Interview Questions
Before you head out to a job interview, it's a good idea to practice
answering the types of interview questions that interviewers will
likely ask you. The Web can be extremely helpful with that, as
interviewing is among the most-popular employment topics.
Even so, career advisors can't possibly tell you exactly which
interview questions to expect your interviewer to ask you; they
especially can't tell you exactly how to answer them.
Interview questions are just too personal and situational for
that, and there are no "correct" answers anyway. To make
it more complex, interviewers employ interview techniques (different
types of interviews), resulting in an infinite number of potential
interview questions and answers.
However, career advisors can at least give you a feel for the
techniques and a list of the canned, common interview questions
that interviewers ask, along with suggested ways of answering.
That's the intention of this article. But first, a little something
about:
Types of Interview Questions
Interviewers generally employ one or more of the following most-common interview
techniques, by asking the related questions indicated.
General (or Traditional)
Common interview questions about yourself and your work
Behavioral
Tough, personal interview questions that probe your competencies
and how you historically acted in certain job-related situations
Case (or Hypothetical)
Tough, specific interview questions about a hypothetical situation
or "case" that challenge your problem-solving abilities
on the spot, such as by asking you what you'd do "if"
Interviewers usually start with interview questions of the first
type and then work their way into one or both of the others over
the course of one or more interviews, depending on the nature of
each job.
There are a few common behavioral interview
questions that interviewers ask when employing the technique.
But there virtually none that are common for case or hypothetical
interviews. Cases are typically unique, because they are based
on hypothetical situations that interviewers invent
or tailor specifically for their employers.
Interviewers also usually keep case interview questions a secret,
as they don't want to enable job applicants to rehearse their answers.
After all, the whole idea is to place an interviewee in the hot
seat, to test how well he or she solves problems and other hypothetical
situations on the spot.
So, the best that you'll likely find to help you prepare for case
interview questions, are a couple of example
cases, professional
coaching or a written
guide. 
There are several brainteasers, riddles and other types of technical interview
questions, some with "answers", that have found
their way onto the Web and into self-help books,
after interviewees attended technical interviews and spilled
the beans. Tech interviews are similar to case interviews, in
that they test problem-solving abilities on the spot, among other
things.
However, outside of certain brainteasers and riddles, the interview
questions aren't common, other than maybe within each company that
conducts tech interviews. They are just examples that interviewers
have asked techie applicants. Interviewers also make those up and
try to keep them secret too; apparently, not always with success.
Subsequently, they change with time.
There are, however, common interview questions that virtually
all interviewers ask in one way or another when using the first
technique, that are no secret at all and don't change much with
time. The most common that interviewers ask are on the next page,
along with suggested ways of answering them.
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