 Now, interviews are nerve-wracking enough on their own, but not knowing the questions you might get asked can make it even worse. Now, I do have a good amount of experience doing interviews myself, as well as interviewing candidates, so I've been on both sides of the table. All right. Name. Dwight Shrews. Thank you, Mr. Schnute. We will let you know. And in this video, I'm going to go over some of the most common interview questions that you are definitely going to encounter. Now, I am going to poke a little bit of fun at these interview questions, but at the same time, I'm also going to tell you what I think is the best way to go about answering them. So this video will hopefully entertain you and also help you knock that job interview right out of the park. So right after you gently tap the like button, let's get started. Now, first of all, I just wanted to say I did research on other videos that go over, like, interview questions and answers, and a lot of them will give you kind of a canned response to interview questions. And I don't think you should ever use these cookie cutter canned response answers in an actual interview. And the reason for this is because millions of other people are watching the same videos. So if you try to memorize these canned responses, I can almost guarantee you that your interviewer will have heard it at least several times. Imagine if you heard the same exact answers to the same exact 10 questions from five different people. You probably wouldn't have a very good impression of the fifth person that gave you these canned responses. Plus, when you're nervous during an interview, it's almost never going to be a good idea for you to memorize answers word for word. Almost guaranteed, unless you have like a photographic memory, you're going to forget it. What's better to do and I'm going to go into this later on in the video is to think of a story that has to do with the answer to the question. And the reason for this is because the human brain actually thinks and many times memorizes things in the form of stories. So when you hear a story, you almost have no choice but to remember it. So not only will it be easier for you to remember the answer, but at the same time, it's also easier for your interviewer to remember you. All right. So first one on this list, describe your dream job. Ah, yes. This is like when you're going on a first date with a girl and she asks you to describe your dream girl and she promises that she won't get jealous. Classic trap question here. If you're honest with them and you're like, you know, I don't even really have a dream job or I do have a dream job, but it's definitely not this position. That's going to be a pretty bad answer. You're probably not going to get hired. So the correct answer to this one is something along the lines of, I really like this position that you're interviewing me for, but I would also enjoy moving up in the company later on and taking on more responsibility and more leadership. I don't think it's going to come across as very genuine if you lie to them and tell them that this position is your dream job. So I wouldn't recommend doing that, but I would recommend saying that, you know, you are really excited about this position and you're also excited about your ability to work your way up and the company take on more responsibility and more leadership. So this one is going to go in the trap tier. Describe yourself in three words. How about work for money or work to survive? Yes. A very important question that lets you generalize yourself so that they can put you into a very neat little box inside of their head. Now with this one, as much as you might want to tell them about your magic, the gathering card collection or your obsession with video games from the 1990s, you should probably keep this work related. So a really good way of answering this one is think of three words that you would want to describe your ideal coworker as, right? So someone that you have to work with and interact with on a day to day basis, think of three words that you would really want to describe them. Things like reliable, teamwork, hardworking. Yeah, I just put those two together. Hardworking, one word, right? This is a super easy one to answer. It doesn't take that long to think of these sorts of things. This one is going to go into easy tier. Next one, how do you deal with a difficult customer? I personally like to get down on my hands and knees and beg Karen's to forgive me for the audacity of trying to make a living. No, all joking aside though, this is a very common one. There's a lot of different variations of this one, slightly different ways of asking it. But I'm going to get to this more later on in the video. The best way by far to answer this question is to just tell a story about a time where you dealt with an angry customer. Or if you don't have any stories like that, think of a situation where somebody else dealt with an angry customer or just think of what you would do in the situation. And as much as you might want to, try not to tell them about that time where you got a Karen permanently banned from your business. Tell them about a time where a customer did have a legitimate concern and you were able to help that customer out, ease their worries, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And I'm going to go over exactly how you should structure these stories at the end of this video. So make sure you stay tuned for that. All right, so this one is going to go into the story tier. All right, so the second one is how would you deal with a situation where you have conflict with one of your coworkers? All right, so this is another one where you want to tell a story, very important. And this is actually a really good question, like all joking aside, as good as you think you are at your job, if you're an asshole to your coworkers, it's going to create a toxic environment and in the long run, that is going to be a net negative for the company. So this one is also going to go into the story tier. Think of a story or a situation where you did have a conflict with a coworker or a classmate or something like that and how you resolved it. Next question, how would your past coworkers describe you? This is another question where you would want to use empathy, use the golden rule basically. Think of what you would want to see in a coworker. Think of the words, the adjectives, et cetera, that would describe that and then use those words. So this is very similar to the other question we talked about earlier. So this one is also going to go into easy tier. The next one is job specific problem solving questions. And this is one of the few that unfortunately, no matter how slick you are, you're not going to be able to fake this one. Unless you're Frank Abengale from Catch Me If You Can. So this is a question that is used to test your knowledge. And this is something that's not easy to prepare for. In certain industries, there's more of these questions than others. For instance, in the technology industry, you're going to get a ton of these questions. In my industry and pharmacy, I didn't get that many, but you really do have to be prepared for it. So for instance, Elon Musk will ask people incredibly difficult problems that basically only geniuses can solve because he wants to work with people who are like genius level smart. Now that's a pretty crazy example, but just make sure you know your stuff when it comes to whatever your trade, your career or your craft is. This one is going to go into hard tier. Next question, tell me about a time when you failed. Now for this one, they might just ask you the general question, tell me about