer Interview Questions

A Google Doc of this How to Answer Interview Questions Guide webpage is available for printing or preferred study method.

Reflect on Your Experience

One of the first things you should do after confirming your interview with an employer is to review the job description and take note of the responsibilities and required qualifications listed. You can be certain that an interviewer will ask you questions to assess whether you possess these top skills. To prepare, reflect on your own experiences to identify specific examples you can bring up in the interview to demonstrate that your background matches what they are looking for in an ideal candidate.

Research the Employer

Devote time during your preparation process to reviewing the company’s website to get a sense of its mission, values, culture, and priorities. You should also search for recent articles reporting on any recent developments and projects, along with researching current trends in the company’s industry. Finally, if you can, find out the names and job titles of the individuals who will be interviewing with you. This information will not only be helpful in brainstorming potential questions but will also guide you in thinking about how to tailor your interview responses.

Websites such as Glassdoor and Indeed, where users may share the questions and experiences they were asked during their interviews with companies, are great resources, as well.

Conduct Informational Interviews with Alumni and Other Students

If possible, your research can include using the Alumni Directory or LinkedIn to find an alum who currently works at the company. Set up informational interviews with them to ask if they might be willing to meet with you to provide insights about the company’s hiring process, the role’s team/department, and/or the company’s culture, values, and priorities.

Additionally, you search for current students who have completed the same or another internship at the company and ask about their interview experience. Both Handshake and LinkedIn are great resources to aid in that search.

Think About Skills Common Across Industries

If it’s unclear or you are unable to determine exactly what an employer is looking for in an ideal candidate based on the job description and research, you can reflect on examples of times you displayed skills common across several industries, such as:

Problem-solving
Locating and evaluating information to make sound decisions
Working effectively in teams
Communicating through speaking and writing
Taking the initiative
Having a strong work ethic
Analyzing and interpreting data
Being flexible and adaptable

Refer to the National Association of Colleges and Employers for more attributes employers look for on college students’ resumes.

Understand Common Types of Interview Questions

Below are common types of questions you may encounter when interviewing for an internship or a job.

Screening: Quickly identify whether you have the basic qualifications that an employer is looking for to determine if they want to advance you to the next stage of the hiring process. Additionally, these questions can serve as a means for an employer to understand why you’re interested in the position and working for their company.

Example: “How does your current or past work experience make you a good fit for this role?”

Situational: Assess how you may act in a hypothetical but common workplace scenario, your ability to think on your feet, your problem-solving skills, and whether you have good judgment, along with gaining a sense of your values and priorities.

Example: “What would you do if you were given two large projects to work on with the same level of priority?”

Behavioral: Aid in predicting how they will behave in a future scenario through prompting the individual to tell a story about a past experience. These types of questions are best answered by utilizing the S.T.A.R. method.

Example: “Tell me about a time when you made a mistake and how you handled the situation?”

Technical: Determine whether you have the specialized training and skills necessary for the role.

Example: “What programming languages are you familiar with?”

Case: Assess your problem-solving and analytical skills by presenting you with a business challenge you are asked to solve. Common question topics relate to profitability, market sizing, and revenue growth.

Example: Your client is an upscale home furnishing company that has been in business for several decades. The company has been unprofitable for the last two years. Can you help the client figure out what is going on?

Study Common Interview Questions

The list below is only a sample of questions you may be asked by an interviewer. Even if you ultimately don’t encounter them, the process of thinking through and practicing responses to these questions will help you become comfortable with interviewing in general.

Screening

Tell me about yourself.
What do you know about our organization? Why do you want to work here?
How did you hear about this position?
What strengths would you bring to this role/organization?
Why should we hire you?
What do you consider to be your greatest weakness?
Why did you choose Amherst? What made you decide on your major(s)?
Why do you think you’d like this particular job?
What are your long/short-term goals and objectives? How will this job help you achieve them?
What is your ideal work environment?
If you were to come to work here, what’s one thing you want us to know about you?

Situational

What would you do if an angry and dissatisfied customer confronted you? How would you resolve their concern?
How would you handle a disagreement with a team member on the best way to resolve an issue?
Consider a situation where you need approval or a crucial piece of information from your manager to move forward with a project, but they are taking a long time to respond. How might you approach the situation?
What would you do if you realized you had made a mistake on an important assignment after the deadline to complete it had passed?
How would you handle it if the expectations and guidance on a project you were working on were suddenly changed?
Tell me how you would work as part of a team.

Behavioral

Give me an example of a situation in which you failed. What did you learn from the experience?
Tell me about a recent challenge and how you handled it.
Describe a time when you had to take the initiative to solve a problem.
Tell me about your proudest professional achievement.
Describe a situation where you had to use your creative abilities.
Tell me about a time you’ve had to work under time constraints.

Use The STAR Method For Interview Responses

There are certain interview questions that are best answered by using a story to better highlight your strengths and accomplishments and to establish a rapport with the interviewer. Storytelling is especially essential for answering behavioral and situational interview questions.

