How to Answer the 5 HARDEST Job Interview Questions

Doo doo doo doo doo, I'm dreaming of new... Hi, James from EngVid. He's wearing a tie and he's got...

it looks like a resume. Let's go to the board and find out. Yo, E, what's going on?

You're going for an interview? Oh, you're worried because this is... Ah, today's lesson, ladies and

gentlemen. The five hardest questions you will find on an interview. This is something I think

all of you will be able to take something from because we're going to work on a little bit of

communication but also prepare you for the job market. And these questions are difficult because

they ask... What they ask from you is not just to say, you know, yes, no, I want this much, that much.

Your employer is asking a question to get a deeper look into who you are and what you really want

and what you have to offer the company. You ready? Let's go to the board and see what this is about.

Over here. So five of the hardest interview questions you're going to run into. And funny

enough, they don't seem that difficult but once you actually go into it and you understand what

they're trying to get at, you realize why they're so difficult. Why do you want to change jobs?

That seems obvious, right? Stop right there. What your employer wants to know is not just I need

more money, which is what you're thinking, or I want a better, you know, because that means you

could leave their job as well and you don't... They don't want to have someone who's just going to move

from job to job if someone's just going to pay more, right? So the best way to answer this

particular question is, well, number one, I call this easy mode. Have you just moved?

So if you're living in England, for instance, and you move to Canada, you kind of need a new job,

right? So that's easy mode. They will understand that right away, okay? You need to make money here,

right? Or you've just finished school. Well, I went to business school. I've just graduated.

Now I need a job. Makes sense. So you're not just leaving one job to make a bit more money,

and you cannot be relied on for future. Yeah? Okay. Here's where it gets a bit tricky. So if

you have been in the industry for a while and they ask you this question and they're looking

at your resume, here's a few things you can say that will show them that you're going to be a

terrific long-term employee, and this is a good move for both you and them. First,

a new challenge. You could start out in a small company, a three-man, four-man, or a four-person

company or woman company, and there's only so much growth you can do because all these positions are

taken. So you might want to go to a bigger place like an Apple or an Amazon where you can get more

challenges because there's so much that company does that it can help you grow in that way,

challenge you to do more and be more. You can say they are offering a better opportunity for you,

a better opportunity for your skill set. In some jobs you'll get stuck in a certain position

because they don't really, they can't use what you have. A perfect example is when I said you

graduated from school. So you've graduated from school, but they have an accountant so they don't

need a special forensic accountant. So your skill set is not being used to its maximum. They're not

using it to its full potential. So they might say, you might say, I came to this job because you have

a specific area that my skills will work perfectly in. So I can actually use the skills I've been

trained in that I want to use. Okay. That happens all the time. And the last one, career growth.

Do you remember I said a small company, you want to go to a larger company to get greater

responsibilities and also be out there more in the environment, as I can say, the business

environment to learn more. By doing this and working at other companies, that growth will

allow you to have different positions. There's nothing wrong with staying in an entry-level

position. And that is something where if you work at a bank, you might be what's called a bank teller

talk to the people. But if you don't do something else, you may never become branch manager or

regional manager or president because you haven't got enough experience. So sometimes you need to

leave the job you're at to get that experience somewhere else. So you might even come back to

the first company, but because of that experience, you can get greater career growth. So that one is

number one, some of the best ways to answer the question, why do you want to change jobs?

You can use a couple of these or just one. I mean, if you're just out of school, go to easy mode.

Dude, I just graduated. I need to pay the government off. Now, number two, this is a,

I love this question. What is your weakness? Do not say things like I'm always late. I fight with

other coworkers. This is the best way not to get the job. These are weaknesses. These are no-nos.

What you want to do is take your weakness and turn it into a strategy. What do I mean by that?

By thinking about the first thing is everyone has a weakness. You cannot say I have no weaknesses

because that's a lie. They won't buy it. They won't hire you. But if you can turn this weakness

into a strategy, you can turn it into something. And here's an example for something. This is

a good one in which you've taken it and you've made it something that any company or every

company wants. I struggle with people who don't want to maintain the high standards of work that

I want. I mean, what company doesn't want someone to have high standards and they will not tolerate

someone who doesn't want to work? It seems like a weakness because it means you're going to be

difficult for the people who don't want to work with. You'll be difficult for them.

