Introduction

1. Tell me about yourself.

I can’t express enough how important it is to keep your answer under 60 seconds.

Not only will keeping it to 60 seconds ensure that you don’t ramble, it’ll force you to be specific in your explanation, and clear in your thoughts. If you prepare your answer well, then making eye contact will be easy for you, and build a little bit of rapport along the way by including some personal details about yourself will cover all of your bases.

Now for the answer itself:

Start with a brief overview of your job history. For most college students, this should also include extracurricular activities like intramurals, or volunteer work.

Be sure to tailor to the job you're interviewing for by highlighting the experiences and skills that are most relevant to the position. If you’re interviewing for a sales or marketing role, it probably makes more sense to talk about something social & professional you’ve done, like running a booth at an on-campus event, as opposed to, say, being tasked with managing your house’s utilities and expenses. Vice versa for finance job applicants!

Succinctly share your accomplishments, using quantifiable results wherever possible. The more numbers you use the better, as opposed to just doing things. Performance is paramount.

Transition into your current state and what led you to this job opportunity.

Remember, this question isn't about reciting your life story or about what you want 10 years down the road. It’s about strategically providing a snapshot of your professional journey so far, tailored specifically to the job you’re applying for.

2. Why do you want this job?

The question, "Why do you want this job?" is a softball if you’ve done your homework. It gives you a chance to showcase your passion for the role, your knowledge about the company, and how well you align with the position. If you do the bare minimum on this question you will impress the interviewer and put yourself ahead of the pack.

Begin by talking about the company and what excites you about the opportunity to work for such an amazing company. If you can’t really do this, then you shouldn’t be applying to work for that company to be honest. Does the company serve large enterprise customers? Or do they serve an industry that you’re very familiar with? There’s got to be a reason why there is company-candidate fit here.

Next is role-candidate fit: explaining how the job fits into your nearterm career aspirations, emphasizing the skills and experiences you bring that are directly relevant to the job is key to acing this question.

Discuss what excites you about the experiences you’ll have in that role—the chance to solve specific problems, the opportunities for customer-facing activities it offers, or the impact you foresee making. Demonstrate your knowledge about the company, sharing what you admire about its mission, culture, or achievements. Close by tying your career goals to the future success of the company, showing that your personal and professional growth aligns with the company's trajectory. Remember, authenticity and enthusiasm are key here, so let your genuine interest in the role shine through.

3. What are your strengths?

This is your opportunity to just brag. Don’t be shy. But again, you need to have your answer prepared. Because if you don’t it’ll look like you don’t know what you’re good at. And if you don’t know what you’re good at, why can I trust that you actually want this job, like you just told me you did?

What I’ve found works well is to tie your answer here back to your personal venn diagram. Again, for me this was passion for technology, my competitive nature, and my desire to help others. Figure out what your personal venn diagram is and then come back to those strengths.

What’s even better is if you can tie your strengths back to your accomplishments. If you can structure your answer like “I am ___________. I did __________ because of it.” Then you are golden. Interviewers want to see action more than anything else. Trust me. Here’s what that sounds like: “I am super passionate about technology (strength). I built a web application (action) to help my housemates and me keep track of when our dog had been fed. I built multiple versions with different javascript frameworks (more action), and I was really proud of what I’d built.”

It’s even better if you can tie your strengths together. That sounds like: “I’m really proud of what I’ve built, because it helped us keep track of our dog when we all had busy schedules. I love helping others, so it made that project extra satisfying to see come to fruition.”

4. What are your weaknesses?

This is probably the most difficult one to coach. But what I’ve found to be extremely effective when answering this question is candor, self-understanding, and taking responsibility. You shouldn’t lie. You shouldn’t give a non-weakness like “I’m sometimes too good at coding, I finish projects too quickly.” And you shouldn’t just leave the answer hanging out there “I’m awful at design. I’m not artistic at all.” You should definitely bring it back to how you’re working on improving that weakness as well. You should also make sure that the weakness isn’t a dealbreaker for the position you’re interviewing for (like saying you’re scared to answer the phone when you’re interviewing for a sales job). And you should definitely have an answer prepared in the back of your mind, so that you don’t take yourself down a rabbithole and start rambling about something negative about yourself.

