Important interview questions with answers

Interview is an important part of getting a good job or admission into colleges(B schools and other colleges). For getting selected in interview, you must prepare for the possible questions in advance. A healthy preparation for interviews is quite easy compared to preparation for exams. The main thing is majority of people do not prepare for it but have a confidence that they can tell the common answers on the spot. This may be true for 10% of people only. Others may take more than expected time to explain their thoughts and too may not be clear. This would ruin the interview.

Although, we can not predict fully what your interviewer would ask but we can give you most common interview questions and answers, asked in interviews which would help you to prepare for your answers in advance. While we are not asking you learn these answers but with the type of answers given you may be able to make your unique answers.

Table of Contents

Common interview Questions and Answers

Tell me about yourself.
Tell me about your strengths and weaknesses.
Why do you want this job/college?
What motivates you?
Which is your dream job/college?
What are you passionate about?
What are your hobbies?
Do you have any questions for us?
Who is your role model?

Tell me about yourself.

This is a very common question, almost asked in 90% of the interviews as a first question. Whatever you say about yourself, more questions related to it would be asked for you. This is basically your introduction but some points should be kept in mind while answering this question.

Do not tell about your family until asked by the interview panel.

Try to be frank. Don’t show off unnecessarily. Interviewers are experts. They can easily find out what is right and what is wrong by asking further questions,your body language and your tone.

Say only things which you can defend. There may be a possibility that you have done something very little but you say that in interview and not able to explain it in detail. This would go against you. So, be prepared before going for interview, what you would be answering the question.

You may frame your own answer but here is a well tested format form start to end.

Work Experience , then
Educational Qulaifications, then
Projects, then
HobbiesTell me about your strengths and weaknesses.

Tell me about your strengths and weaknesses.

This is a question which is asked many times. The purpose of this question is to know how good you know about yourself. A person who is not able to tell his strengths and weaknesses would not be expected to be good for leadership or roles which involve interaction between people. The best answer is to sit for a while and think exactly in which areas you are good at and you are week at. You can still find a lot of help from high quality sample answers in this article with tips for preparing for strenghts and weaknesses.

Strengths and Weaknesses for interviews

Why do you want this job/college?

Again this is a question for knowing how serious a student is for the job/college. Therefore, one must research a lot about the company/college in which one is going for interviews.

The interviewer panel/manager wants the following things to make good sense in the answer of this question.-

Learn about your career objectives and how the job position/college fits your proposed plan.
Understand your preferences about which aspects of the company/college are appealing to you and the reasons behind it?
Make sure that you are sincerely interested in the job/colleged and will be motivated to perform if hired/admitted.
Find out what you know about the company/college, whether you took some of your time to research or just came unprepared to test your luck?

So keep these all points in mind before making your answer.

Here are some of the sample answers for better understanding of the concept.

Sample Answer - 1

"Well, the reputation of HUL is definately a factor. I would be proud to build a career with HUL, the company with such a long history of leadership in the industry. Also, a good friend of my Dad has been working in analytics at HUL for the last three and a half years and he told me that the culture supports development and learning on the job – and really rewards hard work. These are values which I believe and feel I could be an excellent fit for HUL."

Sample Answer - 2

“I saw an article in Times of India about your new CEO Salil Parakha and the organization's renewed focus on technological innovation. I consider myself an innovator and I would be happy to work for an organization that is leading the future of the industry.”

For college

Sample Answer - 3

I want to study in a very reputed university, with a great stimulating environment as I have always lived-in metro cities where I can go to cafes, to hear music, to sports events as part of my life. Delhi Technological University has become one of the best in the India; it has top professors and is located in the middle of a historic city, and accessible to everything. Besides this, It has diverse international relations program which would be perfect fit for me. I noticed these things when I visited the campus. Given Delhi Technological University’s notable reputation, I am excited by the opportunity to attend such a strong and knowledgeable institute.

What motivates you?

This question shows many candidates the exit way because it is intense and easy to misinterpret, and can throw you if you haven’t prepared for it in advance. The best answer to interview question about your motivation is, to be honest about you, but they should also be connected to the job you are interviewing for by suggesting that you would be fit for the work.

Whatever you say in the interview, your answer must be backed up with suitable examples from your pas work, college, projects. If you are able to relate it with the job profile, you would get ahead of others from this answer.

Here are some of the sample answers you can relate. Make sure you make your own answer by understanding from the sample answeres related to your field.

Sample Answers

•Meeting my short and long targets or goals.
•Mentoring and helping others.
•Skilling myself for something new.
•Improve something or make something new with my creativity.
•Analysing complex data to draw insightful conclusions.
•Leading a team to the path of success. •completing a challenging project, and seeing it through to the end.
•Spotting errors to make sure the result of a project is as good as possible.
•Searching a way to overcome a challenge.

Which is your dream job/college?

Think of what you want in an ideal job, and create a “profile” of your perfect job, including some of those functions. Don’t tell the name of any company. It is not the way to answer this.

Your dream job need not have to be a specific position, like “Software Tester” or “Relations Director.” Still, it can instead include different responsibilities you enjoy having as part of your job. Your profile can also include some skills you want using and the type of company culture you thrive in.

Make sure some of your descriptions of ideal job should match the job description for which you are applying.

Sample Answer

My dream job should permit me to develop web content for a wide range of companies. I enjoy getting acquainted with different clients and creating content to suit their individual needs. For instance, in my last job, I worked for clients in industries ranging from education to shoemaking and received admiration for my work with various companies. I love that this job would enable me to work with a variety of clients.

What are you passionate about?

This is a tricky question and needs to be answered carefully. You can follow these steps in making your own answers.

Steps to follow:-

Choose an idea, activity, pastime or skill you are genuinely passionate about.

Then explain the reason for you being passionate about it.

Give examples of how you are pursuing your passion or trying to follow.

Relate the passion to the job(if possible) in some way. It would be more advantageous in cracking the interview.

Sample Answer

“As a JAVA engineer, I am passionate about developing wonderful and efficient digital products to make people’s familiarity with technology remarkable. The thing I liked most about my last job was observing the results of my team’s code update and watching as our months of work yielded encouraging user feedback. Having the chance to lead projects from ideation through launch was one of the explanations I was so thrilled for this role.”

What are your hobbies?

This is a simple question. Hobbies are what you do in your free time. Hobbies can be any like –
Playing computer games.
Listening to audiobooks.
Fun with friends etc.

You can write genuine answer, whatever you like but please write that which you can give a lot of information about in the interviews

Do you have any question for us?

You can simply ignore this question. It would not affect your interview. You can also ask any genuine question you have in your mind at that time. But remember, do not ask childish question it may spoil your interview at the end. If you really think the question can be answered by the panel, you may proceed.

Who is your role model?

Role model is a person which you think, you should be as him/her. This is the general question which needs to be discussed. Some candidates directly answer ‘my mom’, ‘my old boss’ or ‘Salman Khan’. While these lovely figures may your deepest dreams, the they may not be your ideal character because you don’t know their personal lifestyle.

Take your time

Finding a role model who includes who you want to is not an easy task. Role model indicates the person who has inspired you a lot in your life. That’s why it’s a good question. So take your time. Think of the qualities you want to possess, the things you want to achieve. Find out if that stereotypical super-person is your super person.

It is good to have more than one

No one is perfect. It is unlikely that there will be a 100% outside person who you wants to be, and if you think so, they are probably very good at covering their tracks.

So, we have explained the all the common interview questions and answers. You can comment for any doubt or any problem.

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