Have you ever been left speechless at a job interview because the hiring manager threw a question your way that you felt incompetent to answer?
Guess what? It’s happens all the time. Even the most skilled and experienced professionals, all the way up to leadership level, face tough job interview questions that challenge the best of their interview preparation skills.
If you feel stumped, it’s not that you’re incompetent; it’s most likely that you have high levels of fear. Fear in a job interview can manifest itself in several ways, including:
- Fear of being too honest or sounding insincere
- Worry about how to talk about and sell yourself and your achievements in a positive way without coming across as bragging
- Wondering which story or example from your previous work experience is appropriate to choose for the specific question they are asking
- Having a total mind blank
7 Toughest Job Interview Questions For 2024
To help alleviate some of that fear, below are seven of the toughest interview questions you can expect to receive, along with a strategy to answer them effectively and confidently in 2024:
1. Tell Me About Yourself
Part of the complexity in answering this question lies in the fact that it’s open-ended. After all, where exactly do you begin? Should you talk about your entire work history up to this point? Should you tell them all the challenges you faced in your life and in your last job? Should you tell them that you were fired and now you’re looking for a second chance?
The answer is absolutely no to all of the above. Instead, answer by focusing on the highlights of your professional journey (your skills and achievements), keep the answer concise, and tie the job description and person specification in with your career goals. Don’t shy away from relevant accomplishments. Rather, embrace them.
2. What’s Your Greatest Weakness?
This can be difficult to answer since it forces you to admit you have flaws, and you might be scared of the introspection coming off as too much for the employer to the point that is disqualifies you for the role altogether. Additionally, you might find it genuinely hard to pick a work-related weakness due to not being self-aware in general.
To answer this question effectively, concentrate on selecting a weakness that is not a deal-breaker but demonstrates that you are currently working on it to transform it into a strength. It could be a knowledge or skill gap, and you could talk about how you proactively decided to educate yourself in it by undertaking a professional certificate or course.
3. Why Should We Hire You?
How do you sell yourself confidently without sounding arrogant? Why should they seriously hire you? Perhaps it’s best to start by asking yourself, Would I hire me if I was the employer?
Tailor your answer according to the company’s needs, based on your research, and reference how specific skills, experiences, and even connections in your network, align with the company’s long-term goals and the job description.
4. Where Do You See Yourself In Five Years?
When posing this question, employers are not only interested in gauging your ambition, but they also want to determine if you’ll be the perfect long-term fit for the company. You might get so lost in talking about yourself and your goals (or giving them a lame answer) that you lose sight of the company’s mission and their own business goals.
So when asked this question, be careful to merge your ambition with that of the organization. If it’s your goal to be promoted to a senior management post within two years, state that clearly, but ensure you emphasize how you will contribute to the company’s strategy as well.
5. Tell Me About A Time You Failed
It’s not naturally the most comfortable thing to talk about, is it? We shy away from the thought of failure and always want to portray ourselves in our best light, especially when engaging with a potential job opportunity. But this can be counterproductive.
Talking about a real failure, what you learned through the experience, and how you’ve grown and applied that lesson to improve, demonstrates that you possess high levels of emotional intelligence, a growth mindset, and resilience—essential qualities for professionals in 2024 and beyond.
6. Why Do You Want To Leave Your Current Job?
When answering this question, you’ll need to exercise a strong degree of caution, because while it may be tempting to complain about your current employer, doing so will make you appear unprofessional and cast doubt on your ethics as a worker.
Instead, frame your answer around seeking new opportunities to progress further in your career, ambition for learning something new, or you realizing that the role/employer was a bad fit. This positive note leaves a more favorable impression on the hiring manager.
7. Describe A Time When…
Any interview question that begins with, “Tell me about a time,” or “Describe a time when,” is a competency-based interview question, which means it is designed to highlight your abilities and skills in relation to the competencies required in the role.
This usually trips up candidates who struggle to convey their answers concisely, and end up saying so much while providing too little detail, or saying too much which is irrelevant to the question.
To answer questions within this category, use the STARR method (structuring the example you give around the Situation, Task, Action, Result, and your personal Reflection of what could have been done better). Using STARR paints the picture by ensuring the interviewer captures the background and context of the story or example you are giving, and enabling them to visualize what value you would provide to their company.
Still worried about your upcoming job interview?
The best way to combat this fear is through a combination of preparation and confidence in your own abilities. You need to get the point where you approach your job interview preparation from several possible angles, and have a bank of tangible examples that demonstrate core competencies relevant to the role, and believe in your own abilities and your positive contributions to previous workplaces, to the extent that you own them as your own.
Build confidence in public speaking and practice public speaking skills, so that whether you are interviewing with one hiring manager or a panel of them, you do not feel like a fish out of water, making your job interview questions extremely trying and difficult to answer.
Regardless of the question, remember to be honest, share real examples, and align your answers with the specifications of the role and the company’s goals.