How to Answer Interview Questions: The Number One Job Interview Tip

There are a few steps you need to follow if you want to secure a job. First, you need to land the interview. Second, you need to "nail" the interview. And, third, you absolutely must follow-up on the interview. This article will focus on the second part of getting a job…the interview itself…

There are many things you are going to need to do in order to nail the job interview such as making a great first impression, paying attention to body language, maintaining eye contact etc., but none of these are more important than how to answer the interview questions.

In order to really excel during the interview you must be able to answer the interview question in a manner that portrays confidence, diligence, and experience.

The best way to do this is become as familiar as you can with the most common interview questions in your field. I suggest simply doing a Google search for interview questions for [insert job title here].

However, while knowing the interview questions will help, knowing how to answer the interview questions will put you way ahead of your competition.

As someone who as interviewed countless people for teaching positions I am always shocked at how many potentially great teachers fall short when it comes to interviewing and the big reason is because their answers are all too often based on theory…their answers to the interview questions just seem too general and too vague.

The biggest job interview tip I could ever give anyone in any field is to answer each interview question with specific examples.

Again, it does not matter what profession you are interviewing for, but since my experience is mostly with teachers I will give an example from that profession…

A common interview question for teachers is, "How do you feel about team teaching?"

There are three steps to answering this interview question, yet most candidates only follow the first two.

Step One: Tell them you love the idea of team teaching. (This is to some extent a rhetorical question as there is only one correct response in this case…no one is going to hire a teacher who is against team teaching.)

Step Two: Give the theory behind why team teaching is worthwhile for both the teacher and student.

Step Three: Give a specific example from an actual lesson or unit in which you were involved in team teaching. This is the step that most people interviewing fail to do.

Step Four: (Yes, I know I said three steps, but this is the bonus step…the icing on the cake.) Show examples of student work from that specific lesson/unit.

Again, this works for any profession…just change the examples. Let's say you are applying for a real estate position and are asked about working as a team…say, "yes you love it"…followed by why you thinking teaming is so important, followed by how you have teamed in the past AND an example of what that produced.

Obviously this is easier if you are experienced in your field, but even if you are not, you must have some type of training that prepared you for the job…use examples from that training and explain what you plan to do if given the chance.

I guarantee that answering interview questions in this manner will put you light years ahead of the competition. However, you can only do this if you research the most common interview questions and practice how to answer the interview questions.