If you’ve ever wondered what are some tricky interview questions and how to answer them, this article is for you.

A lot of questions are asked during the interview for a new job. Some of them are obviously difficult and check your competences, while others seem obvious. The latter are often very tricky.

If you think that you will get through part of the interview, during which obvious and simple questions are asked, because the most important will be the difficult and substantive ones, you may be wrong. Persons interviewing candidates for work know perfectly well which questions to ask in order to find out everything they need to properly evaluate a given person.

Every question has a meaning, even one that seems completely trivial to you. It’s worth knowing what it’s all about that your answer may convince a potential employer or discourage you.

13 Tricky Interview Questions

1. “Can you tell me about yourself?”

This question is for the employer to see if the candidate has “done his homework”. It also shows how confident a person is and whether she can describe herself convincingly, using information that she can communicate.

This question should not be treated as a chance to talk about your private life. You should focus on your value as a potential support for your company. It is worth remembering that people like to hear what they want to hear.

2. “Which one word best describes you?”

This one small question gives the future employer a chance to find out a lot of things about you, including whether you are creative, how you act under stress, whether you are confident, and so on. It also reveals what kind of personality you are.

It is a very difficult question, because there is a thin line between the answer, which will be funny, interesting and original or will sound cocky.

It is also easy to exaggerate with false modesty or to say something completely incomprehensible in the context of a job interview. Decide on the word that best reflects our strongest qualities and thus explain his choice.

3. “How would you compare this position with the others you are applying for?

This question is obviously intended to make you confess whether you are applying for other jobs. The important thing for your interlocutor is how you talk about other companies and how advanced you are in your search.

If you say it’s the only job you’re applying for, a red light may come on for a potential boss, as there aren’t many candidates who send an application to only one company. Honesty in this matter will be the best way out. Be careful how you talk about other potential workplaces – you can’t talk about them disrespectfully, offensively or with excessive enthusiasm.

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4. “Can you list your three biggest weaknesses and your three biggest strengths?

The art of answering this question is to be honest and at the same time to fit in with the expectations of the potential employer. So you need to present your true strengths so that they fit in with this particular location and your weaknesses so that they do not jeopardise your employability.

5. “Why would you want to work here?”

It’s obvious that you want to work for them for many different reasons. It is important to set these reasons according to the hierarchy. For a potential employer, this is information about what is really important to you.

6. ‘Why do you want to leave your current job?

Your potential future boss is investigating negative patterns here that may have led you to fail in your previous job. He also wants to know if you are willing to present your current company in a negative way. This never works in favour of the candidate.

7. “What are you most proud of in your career so far?

On the one hand, the answer to this question shows what your achievements are and whether you can judge them properly. On the other hand, it tells you what really matters to you, what you are passionate about and what you are striving for.

It is important for you to be able to talk passionately about what you have been doing so far. Nobody wants to hire a person who does not enjoy what they are doing.

8. “With which boss and which co-workers were you the most successful and the least successful and why?

The key to a good answer to this question is to keep your emotions in check. It’s about finding out if you have a tendency to get into conflict and how explosive you are in situations where there is a difference of opinion.

On the other hand, the employer wants to know in which conditions you work best. This can also be a breakneck question, because you need to anticipate the answer that fits the conditions of the company and not cheat at the same time.

9. “Have you considered starting your own business?

Of course, this question is about finding out if you might be planning to leave the company and start acting on your own. Excessive enthusiasm for making similar plans is unlikely to be welcomed in most companies.

On the other hand, honestly arguing that you never thought about it wouldn’t be a good solution either. You can always say that you have considered such a possibility or even tried your hand at it, if it was so, but it’s not for you.

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10. “If you could work in any company, which one would you choose?”

This is another question in which the balance between excessive kissing up and spontaneous honesty is important. You can always say that your life’s dream is to work at Google, but for your boss it’s not a good reason to hire you. On the other hand, convincing that you have dreamed of working for him since you were a child is an exaggeration.

It’s best to say that you’ve looked at many companies and the one you’re applying to seems the most suitable to you, so you applied to it.

11. “Why were you fired?”

The fact that this question is being asked does not in itself invalidate your chances. A potential future boss wants to know how you deal with an eventuality like this, such as a job loss, and tries to find out what its real causes might have been.

He wants to know if you are positive and ready to return to work. He tries to sense anger in you or to see if your self-confidence has been damaged.

It is important to keep your emotions in check and not allow yourself to be negatively commented on your previous employer.

12. “What would you do if you won a million tomorrow?”

The question you could find in a colourful magazine may also be asked during a job interview. For what purpose? Your boss probably wants to know if you still want to work if you have a lot of money at your disposal. Is work your passion and you are interested enough not to give up on it, despite the wealth?

It is also important to know whether you would do something senseless with cash. For a potential employer it is important how you treat money and whether you are responsible.

13. “How did you find time for this conversation? Where does your boss think you are now?

It’s a trap. A potential employer can get information here about what your priority is and whether you are taking your responsibilities seriously.

If the interview takes place during working hours, you must have an explanation that you are not in the office right now. The way you have dealt with this may have an impact on your future employment. Don’t say you’ve taken sick leave – it never sounds good and shows a pattern of conduct. Rather, convince your future boss that you did it responsibly, e.g. you told your current employer that you had some important things to do and that you took a day off to deal with them.

Thank you for reading this article about tricky interview questions and I really hope that you take action my advice. I wish you good luck and I hope its contents have been a good help to you.