When preparing for an upcoming interview, you want to first brainstorm specific examples from your experience that you believe best illustrate the top skills the specific employer is looking for in a candidate (i.e., teamwork, leadership, advanced data analysis skills). You might want to think about examples that match more than one skill. Next, use the STAR Method approach to transform those examples into compelling stories:

Situation	Task	Action	Result
Provide context to set up the scene	Describe the task you had to accomplish or the challenges you had to overcome	Details the steps you took to accomplish the task	Explain the impact you had on the situation or the lesson you learned

While it might be helpful to write down your stories first, your goal is not to memorize them word-for-word. Rather, you want to practice telling the stories enough so that they come naturally to you when prompted to recite them whenever your interviewer asks a question that corresponds to their highlighted skill.

Want to learn more about the STAR Method approach to answering interview questions? Read Big Interview’s STAR Method description and samples in the Written Curriculum, Module 5, Developing Your Interview Stories. Then, utilize Big Interview’s STAR Method answer builder, under the Practice tab, Answer Builder, to write and save responses to certain questions or that highlight certain competencies.

STAR Example #1:

Situation: I worked with three other students and an independent film company to create a short, professional documentary the summer between my freshman and sophomore years of college.

Task: We were given four weeks and all of the professional equipment we would need, but nothing more. I was appointed “producer,” meaning I oversaw all phases of the filmmaking process, with the specific responsibility of initiating and leading preproduction. We had one week for preproduction, in which we had to choose and research a topic, secure subjects interviewees, and schedule all future filming.

Action: I brainstormed with everyone I knew to come up with potential ideas for the documentary. I explored these potential leads to gauge their feasibility, and my group eventually agreed on a topic: competitive Rubik’s cubing. Then, I exhaustively researched the subject matter to learn all of its “ins and outs.” Once I had an understanding of the subject matter, I contacted everyone in the Rubik’s cubing community that I had learned about through my research. I also posted announcements online advertising for our documentary and requesting interested subjects.

Result: My research and persistent pursuit for “ins” within the community finally paid off: my emails and announcements attracted numerous interested subjects. I continued to correspond with promising subjects and successfully scheduled interviews with over ten people. In only one week, I led the group in effectively preparing for the next two weeks of production, during which we obtained over 100 hours of footage with 11 different subjects. The documentary was selected for showing at the Southwest by Southwest and Tribeca Film Festivals.

STAR Example #2:

Situation: Last spring, I worked with five other college student volunteers to run a weekly Spanish Club for elementary school students. The aim of the Club is to teach the kids beginning Spanish through interactive 45-minute sessions.

Obstacle: The program was only in its second year and needed a lot of development. We had no lesson plans, no materials, and little teacher assistance.

Action: We met once a week before the sessions to agree on a lesson plan for the week, brainstorm and plan activities, gather the needed materials, and delegate responsibilities for the coming session. I was in charge of brainstorming and planning lesson plans and activities. I outlined the semester so that we would cover one topic per week, such as greetings, colors, letters, numbers, animals, verbs, etc. Most of the activities I planned incorporated music (sing-along songs), movement (dances, hand signals, etc.), games (Spanish duck-duck-goose, etc.), and snack food (animal crackers for animal vocabulary, fruit loops for learning the colors, etc.).

Result: The sessions were a huge success! The activities engaged and entertained the kids, while educating them about basic Spanish vocabulary and phrases. The weekly lesson plans built upon one another, and the kids definitely improved as the semester progressed. The parents were grateful, too; we received extremely positive feedback on parental evaluation forms. The program is now in its third year and has expanded in the number of students involved (now over 40), the number of volunteers (now 15), and the breadth of subject matter covered.

Think About Your Questions for the Interviewer

Job and internship interviews are two-way streets. While employers are evaluating whether you are the right candidate, you should also think of interviews as your chance to determine if the position and employer are a good fit for you.

Almost every interview will include an opportunity for you to ask questions. You should have a few questions (~2-3 questions) to ask your interviewer to demonstrate your enthusiasm for the position and to continue to engage and impress your interviewer.

Orient your questions towards information that will help you better understand the organization and the work that you would be doing. Don’t ask things that you could have found online, and don’t put your interviewer on the spot. Avoid asking questions about salary, vacation time, and employee benefits until after you are offered the position.

Possible questions you could ask are:

How would you describe a typical workday?
What would be your highest priority for me to accomplish if you hired me?
What does success look like in this position? How will I be evaluated?
What are the most challenging aspects of the position?
Will I be attending a training program? Is a mentoring program available?
Who will be my supervisor? Can you tell me about their/your management style?
Who would be the other members of my team?
Why did you join the organization? How long have you been here? What do you like about working for this company?
What do you find most satisfying about working for this company?
Can you describe the work environment?
When can I expect to hear from you?

Practice, Practice, Practice!

Practice answering interview questions with a friend or recording yourself. The Big Interview online platform is a great tool to use for practicing in order to help you improve your technique and build your confidence in answering questions. Finally, you can schedule a mock interview with an advisor at the Loeb Center to practice in a more realistic situation and receive feedback prior to the interview.