Here’s how I would answer this question: “For me, habits are key to my success. When I’m in the habit of good organization, I’m at my best. Where I run into trouble is when I leave things like customer call notes in my notes app, and not in salesforce, for more than a day or two. The weakness there is just consistent organization. What I’m doing to work on this is I’ve read books like Atomic Habits by James Clear, and that’s given me an immense amount of motivation to stay organized. One thing he comes back to in the book time and time again is the power of compounding. Staying organized every single day compounds into weeks worth of time saved at the end of the year. I always keep that in the back of my mind, knowing that every day I’m not organized is a missed opportunity to make additional calls the next day. Since reading that book I’ve had maybe one or two slip ups, but nothing that’s hurt my performance, and I’m continuing to work on it every day.”

5. How did you hear about this position?

This one is a bit of a softball, but don’t be afraid to tie your answer back to your strengths! Don’t spend too much time on this question either. 3-5 sentences should be good here.

Bad answers might sound like: “Online. Saw you online. Saw the job posting.” or “Oh i don’t remember actually!”

A good answer might sound like “I look at Product Hunt and TechCrunch every day. I saw the recent launch of your new product built for quality assurance engineers, and that really interested me. I reached out to Jon who has been awesome, and he helped me truly understand what ACME corp is all about!”

That answer shows a passion for technology and a bias toward action. I didn’t just learn about the company, I reached out to someone and met with them.

Keep it simple, not too long-winded, but not a nothing-burger answer either.

6. Tell me about a time when you succeeded.

Not every interviewer is going to ask this question, but if they do then thank your lucky stars.

Speaking of Stars… I’ve got just the framework for you. This one is actually great for most questions, but specifically questions where you can shine.

Situation

Task

Action

Result

A solid answer using the STAR framework sounds like this:

“It was my fourth month at Company X, and things were a little bit tenuous. A few folks on my team had been let go, but that was a major opportunity for me to step up and take on some larger accounts. I was given both ACME Corp and Blank Corp as accounts to sell into. These would have been brand new accounts, and it was my job to close them! Each deal required different selling skills, which made it such a fun time. ACME had a very formal process with multiple demos and lots of stakeholders. Blank was a bit more scattershot. My champion would let me know one day “Hey Amy and her manager want to meet today. Can you jump on in an hour?” So much less formal. Both deals were moving very quickly, and along the way I worked with my VP to build new collateral like an implementation guidebook that we customized for both of them. We had months long back and forths with legal and procurement at both organizations. And then finally. Things just aligned. Blank Corp closed for $162k and ACME closed for $176k and both were twice as large as the next biggest deal in company history. It was a really really great feeling to know how hard we’d worked to get both of those deals done, gaining buy-in from people across the world, to ultimately get the sign off. Those deals were mentioned as a primary reason that Company X got acquired the following year. It was a wild ride!”

So again, Situation, Task, Action, Result. Have an answer prepared and let your freak flag fly!

7. Tell me about a time when you failed.

This one can also be a failure of anything, but again, make sure it’s a true failure, and not a dealbreaker. Now’s not the time to bring up a DUI or a suspension from school. It has to have required effort in some way and then action to rectify the failure.

This might sound like: “In my sophomore year of college, I faced the challenging experience of failing a critical computer science course, which was a major setback for me academically. I take full responsibility for this failure; I had overcommitted to extracurricular activities and didn't allocate enough time for my studies. However, this setback served as a wake-up call. I dramatically revised my study approach by enrolling in a supplementary online course, attending coding meet-ups on campus, and making it a habit to practice coding daily. These proactive steps drastically improved my understanding of the subject matter, and when I retook the course, I was able to earn an 'A'. The experience taught me a valuable lesson about prioritizing my responsibilities and was instrumental in my academic turnaround.”

8. Tell me about a time when you faced adversity and how did you handle it?

Use the CIDER frameworks for this one, but make sure to end it on a high note!

C: Candor - Being honest and straightforward about what you’re not good at.

I: Improvement - What are you doing to improve on this weakness?

D: Dealbreaker Check - Ask yourself: “Is this weakness going to be a big reason why I don’t get the job?”

E: Elaborate on your Plan - Talk about how you planned to improve, and the action you’ll take moving forward to ensure that you stay on the right track.

R: Responsibility - Take responsibility. This weakness is no one else’s fault. I should be the only pronoun that comes out of your mouth with this answer, unless you’re quoting someone else, and how they inspired you to get better.