But companies want people like you. Is it a weakness? You've used it strategically,

using your brain to make it a strength. How about this one? This is another one because you can be

honest. So you could use both of these. The other one is be honest about something. Pick a weakness

that you are working on. There's nothing better than a champion fighter or athlete that's lost

their way and then they fight and struggle and come back. People like that, right? People also

like people who take responsibility and accountability, which is what companies want

for their actions. So in this one, you pick a weakness that you are working on and you can

demonstrate you've worked on it. Once again, don't say I'm chronically late and I like to fight with

the other. Please don't. Even if you're working on it, pick something else, right? You know,

I'm working on my math skills or my computer skills. I got into a course. But here's the

turn on. Here's not just that. Think about it. And I should have said this at the beginning.

In all of this stuff I'm telling you, you have to do your homework. These are the hardest questions

because you're not going to get them at McDonald's. You're going to get them at careers you want to

keep. So you need to do your what we call due diligence. Do your homework. Research the company.

Look for, you can pick up The Economist, you can pick up Forbes, other magazines that will give you

an idea, even fashion magazines. When they talk about fashion houses, they will tell you the

things that they're lacking currently. So you can put that in your head, put that on paper,

keep that in mind. So when this question comes up, you can pick a weakness that you have that

you're working on that the company currently needs. So now you're saying, yes, my weakness,

but I'm working on it, I'm getting better. And they're like, we need a guy like Jones.

He could probably help the other employees who are also suffering from this. He has a strategy.

So it shows you're willing to take responsibility. You're willing to fix things.

And currently what you're fixing is something they could possibly help themselves get better. Cool.

All right. Number three. How do you deal with conflict with other colleagues?

Remember, I told you don't say that's a weakness. Well, there's no place even in Disneyland. I mean,

Goofy and Mickey, they mix it up every once in a while, right? Because Goofy is Goofy.

All right. So things are going to happen. So what's the thing you want to say? Here's one of

the best approaches. I'm using this word from here. It means a way to get to something. One of

the best approaches about talking about conflict with colleagues, and that's fighting arguments,

disagreements. Say I take a collaborative approach. What do you mean collaborative?

I like to work together with the individual. Now, the thing you want to add to that, and this is a

little framework I'm teaching you, a little way you can say it that's going to be in an interview.

So I like a collaborative approach. I like to work with the person I'm having the problem with.

One of the things you want to tell me is I like to talk privately with them to fix it.

So we will talk to each other. We're not going to go to management right away or talk about it.

I want to work with them to fix the problem. So I want a long-term solution, and I want to do it

collaborative, work together. And how I'm going to do this, you're going to look and go, what is SBI?

I read a book the other day. I'm going to share it with you. It's only 30 pages long. Good book.

SBI means situation, behavior, and impact. It's a method that they used for conflict resolution.

Conflict resolution means to end fighting, and as we do, make a collaborative approach to solving

problems. The S is situation, which means you'd go, Jones, the other day at the meeting, you,

oh sorry, situation would say, on Wednesday, March 29th, there was a meeting that we had with

all the senior management situation. Then you would talk about behavior. Jones, you were

saying really bad things about some of the other managers. The other, that's the behavior. Impact,

which is I. All those managers felt unhappy about your comments. So what, that happens all the time?

No. With the SBI framework, when we're talking about handling conflicts, you're telling someone

exactly, because what happens a lot of times, people will say, you're always arguing with

everybody all the time. It makes people angry, and you do it on purpose. Right there, you're

doing something that is not cool. You're telling intention. So you're saying that the person who

is arguing wants to cause conflict, which may not be the case. So I put SBI to give you the

framework. You can say situation, behavior, and impact. When you say, here's the situation that

happened at this day, at this place. Behavior, this is what you did. No judgment, this is what

you did. Impact, how did it make the other people feel? And then you allow the other person to talk

about the impact, like their intention, why they were doing it. They might say, I just wanted to

motivate people. I didn't want to make them angry. So we're going to take this. How do you deal with

conflict? I'm literally telling you a strategy to take at the meeting. Talk about, I want to be

collaborative. I want to work with people for a long-term solution. Tell them I will talk privately

with them, so it's individual. And when I talk privately, I'm going to use the SBI. Situation,

behavior, and impact. And let them tell me their intention and how we can work together to fix it.

