101 GREAT ANSWERS TO THE TOUGHEST INTERVIEW QUESTIONS SIXTH EDITION Ron Fry Course Technology PTR A part of Cengage Learning Australia, Brazil, Japan, Korea, Mexico, Singapore, Spain, United Kingdom, United States 101 Great Answers to the © 2009 Course Technology, a part of Cengage Learning. Toughest Interview ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. No part of this work covered by the Questions, Sixth Edition copyright herein may be reproduced, transmitted, stored, or Ron Fry used in any form or by any means graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including but not limited to photocopying, Publisher and General Manager, recording, scanning, digitizing, taping, Web distribution, Course Technology PTR: information networks, or information storage and retrieval Stacy L. Hiquet systems, except as permitted under Section 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without the prior Associate Director of written permission of the publisher. Marketing: Sarah Panella For product information and technology assistance, Manager of Editorial Services: contact us at Cengage Learning Customer & Heather Talbot Sales Support, 1-800-354-9706 Marketing Manager: For permission to use material from this text or product, Mark Hughes submit all requests online at cengage.com/permissions. Acquisitions Editor: Further permissions questions can be e-mailed to Mitzi Koontz [email protected]. Project Editor: Jenny Davidson All trademarks are the property of their respective owners. PTR Editorial Services Coordinator: Library of Congress Control Number: 2008935219 Jen Blaney ISBN-13: 978-1-59863-853-0 Interior Layout Tech: ISBN-10: 1-59863-853-X Bill Hartman eISBN-10: 1-59863-924-2 Cover Designer: Luke Fletcher Cengage Learning is a leading provider of customized learning solutions with office locations around the globe, Indexer: including Singapore, the United Kingdom, Australia, Mexico, Larry Sweazy Brazil, and Japan. Locate your local office at: Proofreader: international.cengage.com/region. Kate Shoup Cengage Learning products are represented in Canada by Course Technology, a part of Nelson Education, Ltd. Cengage Learning 20 Channel Center Street Boston, MA 02210 For your lifelong learning solutions, visit courseptr.com. USA Visit our corporate Web site at cengage.com. Printed in Canada 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 11 10 09 About the Author R on Fryis the bestselling author of new editions of 101 Smart Questions to Ask on Your Interview and 101 Great Resumes. An acknowledged authority, he is a frequent speaker and seminar leader on a wide variety of job-search topics. This page intentionally left blank Contents Introduction One, Two, Three . . . Green Light! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .vii Chapter 1 The Product Is You . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1 Chapter 2 It’s Still a Jungle Out There . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .19 Chapter 3 So, Tell Me About Yourself . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .35 Chapter 4 Why Did You Major in Astrophysics and Minor in Theater? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .53 Chapter 5 Are You Experienced? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .65 Chapter 6 Let’s Focus on Some Specifics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .91 Chapter 7 What Have You Been Doing? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .103 vi 101 Great Answers to the Toughest Interview Questions Chapter 8 So Why Us? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .121 Chapter 9 Innocent? Hardly. Illegal? Maybe. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .143 Chapter 10 That’s a Wrap! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .159 Appendix 20 Smart Questions to Ask on Your Interview . . . . . . . . . .169 Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .175 Introduction One, Two, Three . . . Green Light! I n the nearly seventeen years since I wrote the first edition of 101 Great Answers to the Toughest Interview Questions, its relevance to an ever-changing job market has continued to grow. That mar- ket has certainly changed—from a seller’s (employee-friendly) mar- ket to a buyer’s (employer-friendly) market and back again. But the power this book has given interviewees, whatever their ages, skills, or qualifications, has expanded every year. I certainly couldn’t boast of my own interviewing skills before I wrote this book. On the contrary, I had often notgotten jobs for which I was eminently qualified. So I spent quite a lot of time learning all the mis- takes you could possibly make, having made each one of them— twice. Now, as a veteran of the other side of the desk as well (I’ve hired hun- dreds and interviewed thousands), I can tell you that interviewing is more serious business than ever before. Employers are looking for self-managing employees—people who are versatile, confident, ready and able to work with a team, and not afraid to roll up their sleeves, work long hours, and get the job done. “That’s me,”you chortle. Congratulations. But you won’t get the chance to prove yourself on the job without making it through the interview process. Interviewing was never easy, and right now it is harder than ever. Companies are taking far longer to make hiring decisions, and then only after putting prospective employees through more and longer vii viii 101 Great Answers to the Toughest Interview Questions interviews. One search firm reports that many candidates have had to interview a half dozen times or more for a single position. But of all the tools in your professional arsenal, your ability to shine in that brief moment in time—your first interview—can make or break your chances for a second go-around and, ultimately, dictate whether you’re ever given a shot at the job. How Do You Get to Carnegie Hall? Like playing the piano, interviewing takes practice, and practice makes perfect. The hours of personal interviewing experience, both the tragedies and the triumphs, as well as my years as an interviewer, are the basis for this book. I hope to spare you many of the indignities I suffered along the way, by helping you prepare for the interview of your worst nightmares—at a comfortable remove from the inter- viewer’s glare. Will you have to answer every question I’ve included? Certainly not; at least not in a single interview. But chances are the questions tomor- row’s interviewer doesn’task will be on the tip of the nextinterviewer’s tongue. Why? It’s a mystery. How to Paint a Picture Most interviewers are not trying to torture you for sport. Their motive is to quickly learn enough about you to make an informed deci- sion—should you stay or should you go? By the same token, if you know what they’re looking for, you can craft your answers accord- ingly (and reduce your own fear and anxiety at the same time). I hope you’ll take it a step further and use these questions as the basis for some thoughtful self-exploration. You’ll need to be prepared to think for yourself—on your feet, not by the seat of your pants. While competitive, certainly, the interview process is not a competi- tion. Rather than thinking of yourself as an athlete trying to “out answer”the other candidates, consider an interview your chance to be an artist, to paint a portrait of the person you are, the kind of can- didate any company would like, respect, and want to hire. Introduction ix Chapters 1 and 2 offer a detailed discussion of the work you need to do and the things you need to think about long before you strut into your first interview. Interviewing may not be 99 percent preparation, but it’s certainly 50 percent. In Chapters 3 through 10, we’ll get into the meat of the book—the questions for which you must prepare and the answers most inter- viewers are hoping to hear. (I have not counted every question in this book, from the main ones to the variations, but there are now far more than the 101 still advertised on the cover.) Each question is gen- erally followed by a series of three subheadings: What Do They Want to Hear? (What information is the interviewer seeking?) Green Light (What’s a good answer?) Red Light (What’s a poor answer?) I’ve listed follow-up questions you should expect or variations an inter- viewer may substitute after many of the questions. The questions in this book are grouped by type; they are not in some suggested order. Many of the questions in Chapters 8 or 10, for exam- ple, may well be some of the first questions asked in every interview! So read the entire book and prepare for all of the questions in any order. Despite the emphasis on “great answers,”I do not recommend rote memorization. Trotting out a staged, textbook answer to a question is not the point of the interview process . . . or of this book. It is actu- ally more important to concentrate on the “What do they want to hear?”section after each question, to have an understanding of why the interviewer is asking a particular question and what you need to do to frame a winning answer.