From the book How to Prepare for an Employment Interview.
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This book shows you how to sell yourself in an employment interview.
There are thousands of possible questions that you could be asked in an interview. It may seem like preparation is pointless. You may be tempted to just wing it and hope for the best.
This would be a mistake.
There are two ways to get around the "too many questions" problem. The first was developed by the late John Crystal, who wrote that the enormous array of questions that employers ask in interviews could be reduced to just four:
1. Why are you here?
2. What can you do for me?
3. What kind of person are you?
4. Can we afford you?
This classification scheme does provide us with some insight into what employers will be probing for. Questions 2 and 4 determine your value to their organization. The first question addresses your motivation, enthusiasm, and knowledge of their company. Question 3 covers the all-important issue of "fit" or compatibility. All reasonable questions you'll face in an interview can indeed be made to fit into Crystal's taxonomy.
But it would be wrong to interpret this as meaning that there are really only four questions you'll be asked-or, even worse, that you only need to prepare four answers. Crystal was not developing a guide to preparing for interviews or for answering questions in an interview. There are hundreds of questions you could be asked that fall under the general category of just Question 2, for example. Each would require a very different answer from the rest.
There's no getting around it-there are lots of possible questions. They range from the well-considered and revealing to the pointless and stupid. And you'll likely get to experience the full spectrum.
It may make us feel more comfortable to pretend otherwise-to think that we can have a complete answer all thought out for anything we may be asked. But if you go into an interview with that attitude, you may get flustered by questions that don't seem at all like the ones you prepared for-the ones that supposedly covered all types of questions you could be asked.
It's great to feel confident, but an unrealistic confidence gets in the way of being properly prepared.
You control the answers
But there is good news...[continued here]
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