Yeah, you can go to other places. Only at EngVid do we tell you, strategy baby. Yes, okay, moving on.

Next, number four. Why should we hire you? That is actually a good question on the part of the

employer. Why should we employ and hire you or employ you? Just because you come with a piece

of paper and just because you have experience, it doesn't mean that they need to have you. What I

mean by that is, if you think about your own family and you think about your mom, your dad,

if you have sisters or brothers, a dog or a cat, that's your family. When one of your siblings gets

married, that means your brother or sister, they're bringing someone into that family. And that's going

to affect the family dynamic enormously. Whether you're working for a company or a family is the

same thing. Every new person changes things. So when someone says to you, why should we hire you,

the paper is nice, your experience is nice, but it's also how are you going to affect our company?

And it's not a small impact, right? One bad apple ruins all the rest. So

when they ask that, they're going to be looking specifically for some words.

One is going to be performance-based, the other is going to be, how do I say,

what you can add to, right? What you can add to the company. So performance is like, okay,

bottom line numbers. The other is you might say culture or community, right? So let's go and take

a look at what I say here. So why should we hire you? One of the things you can talk about to get

one thing off their mind, which is money. If people are hiring you and they're paying you

50,000, 25,000, it could be rupees, it could be yen, it could be dollars, it could be what have

you. They need to know that they're paying you that money, they're going to get that money out

and more. Otherwise you're not good for the company. So you can show, look at the results

from my last job, what I was able to do to let them go, okay, you won't cost this money. You'll

bring us some money in. That's number one. Number two, show them how your skills are required.

Do you remember I told you about that research from before? This is where it comes in handy.

Not just over here, but over here. I see that you guys need this in your company. I can provide that.

I want to provide that and build on it and help the company. That's why they want to hire you.

They want to get money through the door and they want to make sure you can help enhance things

that they need. You don't want to have what we're going to doubling up or having two people with the

same job, the same skills. It doesn't help. The more people you have with different skills and

different ideas, you can grow something. Now finally, number five, where do you see yourself in

five years? This is a trick question because if you say in five years I see myself working for

another company with a better position, yeah, they're not hiring you because they're like, okay, you

just basically want to make some money here and leave. We're not a stepping stone. That means

you're going to use us to get to the next job. So you have to be careful how you answer this

question. Number one, keep your answer general. Well James, I want to be specific. Don't be because

the position you're applying for may not have the goals you want to get. So they're going to think,

well you want more than we're going to offer, right? You're the guy sweeping the floor and

you're like, when I'm done sweeping the floor I want to drive my Lamborghini into the president's

office. No, floor sweeping is what you do. That's it. So be general. Say I would like to see

myself progress every year doing something more in the company with some goal structure,

but don't be too specific because you don't know if your job will lead to that area.

Number two, stress the long term. You have a broad interest. That means a wide interest in the

company. Many of the things that it does besides your position. Yes, you'll be focused on your

position, but you're also interested in that they do this and they do that. And you know that in one

year, two years, three years, you cannot learn all of that. So you're interested in learning more.

And this goes along to when we talked about your new challenge, right? And career growth,

learning from the company. And because of that broad interest in the company, you want to learn

with the company and grow with the company. Because what the company is looking for here,

as I was trying to get across, but I'll say it better here or more eloquently, meaning better,

they want to find someone they can invest in. And you want to show to them you're that person.

Because not only are you interested in the job that you have and you want to get goals in that

area, you're also looking at the long term and learning more about the other areas of the

company. If you can do all five of this, my friend, you can do this with your money later.

One one thousand, two one thousand. Okay, first, you know, get everything else you need,

but you get what I'm saying. Because these are some of the five of the hardest questions

to answer because there is no yes, no. You have to show that you've researched the company.

You're good at what you do. And that's part of the key here. I can show you these things,

but if you're not good at what you do, it's not going to help. But you've researched the company,

you're good at what you do. You have a goal and an agenda that you want to do to help for yourself

and the company. And this will help you get that job. Cool. Well, you know how we roll here. We

have to do a little bit of well, we're not going to do homework, but I got a little bonus for you.

