Nagesh Belludi

Compilation of Job Interview Questions

April 4, 2009 By Nagesh Belludi 1 Comment

A couple of years ago, I compiled a list of job interview questions and loosely categorized this list by personal attributes, career performance, communication skills, team skills, managerial skills, and leadership skills.

I have since shared this list with recruiting managers (interviewers) and job candidates (interviewees) who I have coached. I suggest that recruiting managers choose eight questions on varied topics for a thirty-minute interview. Job candidates can select twenty-five questions and practice answering these questions by recording and reviewing their answers.

Job Interview Questions on Personal Attributes

Why do you think you are successful at what you do?
What you consider your biggest fault at work? Why do you think you have it and what are you doing about it?
What defines a challenge to you?
Describe the situation when your expectations were not met.
What is a misconception people have about you when they first meet you?
How do you maintain your passion in a place that lacks accountability?
Tell me about a time when you felt culturally ill-at-ease and how do you cope with it?
What is the single best quality that you have seen in people—a quality that you do not possess?
Tell me about yourself.
What are your strengths and weaknesses?
What was a constructive criticism you received and how did you respond to it?
Tell me about a failure. How would you know you failed in something?
Tell me about a time when your belief was challenged.
Give me an instance when your ethics have been challenged.
Give me an example when you were criticised for your personality.
If you had a month without any commitments, what would you do?
What are people most surprised to learn about you?
What do you consider to be your key values? Name a time when these values were challenged.
What is something from your past that you wish you would have done differently and why?
List three things that motivate you at work.
What is your one personal trait you most admire and why?
What motivates you to succeed?
How do you measure success?
What are you passionate about?
Which business leader do you admire? Why?
Describe a typical day at work.
Tell me about the current (non-professional) book you are reading? What did you learn from it?
Who is a prominent figure that you admire? Why?
What is your biggest regret and thus far?
What do you enjoy most about your job?
What is the one impression you want me to leave this interview with?
What do you look for in a job?
What were the high and low points in your life over the past few years?
What was the toughest integrity violation you have ever encountered, and how did you handle it?
Have you ever had to define yourself in the midst of criticism, and did you succeed?
When have you been blindsided in life, and why did it happen?

Job Interview Questions on Career Performance

What class did you like the most while you were at school? Why? How have you pursued that topic since you graduated?
When was the last time you were forced to step out of your comfort zone? What is the situation and how did you deal with it?
Suppose you discover that you missed a significant detail six hours before a project deadline. What would you do?
What you think about your current or former boss?
Was there a time where you had to choose between good opportunities? Which one did you choose?
Career-wise, was there anything in the last five years that you would have done differently?
How does your current or last job relate to the overall goals of your department or organisation?
What are you most proud of?
Tell me about a time when you personally failed. How did you handle it?
How do you feel about your career progress to date?
What would your peers at this organisation say on your second year anniversary?
When did you realise you needed a change in your career path?
What was your best mistake?
What about our position do you find most attractive? Least attractive?
Tell me about time when you overcame a problem and took initiative.
What was your most challenging work situation?
What has been your most creative solution to a problem?
What has been the highlight of your career?
What is the best idea you have ever had and why?
What is the one thing you would change about how you performed in your job in the last few years?
How have you changed the nature of your job?
Tell me about a time at work when things did not go well.
Describe the key characteristics of the business you are in.
Describe your organisation.
Describe your job. Being effective in this job means?
What are the key things that have happened since you took this job? What did you do? Why? What effect did you have? What problems developed? How did you handle these problems?
How effective do you think you have been in this job? Specifically, why do you say this? What are the performance measures? What is it about you, the job, or its context that has contributed to this level of effectiveness? What could you have done better?
What are you trying to achieve in your career? In your life?

Job Interview Questions on Communication, Conflicts

Tell me about a time when you worked with someone and had a difficult interaction or disagreement. How did you resolve it?
Describe a time when you had a conflict with a co-worker. How did you resolve it?
Tell me about a time when your powers of persuasion failed.
Give me an example of a time when you made a mistake because you did not listen well to what someone had to say.
Describe the most challenging negotiation in which you were involved. What did you do? What were the results for you? What were the results for the other party?
When a number of different people come to you with ideas about solving a problem, how do you go about using their information? Please give an example.
Tell me about a time when you have had to stand or defend a position that was not popular or easily accepted?
What was the hardest thing you had to say no to in the last two years?
Have you ever disagreed with your manager?
How do you approach resolving a conflict within a group?

