What motivates you?
There are people who get motivated for intrinsic things (“I find opportunities to learn”) and people who are motivated for external things (“They teach us a lot of things). Don’t say that you are motivated because of the bonus or salary. That’s not what the interviewer wants to hear.
Why you get up and go to work? (Flickr: moragcasey)
Find your “WHY”. Find the reason why you love going to work. Are you passionate at serving your customer, or employer. You’d better be. There must something that makes you feel alive that makes the employer feel alive as well. Find that.
Describe your Typical Work Week
Talk about work related activities and consider the position you are applying for.
A typical working day (Flickr: esthr)
Show the interviewer that you know what you have to do, what’s a priority, what’s secondary, how you organize your agenda, how you deal with urgent interruptions, how you plan your week. It’s about being efficient.
What is Your Greatest Weakness?
Turn a negative into a positive. In fact, every weakness hides an strenght.
Bamboo is not strong. It's flexible (Flickr: jpellgen)
For example, being organized wasn’t my strongest point (<–use positive, not negative expressions like: “I am very bad at getting organized”), but I implemented David Allen’s Getting Things Done Approach that really helped me.
What Were Your Expectations for the Job?
Always be sincere. If your expectations were not met, explain the reason why but don’t focus too much on the negative side.
The longer you talk from the positive side, the better.
Unmet expectations are normal
For example, if your job involved creating web applications using certain software but you had to use a completely different application, explain that meant you had to learn it so it took you longer. Explain how much you learned from that new tool and the advantages it had from the previous software you already mastered.
What Was it Like Working for Your Supervisor?
This is a dangerous questions. Don’t complain about your past boss, however bad your relationship was with him. Tell the truth but don’t complain.
You can always find something positive about your boss. Bring it out first.
The boss is not a gorilla (to the interviewers eyes) (Flickr: Lutz Frank)
For example, you can say that he was a very approachable person and even funny person to talk with, but you had different perspectives on how to approach stressful situations. You try to think that “it’s you” who is responsible about “how you respond to any stressful situation”. Your boss thinks that “is the situation that is responsible for my stress”, so that you will exoect a more confrontative approach from him. For example, ….(show that’s a fact, not an opinion).