What You Need to Know About Business

Asking Questions -- An Essential and Overlooked Step

Other articles:
Putting a Spin on Work Experience

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[Chapter 11: continued from here] None of these examples may apply to your situation-you have to go over your lists and figure out which skills and abilities are most important for the kind of work that you do.

These are the defining questions of the behaviour-based interview technique. It is essential to be prepared for these questions. It's a sure thing you'll be asked a few of them, so be ready with your examples. In many interviews, the majority of the questions are in this format, and interviewers who have been indoctrinated in the use of this technique will often not move on until you provide an example. Elaborate on your knowledge of ...

Several questions may ask you to discuss specific technical knowledge that someone would have to know to do the kind of work you're being interviewed for. The more technical your work is, the more likely you'll be asked many questions about your knowledge of specific items.

For example, in a recent interview for a sous chef, the interviewer asked "How do you make a white sauce?" He could have asked a similar question about any one of hundreds of things that a chef needs to understand. For a sales position you could be asked "How would you go about developing a territory?" or "What would you do if a customer told you that he's now going to buy from a competitor?" In a manufacturing plant, you could be asked about health & safety issues.

Every job has similar technical details and processes that everyone will be expected to know or be able to think through.