Job Interview Questions on Team Skills

How would you pick a team?
What is your role on a team?
Tell me about a time when you had to deliver bad news to your team.
Tell me about a time when you let your team down.
How do you create accountability and create a strong team?
Describe a time when you were working in a team and you failed. How did you resolve the situation?
What characteristics do you look for in your team members?
Describe a situation when your team fell apart.
How would you describe your best friend?
What weaknesses do you have or experience when you are working in a team environment?
In the teams that you work with, how do you deal with disagreements between the team members?
Who was the toughest person you have worked with?
Discuss your worst team work experience.
Describe five qualities that you would want your team members to have for you to work effectively with them.
Tell me about a time when you lead a team and failed.

Job Interview Questions on Managerial Skills

What was the biggest mistake you have had when delegating work?
What is your biggest weakness as a manager?
How do you know when the project is working well? If it is not, how do you address the problem?
Describe a time when you had to be assertive in giving directions to others.
Tell me how you go about delegating work? How did you keep track of delegated assignments?
Describe characteristics of a bad team member or supervisor you have worked with.
What would you do if your boss in the job came to you requesting you to do something that you know is definitely dead wrong?
What is your management style?
Tell me about a time when your relationship with a colleague broke down. What did you learn from that?
Tell me about a time when you helped someone else succeed without doing the job for them.
Describe the situation when you had to micromanage. How did you go about it? What were the results?
What is the most difficult aspect of being a manager?
Tell me about an instance when you had to work with a difficult person? What did you learn?
Give me an instance where you handled a difficult subordinate at work.
Consider me to be your employee. I am not performing well. How would you fire me? Please play it out.
Describe an experience where you motivated your followers. Why you think you were able to do it?
Tell me about when you had to work with someone you did not get along with, or someone whose personality was different from yours.
What would your subordinates say about you and your leadership style?
How do you deal with difficult personalities?
If you were the CEO of a company and had to do downsizing, what people would you layoff, and, how would you implement this?
How do you handle working with people who are not good at their jobs?
How do you evaluate the productivity / effectiveness of your subordinates? How do you get data for performance reviews?
How would you describe your managerial style? How has changed over the past five or ten years?
Give me examples of your hiring successes and disasters? Explain what you got right—and what you missed.
Can you point to any of your people who grew up with your guidance and have gone on to succeed in your own company or beyond?

Job Interview Questions on Leadership Skills

Describe the qualities of a good manager or a leader you have worked with. Why are these important?
How has your leadership style evolved from ten years ago?
Define leadership. How does a good manager differ from a good leader?
Tell me about a time when you challenged somebody else’s idea and generated a new business initiative or project.
What kinds of decisions are most difficult for you? Describe an example.
Tell me about a time when you influenced others who were not your subordinates.
Tell me about a time when you saw poor leadership at work.
When you start your own company, what qualities will you look for in people you choose to partner with?
What is the most competitive situation you have experienced? How did you handle it? What was the result?
Tell me about a time when you developed a new business opportunity. What was the impact?
Describe a failure at work, how did you deal with it, and what did you learn from it?
What will be happening in our industry five years from now?
Have you ever been caught unaware by a problem or obstacle that you had not foreseen? What happened?
Tell me about a time when you overcame a problem or took initiative to solve something.
Describe a project where you preferred a common sense approach to an analytical approach to solve a problem.
What is your leadership style? How do you build consensus without using authority?
Some people consider themselves to be ‘big picture people’ and others are ‘detail oriented.’ Which are you? Give an example of a time when you displayed this.
What do you think is the most important thing a business needs to develop?
What is the riskiest decision you have made? What was the situation? What happened?
What you think are the three qualities of a leader? Give me an example of a situation in which you exhibited each of these.
If you had to assemble a team to work on a project, which three celebrities would you choose and why?
Describe a situation when something went totally awry.
In your present position, what problems did you identify that had previously been overlooked?
How do you get new ideas?
Tell me about a time when you saw a solution before everybody else.
Tell me about the most impactful failure in your life? What did you learn from it?
Tell me a situation where you took risks.
What innovative procedures have you developed? How did you develop them? Who was involved? Where did the ideas come from?
What is the role of management in today’s global economy?
What are the toughest decisions you have had to make in the last few years?
What was your biggest management challenge, and how did you handle it?
In your career, what is the best example of you anticipating market changes that your competitors did not?
When did your curiosity lead you to probe deeply and uncover a competitive trend or marketplace dynamic that others did not see, or, did not want to see?
People frequently borrow ideas they have seen elsewhere and then apply them in a new setting. How have you done this?

Health and Fitness for the Sedentary Professional

April 2, 2009 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

Busy professionals tend to live a deskbound lifestyle. Their hectic schedules develop into easy excuses for abandoning regular exercise patterns. Consequently, their sedentary lifestyles, when combined with insufficient sleep, a disregard for healthful eating and drinking habits and the greater levels of stress in the modern workplace, can lead to fatigue and ill health over time.

Here are nine simple suggestions to encourage the busy professional lead a healthier lifestyle at work.