Yeah. And I got homework for you. But not a quiz, not a quiz on this one. You ready? Let's go.

And of course, you know, as every lesson goes, I can have a bonus for you. I'll have some homework.

But let's go to the board and take a look at the three things I want to talk about your three

bonus. Bonus questions. All right. Number one. One of the questions I could ask you is what are

your ideal working conditions? Okay. And now I did do a video earlier in which I kind of talked about

this and I want you to go check it out. Okay. So in the five most common questions you'll be asked,

right? Because sometimes they are going to ask you things and they want to know if you're a team

player. So you kind of have to say something like, I like working alone, but I find that I can share

my ideas with other people and be collaborative. All right. So you can go watch that video when

you're done watching this one. And that'll give you, you know, to help with those basic questions

will come out. But these are the tough ones you got to understand. Okay. But in this case,

this is a little different because they're asking your ideal working conditions, not necessarily

working with people. So I put down challenging. You want to be challenged. And that's an honest

response for any person who's a mature person. You might say, what the hell are you talking about?

If you knew every day was going to be the same every single day, nothing ever changed from

getting out what side of the bed you get out of what Wheaties you eat, what dinner you have,

the same conversations you would have people eventually you'd just want to go, okay, I'm done.

I don't want to ever do this again. To be challenged is to have something new so you can

respond to it. And it's new. That's what you would say. I want a challenging environment, something

new coming to me. I don't want to keep typing the same letters. I want something else. I want to go

in the field. I want to learn something new. So you tell them I want a challenging environment,

which is good because any company that's growing, there will be new things introduced.

And they want people who want to work with those new things. And that should be you.

Next, you want to talk about working with a great team. One of the reasons you want to go to a new

job is that you hear about, I don't know, whatever company, Company X, these people are doing

innovative things or innovative things, which means new things or a new way of doing it.

And you want to be with that team, right? So you want to be challenged and you want to work with

other bright people who are working on new things. And we talk about professional development,

right? So what are your ideal working conditions? They're going to be professional development.

Sometimes you get pieces of paper, like you got 10,000 YouTube views or something, or they send

you to other companies to work with them. So as a professional, as an individual, you get to work in

different environments in which you can become more of a professional, learn more about your

field. Okay. Number two, as your bonus question, how would your colleagues describe you? Now,

this is tricky. It's very tricky. A company that's going to ask you this may actually

talk to your colleagues. Colleagues are your coworkers or the people you worked with before.

So something you want to do is prepare your colleagues. Go to your old friends like Jones

and Thomas and say, hey, look, how would you actually describe me? This is done for two

reasons. Number one, you know what they're going to say, or you can say, please don't talk about

that. But the other thing is you want to know what to say to the new employer. So they'll hear

the same thing from your friends. And it's not two different stories. Okay. That's very important.

You can prepare your friends and you can prepare yourself. So you want to prepare them, your

colleagues in case they call, but also yourself. In Canada, for instance, if you want to own a gun,

they talk to your friends, your neighbors and everyone else to see what kind of person you are.

They just don't say, so would your friends say you're a nice guy? Yeah. Eh? No. Then they go,

we're going to call them. Employers for really good jobs will also do the same, because if you're

good at what you do, they may have heard of you and they can talk to other people and other

companies go, so what's Jones like? So prep yourself, prepare your friends or your colleagues.

Now, something else you can do when they say, how would your colleagues describe you?

Here's where we use strategy and smarts. You figure out what the company needs. Remember,

we said, prepare your friends. You go back and say, okay, can you mention maybe I did this and

this with the company? Please keep it honest. I always laugh every once in a while when someone

will say, he's teaching us not to, he's teaching us to be fake, to say things aren't true. I've

never said that in a video. I say, be honest, be yourself. Here's how you can shape it. And if you

think that's a bad thing, do you get dressed in the morning? Do you put on clothes that are

presentable to people? Yeah, you don't put on, is anything that may get comments. Some people do,

and they know they will be stared at and maybe they will be laughed at, maybe what have you.

