Common interview questions and how to answer

Common interview questions rarely come as a surprise. Most employers want answers to the same three things: can you do the job, do you want it, and will you fit in with the team? That is why the same questions turn up in interview after interview, phrased in different ways. Below are the questions that usually come up, grouped by what they are really about. The sample answers are short on purpose. Use them as a shape to fill with your own examples, and practice them in the tool on this page instead of learning a script by heart.

Tell me about yourself

This is the most common way to open an interview. The employer wants to break the ice and see what you choose to bring up. It is not an invitation to tell your life story.

Stick to the last few years and to what matters for the job. A simple order is education first, then experience, and last a couple of qualities you can back up with examples. You can finish with why this job is the natural next step. Keep it to three to five minutes. Think of it as a sample that makes the interviewer want to ask more.

“I studied business and have worked in accounting at a firm for three years, mostly with small companies. What I like best is bringing order to things that are messy, and clients often tell me I explain the numbers in a way they understand. Now I want to work closer to one business, and that is why I applied here.”

Why do you want this job?

Variations: Why do you want to work for us? What do you know about us? Why should we hire you?

This tests your motivation and whether you have done your homework. Connect something concrete about the employer with what you can do and want to do. Say nothing negative about your current or former employer, even if it is true.

“I saw that you are expanding customer service into chat, and that is exactly the kind of change I drove in my last job. I want to do it again on a larger scale.”

The question about where you see yourself in five years belongs to the same family. Show that you think long term and that the job fits into that plan, without sounding as if you are already on your way somewhere else.

Questions about you as a person

What are you like as a person? What are you good at, and what do you need to get better at? The employer wants to see that you know yourself. Choose two or three qualities that matter in the job and give an example of each, since a claim without an example carries little weight. The question about your weak sides calls for honesty and some thought beforehand. Lists and ready-made examples are in the guide to strengths and weaknesses.

“I don’t give up easily. When our supplier ran into problems last spring, I kept calling until we had a new delivery date, and we didn’t lose a single customer over it.”

Teamwork, stress and criticism

Do you prefer working in a team or alone? What role do you usually take? How do you handle stress? How do you react to criticism? Tell me about a failure.

Here the employer wants to understand how you work with others and how you act when things get hard. Answer with a real situation: what happened, what you did and how it turned out. That is the same structure as in a competency-based interview, where almost every question looks like this.

On teamwork, show that you can and want to work with others but also have opinions of your own. On criticism, describe a time you got feedback and what you did with it. On failure, pick something real rather than a success in disguise, and put the weight on what you learned.

“In my first project I promised the client a date without checking with the developers, and we were two weeks late. Since then I always check with the team before I promise anything.”

Your experience and gaps in your CV

Walk me through your CV. Why did you leave your last job? What did you do during the year that is missing?

Have your CV in front of you and follow a thread: what you learned in each place and how it leads to this job. When asked why you left, talk about where you want to go, not about conflicts. On gaps, be honest and brief. A period without work is not unusual and doesn’t need a long defense, and a short answer invites fewer follow-up questions.

“I worked part time for a year to care for a family member, and at the same time I took an evening course in project management.”

Salary and practical questions

What are your salary expectations? When can you start? Can you work overtime? How do you feel about travel?

The salary question is the one many people worry about most. Find out the going rate before the interview, for example with salary statistics from a trade union, and decide on two numbers: what you want and the lowest you can accept. If the question comes early, you can ask to come back to it when you know more about the role. Check your notice period too, so you can say right away when you are able to start.

Sometimes an interviewer asks about your private life, such as your family. Keep the answer short. In Sweden an employer may not turn you down because of your sex, age, ethnicity, religion, disability, sexual orientation or transgender identity, and not because you will take parental leave either.

Do you have any questions?

Almost every interview ends this way, and “no” is a weak answer. Your questions show that you are engaged, and they help you decide whether the job is right for you. Ask about things you can’t read anywhere, such as what an ordinary week looks like or what matters most in the first few months. More ideas are in the guide to questions to ask in an interview.

How to practice

Don’t read your answers from a sheet of paper. Write a few cue words for each question, say the answer out loud and time yourself. Repeat until it sounds like you and not like a template. The practice tool on this page gives you one question at a time and a stopwatch, then lets you compare your answer with the advice and examples in this guide, so you can practice on your own. If you can, also ask a friend to put the questions to you in random order, so you get used to thinking on your feet.

For the rest of the preparation, including the evening before and what to do afterward, read the guide to the job interview. If there is a logic test before the interview, you can practice for that too: our free logic test has twelve tasks and an explanation for every answer.