Practice Simple Workouts

Consider a healthier commute. Bike or walk to work at least once a week. If you ride a bus or train, get off a prior stop and walk the remainder.
Take stairs instead of elevators. Research suggests that climbing stairs can burn as much as seven times the calories burned when using an elevator.
Seek out opportunities to stand or walk. Walk up to colleague’s desks instead of instant messaging, emailing, or calling them. Take longer routes to restrooms, water fountains, meetings rooms, and others’ desks.
Take walks during breaks or after lunch. Consider starting a lunchtime walking group with like-minded coworkers. Walk for twenty minutes at a nearby park, around your office building or in the hallways. Better yet, take the stairs to walk up a few flights. Doing exercises in a group is more enjoyable and helps sustain the habit.
Stretch at your desk. Adopt a handful of simple exercises to stretch your fingers, wrists, arms, shoulders, chest, neck, back, and legs. Although these activities do not contribute to any form of serious aerobic exercise, they are nevertheless advantageous to promote fitness and reduce anxiety.

Eat and Drink Healthier

Eat healthy. Do not skip breakfast or lunch. Favor full-service salad bars or healthy choice menus at company cafeterias. Better yet, pack your lunch — it is economical too. Regulate your eating when dining-out with customers, visitors or management — studies suggest that we tend to overindulge in social settings or while on expense accounts.
Keep a supply of low-calorie, nutritious snacks, raw vegetables and fruits at your desk. These serve as healthier choices to snack food usually stocked in office vending machines.
Avoid indulging in sugar- and calorie-laden pastries, pies, cakes, cookies doled out on birthdays and anniversaries, or spread out in break rooms.
Drink more water. Try to limit carbonated beverages and fruit juices to one can/bottle a day. Avoid caffeine in the evenings to prevent sleep deprivation at night — the half-life of caffeine is about six hours.

Inspirational Quotations #265

March 31, 2009 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

We reap what we sow. We are the makers of our own fate. None else has the blame, none has the praise.
—Swami Vivekananda (Indian Hindu Mystic)

Few things help an individual more than to place responsibility upon him, and to let him know that you trust him.
—Booker T. Washington (American Educator)

Life is not about waiting for the storm to pass—it’s about learning how to dance in the rain
—Unknown

Time is a circus, always packing up and moving away.
—Ben Hecht

Besides the noble art of getting things done, there is the noble art of leaving things undone. The wisdom of life consists in the elimination of the nonessentials.
—Lin Yutang (Chinese Writer)

Human diversity makes tolerance more than a virtue; it makes it a requirement for survival.
—Rene Dubos

Throughout his life, a wise man engages in practice of all his useful, rarely used skills, many of them outside his discipline, as a sort of duty to his better self. If he reduces the number of skills he practices and, therefore, the number of skills he retains, he will naturally drift into error from man with a hammer tendency. … Skills of a very high order can be maintained only with daily practice.
—Charlie Munger

There is in every woman’s heart a spark of heavenly fire which lies dormant in the broad daylight of prosperity, but which kindles up and beams and blazes in the dark hour of adversity.
—Washington Irving (American Author)

It’s easy to say “no!” when there’s a deeper “yes!” burning inside.
—Stephen Covey (American Management Consultant)

To repeat what others have said, requires education, to challenge it, requires brains.
—Mary Pettibone Poole

Four Telltale Signs of an Unhappy Employee

March 30, 2009 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

A skilled manager understands how to get work done through her staff under all circumstances. She makes herself available, delegates effectively and provides appropriate feedback. She works hard to sustain an effective work environment in which her staff feels motivated and takes pride in their achievements.

The skilled manager accurately discerns what her employees think and how feel about their work; she also assesses their happiness on the job. She recognizes unhappy employees through these four noticeable behavioral changes over time:

Tardiness: The unhappy employee tends to arrive late, leave early and takes longer breaks. He is often elusive and hard to pin down.
Disdain: The unhappy employee can be grouchy, whining, or may complain excessively. He tends to be oversensitive: he sulks at even the slightest criticism, gets defensive, or accuses supervisors of picking on him.
Indifference: The unhappy employee cannot focus on his responsibilities. Consequently, his work tends to be disorganized and incomprehensible. His workload is a struggle. He fails to update management on a regular basis, rarely has a say in important matters, and resists new assignments.
Aloofness: The unhappy employee is inclined to distance himself physically, socially and emotionally from his coworkers. He is likely to be uncooperative and refuses to accommodate others’ requests.