This might sound like: “My junior year I really wanted to be an intramural supervisor. I enjoyed being a referee and felt I was positioned to be a leader in the organization. I applied, and did not get the position. I felt sure I was going to get it and that’s why it was so devastating to me (candor). What I ended up doing was going to the director and asking what I could have done differently or better to obtain the position (taking responsibility). The response was that I needed to broaden my skillset beyond basketball and flag football, and I needed to focus much more closely on the small details, like showing up 15 minutes early instead of right on time, making sure my referee uniform wasn’t wrinkly or dirty, little things like that that weren’t related to actual performance, but mattered a lot for a supervisor (elaborate on the plan). I cleaned up my act, made sure I was always early and never missed. I also added softball, and volleyball scorers table to my skillset (improvement). At the end of the year I earned the Golden Whistle which was given to the top referee in the program, and I re-interviewed and earned the supervisor role for my senior year (high note).”

9. Tell me about x experience on your resume.

For any open-ended question that relates directly to your resume, you should have a STAR answer prepared and ready to whip out. Think through systematically with each section of your resume how you’d answer this question and make sure you know how to weave the story from situation, to task, to action, to result. The key is to have a working understanding of what you did during the experience, what you learned and achieved, and how it relates to the job that you’re interviewing for. Once you’ve got that down, then you’re set.

Here’s an example:

Question: "Can you tell me more about the section on your resume where you mentioned coordinating communication with parents at the camp?"

Your Prepared Answer:

Situation: "Absolutely, I'd be happy to elaborate. During my time as a Camp Coordinator, we were dealing with an unusually difficult summer. The kids were great, but several parents had concerns about the programming and conflicts among campers."

Task: "My role became two-fold: keep the parents in the loop so they felt heard and comfortable, and inform upper management of the state of the camp so we could continuously improve."

Action: "I established a structured weekly check-in system with parents, whether via phone calls, emails, or even in-person conversations. I also set up a dashboard to provide real-time updates to my boss, capturing metrics and insights about the camp's operation."

Result: "The outcome? Parents felt more engaged and less anxious, leading to a 20% increase in positive feedback. Plus, we were able to optimize our camp activities, improving overall satisfaction ratings by 15%."

Stick to this structure and you’re golden. By going through each STAR component, you're painting a vivid, holistic picture for the interviewer. And behavioral science tells us that a good story always beats a bulleted list. Plus, tied it back to the job I'm interviewing for—communication, project management, and positive outcomes? Check, check, and double-check.

Get your STAR answers ready, and when the interviewer tosses you that question, knock it out of the park.

10. Do you have any questions?

Okay this one I’ve got another formula for, but you won’t have to remember another beverage acronym, I promise. Simply have a list of questions ready and prioritized order of importance. You never know exactly when the interview will end, and if you ask weak or unimportant questions upfront then it’ll leave a bad impression as you walk out the door.

The key is to have 4-5 prepared that are based on 1 of 7 different categories:

Product-related questions

Company culture-related questions

Company news-related questions

Company history-related questions

Founder/leadership-related questions

Role-related questions

Closing questions

Here are some examples:

1. Product-related Questions: "I noticed three different pricing models for your product in various outlets. Could you shed some light on that?" This is a fastball; it shows you're analytical and comprehensive.

2. Company Culture-related Questions: "I saw on your careers page that the company emphasizes a culture of innovation. Could you share an example of a project that embodies this?" Not just a fastball, this one's a curve. You're digging into what life's like beyond the paycheck.

3. Company News-related Questions: "I saw the recent acquisition reported in Bloomberg. How does this impact the department I'm interviewing for?" You're showing that you don't just care about the job; you care about the ecosystem of the job.

4. Company History-related Questions: "How has the company's focus shifted since its IPO?" This one tells them you're in it for the long haul, not just a clock-in, clock-out kinda gig.

5. Founder/Leadership-related Questions: "What are some leadership principles that the company's founder swears by?" This one's for the culture fit, but it's also subtle flattery.

6. Role-related Questions: "How has this role evolved over the past year?" Here, you're showing you're not just taking the job as-is; you're looking to grow in it, possibly turning it into a career.

7. Closing Questions: "Do you have any concerns about bringing me onboard?" Here's your closer. You're giving them the chance to share any hesitations so you can address them right then and there.

Remember you’re going to have to look far and wide for information about the company. It won’t come easy, but you’ll be glad you spent so much time becoming a near-insider, while the rest of the candidates have just done a quick google search on the way into the Zoom waiting room.