But most of us put on what we need to do to get the job done, right? So when I say these things,

I'm not saying pretend to be someone you're not. But if you've done your research, as I told you

before, you'll know the company needs X and O. If you've done these things, prepare your colleagues,

put it in their mind to remind them, yes. And then in your interview, you can say, okay, my colleagues

would describe me this way and it just happens to be something you guys actually need. There's

nothing wrong with that. That's called preparation, right? I know if it seems not genuine or sincere,

or not honest, it's because for people who think that way, they haven't prepared for other people.

People who think that way, they haven't prepared for other things. You have to go by. Any sports team will tell you.

You watch the opposition. They don't just go play them. They watch and see how they play,

so they can have strategy against them. This is the same thing. You need strategy. You're not the only

person going for the job. So be more prepared than the other person going for the job. You're welcome.

All right, so next one, number three. Tell us about a mistake you made. Earlier on, I talked about

weakness. You have a weakness. I have a weakness for chocolate. If you look at my tummy, you know

this is true. I love the German chocolate. Okay, so tell us about a mistake you've made. This is

different than saying a weakness. This is a one-time thing. When you have a weakness, it's continual.

You keep doing it. You've made a mistake. Okay, so what do we say here? Number one, give a general

account of what happened. Don't be too specific. I remember one time at work, it was Game of Thrones,

and somebody had also went, don't tell us what happened. They did, and they threw something at

the other person. You don't want to say that on an interview. I threw a fork at somebody for telling

me the answer to Game of Thrones. It was like that. You don't want to say that. You might say,

well, we were at lunch, and we had this dispute about how information should be dispersed, and I

chose to speak aggressively, and I, see, same thing happened. Don't get too specific, but you

can get specific on how you fixed it. After lunch, I took the person aside and said, this is how I

felt about it, and this is why. Be specific on how you fixed it, so you get an idea of generally how

you handle problems, but you don't need to go into details about the problems. Okay, now, the next

thing, or the last one I'm going to talk about, is emphasize what you learned. So remember, if you

talked about mistake, not only do you talk about how you fixed it, you want to draw from it a

lesson, and to be quite honest, if it was really a mistake, you should have been doing this in the

first place. What did you learn? And you want to say, I learned this specific lesson, and I now

apply it at work. So maybe if I was angry at work, and I did something, I learned to take three

breaths, relax, then speak, and I applied it because of the mistake I made. It's not the same

as a weakness, this is a one-time thing, but we should learn from our mistakes so we can grow.

And isn't this the whole thing about the job you're going for? You don't want to just make

more money, you want to grow as a person, and you might say, well, how do you know that? You're

watching this video, and if you watch more than one of my videos, I never just say, go do x. I

want you to grow as a person, because I know as you grow as a person, you have more abilities,

and that helps you with learning English. You're a better person to learn it. Okay, so your homework

is this. Sit down, put a chair in front of a mirror, look at yourself, go through these

questions and how you would answer them. So it's not just using the answers I gave, look at yourself

and see what your body language is. Are you slouching or sitting up? Sit up properly.

All right? Also, when you're doing this, go through the thought process of thinking about

interviews you've done before, mistakes you've done before, and how you would fix them. And I

would really appreciate it if maybe you put some of these things down in the comments below,

whether on engVid or on YouTube about problems you had or questions you asked you couldn't answer,

or mistakes you made in an interview. See if we can help you with that. And before I go,

so you got your homework, right? Look in the mirror, look at yourself, go through an interview

with yourself. Maybe write some questions about, well, I should say this or with the interview.

Ask that. That'll help prepare you. And that's going to help prepare you for today's quote.

Okay. You might've noticed I've been using this again and again. Preparation for tomorrow is hard

work today. This was done by a guy named Bruce Lee. If you've ever seen Enter the Dragon or

whatnot, you'll know what that's for. If you haven't, you know, one of the greatest martial

artists that ever lived. And it wasn't just a martial artist, martial artist, he was a

martial artist. He was a philosopher. Right? So don't just think because someone does,

you know, they work out or stay fit that they're just meatheads. They've got a lot of brains,

some of them. All right. And I know you do too. Anyway, time for me to go. And if you're looking

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you to go to www.engvid.com and see the other wonderful teachers that are there. Okay. Have

a good one. And I look forward to seeing you in the next one. Yo, E, you didn't get the job.