a time when you failed or they might make it work specific. If they ask you the general question, my personal recommendation is to talk about something outside of work. So for instance, tell them about a time that you failed in college or in high school. Tell me about a time that you failed when you did some sort of competition and debate or sports. I know this doesn't logically make sense, but I just don't think that it's a good look to tell somebody about a time that you failed at work when you're interviewing for a job. But if they do ask you about a time that you failed at work specifically, then of course you have to think of that. So this is almost like a borderline trap question if they ask you about a time that you failed at work. So you have to be very careful about how you answer this one. Now with this one, don't tell them about the time where you accidentally burned your previous employer's business to the ground. Instead, tell them about a time where maybe you were a little bit late on a deadline. Maybe you hired someone who didn't do the best job or maybe there was some sort of miscommunication with one of your fellow employees and a project didn't get done the right way. The most important thing here is that you take full responsibility for it and then you tell them how you learned from it and how you improved in the future. But again, if you can keep this one more personal and outside of work, I would recommend that. So for that reason, this one goes in the personal tier. Tell me about the toughest decision you've ever had to make. Whew, that's a heavy one. Now, realistically speaking, the toughest decision you've ever had to make was probably a personal decision. But with this one, I actually recommend doing the opposite. I recommend telling them about the toughest decision that you ever had to make when it comes to your career. If you were a manager in the past, for instance, tell them about a time where you had to lay off an employee. So yeah, in my opinion, keep this one work-related. I've seen in interviews how people get really kind of like emotional and they get a little bit too personal and it just creates a little bit of a weird vibe. Now, if you have finesse, of course you could pull that off, but there's been some interviewing situations where it kind of just seems like the person is trying to get you to feel bad for them the whole time. And as much as I empathize with people's struggles, a job interview is not the time to do that. So this one is going to go into the work tier. Next one on the list is a very common one. Might even be the first question you get and that is, tell me about yourself. Now, many content creators will tell you to only talk about yourself in terms of what you do at work and don't talk about your personal life at all. And I disagree with that. I think it should be about 80% of who you are when you're at work and then 20% just a little bit about your personal life. And the reason for that is because I think as somebody who asks this question a lot, if you're the interviewer, you probably get basically cookie cutter canned answers all the time where people just basically talk about themselves like they are a robot who just works. This is your opportunity to spice things up and show them a little bit about your personality. So I recommend starting this off by talking about yourself a little bit, the first 20%. And then the last 80% of the answer, you should be talking about yourself in terms of work. So give them a little bit of a brief history about yourself and try to mention things that you think would stand out in their head. So for instance, when I was a kid, I worked at an animal refuge that had lions, tigers and mountain lions. And I was actually inside the cage with them. So I probably tell them how I had a very interesting childhood where I moved around a lot as a kid. And that was one of the first jobs that I had. Now, if you don't think you've done anything interesting, yes, you can leave this part out and just talk about work. But in my opinion, this is such a great opportunity for you to showcase a little bit of your personality. And it's going to be more of a human-to-human connection that's going to make your interviewer like you a little bit more. And then the next 80%, you want to tell them about your job history. So basically tell them about your work history a little bit and things that you've done at other jobs that will help them as a company. Try to tell it as a story if you can and then finish the answer with, that's why I'm here because I'm ready to take the next step. All right, so just because of the fact that you do tell them a little bit about your personal life, I'm going to put this one in the personal tier. All right, next question. What are your biggest weaknesses? So this is another really tough trap question to answer. It's a trap. You're basically walking a tightrope with this one because realistically, everybody has weaknesses and nobody is perfect. But if you're too honest about this question, I think you're putting yourself at a huge disadvantage because the truth is most people are not going to be completely honest when they answer this one. The only thing I hate more than laziness is stupidity. At the same time, if you pretend like you have no weaknesses, you're going to come across as a massive jackass. My only weakness is my humility. What? Bro, what are you talking about, man? So this is one of the few where I kind of think it's probably best for you to do a somewhat canned answer. Things like being a perfectionist, focusing too much on the details, not having experience in leadership, but the willingness to take on leadership positions in the future, having trouble asking for help, having a little bit of trouble with confidence, working too much, caring too much about your job. As cheesy as these are, you kind of do want to stick with a little bit of a canned response here just because of the fact that you're kind of walking a tightrope. So this one goes into trap tier. The next one is what are your strengths? Now, this one is a little bit of a trap, but it's not nearly as bad. Now, a lot of people are afraid of coming across as they're bragging or something along those lines, but the truth is this is a job interview, right? So you need to tell them about yourself and what you're good at. And then on top of that, they are literally asking you. It's not like you just brought it up out of the blue. So do not be afraid to sell yourself a little bit here. Now, obviously you want to pick things that are work related and would make you look like a good candidate for that position. So don't tell them that your biggest strength is doing speed runs on video games. That's awesome, but keep it to yourself. Now, if you do want a good canned response to this question, a really good one is saying something along the lines of, you know, I might not be the smartest, I might not be the fastest, but what I can tell you is that I'm somebody who never gives up. I always get back up and try again whenever I fail. That's kind of like an underdog response. It's like a rocky type story. Everybody loves the underdog and everybody loves people who just get back up again and again whenever life knocks them down. So this one isn't nearly as much of a trap, but I'm still going to go ahead and put it into trap tier. Hey guys, I'm on vacation right now and I'm in the process of editing the video and I realized that it's way too long. So I'm actually going to switch it into part one and part two. I'll have part two come out a day after part one and it will be posted right here. So thanks for your understanding and I will see you next time.