How to Succeed at Interviews: Includes over 200 Interview Questions

217 Pages·2008·6.53 MB·english

by  Rob Yeung

How to
Succeed at
Interviews

How to
Succeed at
Interviews
3 R D E D I T I O N
Dr Rob Yeung
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the express permission of the publisher in writing.

The right of Rob Yeung to be identified as author of this work has
been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Design and
Patents Act 1998

© 2008 Rob Yeung

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Third edition 2008
First published in electronic form 2008

ISBN: 978 1 84803 279 8

Cover design by Baseline Arts Ltd
Produced for How To Books by Deer Park Productions, Tavistock
Typeset by Baseline Arts Ltd

NOTE: The material contained in this book is set out in good faith for
general guidance and no liability can be accepted for loss or expense
incurred as a result of relying in particular circumstances on statements
made in the book. Laws and regulations are complex and liable to change,
and readers should check the current position with the relevant authorities
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contents
About the author VII
Preface ix
1 Doing your homework 1
2 Making a strong impact 13
3 Handling nerves and building confidence 31
4 Dealing with commonly-asked questions 39
5 Talking about your personal qualities 69
6 Responding to competency-based questions 91
7 Handling weird, wonderful and wrongful questions 113
8 Answering questions about different stages of your
career and life 137
9 Asking the right questions 155
10 Succeeding with psychometric tests, assessment 163
centres and panels
11 Ending on a high note 177
12 Signing on the dotted line 183
appendix 191
index of questions 193
index of questions by topics 197
general index 203

about the author
As a business psychologist, Dr Rob Yeung helps both organisations and
individuals to achieve their goals. He is frequently asked by organisations
to design assessment centres and train their interviewers. He writes the
questions for interviewers to ask and tells them the answers they should
listen for.
He presents numerous television programmes for the BBC
including the series How To Get Your Dream Job. As an international
speaker, he is in demand to speak on topics such as emotional
intelligence, entre preneurship, leadership, and success.
To learn more about Rob’s other books or to bring him to your
organisation or event, please visit www.robyeung.com.

preface
I make my living from interviewing candidates. Employers ask me to train
their interviewers and to design assessment centres for them. In writing
this book, I’m a gamekeeper turned poacher. So trust me when I say that I
know the kinds of questions that interviewers are going to ask.
You want to succeed at interviews. Perhaps you have a suspicion that you
aren’t putting yourself across to the very best of your ability during
interviews. Or maybe you haven’t attended an interview for a while and
simply want to do some preparation. Whatever your situation, this is the
book for you. You know you can do the job – you just need some help in
persuading interviewers to give you the chance to prove it.
Well, here’s a secret: succeeding at interviews is like succeeding in a game.
Yes, an interview is a game. And, like any other game, interviewing has
rules. It’s true that some of the rules are unspoken and an interviewer
will never tell you to your face that you have broken a rule, but if you
break the rules, you will not get offered the job. Follow the rules, and you
will get offered the job. It’s that simple. Because the person who gets the
job is not always the best person for the job; more often than not, they
simply know the most about how to get appointed.
I wrote the first edition of this book because I was seeing too many
candidates who were just not doing themselves justice. In the second
edition, I added more information and detail to help readers cope with the
many, many questions that interviewers can sometimes ask. And, with
this third edition, I’ve added a lot more information including:
(cid:1) several dozen more of the fiendish questions that interviewers can ask,
(cid:1) many more sample answers to illustrate how to deal with those tough
interview questions on topics ranging from talking about your skills to
changing careers,
IX