Inspirational Quotations #264

March 25, 2009 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.
—Arthur Schopenhauer (German Philosopher)

I recommend you to take care of the minutes, for the hours will take care of themselves.
—Earl of Chesterfield

Humor is an affirmation of dignity, a declaration of man’s superiority to all that befalls him.
—Romain Gary (French Diplomat)

Everything should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler.
—Albert Einstein (German-born Theoretical Physicist)

Our greatest glory consists not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.
—Oliver Goldsmith (Irish Author)

For those who have seen the earth from space, and for the hundreds and perhaps thousands more who will, the experience most certainly changes your perspective. The things that we share in our world are far more valuable than those which divide us.
—Donald E. Williams

Dream not for yourself but dream for those whom you love and care for. For in every dream that this goal is realized, more dreams will follow; dreams truly meant especially for you.
—Oliver Juanir

Let each hour of the day have its allotted duty, and cultivate that power of concentration which grows with its exercise … .
—William Osler (Canadian Physician)

How to Overcome Shyness in Initiating Conversations

March 24, 2009 By Nagesh Belludi 1 Comment

Uneasiness in Striking up Conversations

The introverts among us do not like being the center of attention and the life of parties. We prefer small get-togethers with a selected group of familiar friends. We have a tendency to shy away from interacting with new people.

We introverts are not very comfortable with small talk. We would rather choose meaningful conversations about a variety of topics that are closer to our hearts. Consequently, we are likely to find it difficult to strike up conversations in social gatherings, parties, and meetings.

Assuming Rapport

The Positivity Blog discusses a simple and effective technique to help initiate conversations. In essence, as opposed to initiating a conversation with uneasiness, act as if you are meeting one of your best friends. The resulting assurance will ease up the anxiety and help initiate and pursue a conversation with new people. In addition, the ensuing poise results in a more forthcoming body language.

I have adopted this technique to better myself in presentations and speeches, meeting new people at work and play, and overcome my own introversion to the extent that now people often label me as being talkative.

Pursuing Conversations

Here are a few more suggestions to help introverts get more comfortable in social gatherings.

Ask to be introduced. Ask your host or a fellow-attendee to introduce you to the other guests by citing common interests. This will help you connect with other guests over the topic of common interest and pursue a conversation more effortlessly.
Interact with other introverts. Surveys suggest that 60% of people tend to be introverts. You could identify like-minded folk through their shy body language, approach them, and introduce yourself to them.
Connect with extroverts. Extroverts like meeting people, enjoy interactions, and love introducing people to one another. Being around extroverts can help overcome some initial difficulty with starting conversations and engaging in small talk in unfamiliar social situations.
Learn and practice the art of small talk. Most people are enthusiastic about sharing their stories. Favorite sports, travel destinations, kids, opinions of celebrities, movies and other current events make great conversation starters. Steer away from conversations on social or economic status, health, faith, and other personal details. Watch for gestures of discomfort when you ask questions.

Inspirational Quotations #263

March 17, 2009 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

It is the principle of the pure in heart never to injure others, even when they themselves have been hatefully injured. Hating others, even enemies who harmed you unprovoked, assures incessant sorrow.
—Thirukkural

There will be times in life when impossibility is felt, but then there are dreams—and dreams allow us possibility.
—Jeffrey David Lang

We must dare to be happy, and dare to confess it, regarding ourselves always as the depositories, not as the authors of our own joy.
—Henri Frederic Amiel (Swiss Philosopher)

The life that conquers is the life that moves with a steady resolution and persistence toward a predetermined goal. Those who succeed are those who have thoroughly learned the immense importance of plan in life, and the tragic brevity of time.
—W. J. Davison

Blessed is the man who, having nothing to say, abstains from giving wordy evidence of the fact.
—George Eliot (Mary Anne Evans) (English Novelist)

It is much more comfortable to be mad and know it, than to be sane and have one’s doubts.
—G. B. Burgin

Self-confidence is the first requisite to great undertakings.
—Samuel Johnson (British Essayist)

You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look at fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, I have lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along”. You must do the think you think you cannot do.”
—Eleanor Roosevelt (American First Lady)

Anxiety and distress, interrupted occasionally by pleasure, is the normal course of man’s existence.
—Joseph Wood Krutch (American Writer)

The optimist proclaims that we live in the best of all possible worlds, and the pessimist fears this is true.
—James Branch Cabell

Inspirational Quotations #262

March 8, 2009 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

Everyone is a genius at least once a year; a real genius has his original ideas closer together.
—Georg Christoph Lichtenberg (German Scientist)

Now there are a couple of other things that are essential for innovation and invention that are not as fun. One of them is you have to have a willingness to fail. You have to have a willingness to be misunderstood for long periods of time.
—Jeff Bezos (American Businessman)

When there is no moon, you go by the stars.
—African Proverb

So long as millions live in hunger and ignorance, I hold every person a traitor who, having been educated at their expense, pays not the least heed to them.
—Swami Vivekananda (Indian Hindu Mystic)

Those who gave thee a body, furnished it with weakness; but He who gave thee Soul, armed thee with resolution. Employ it, and thou art wise; be wise and thou art happy.
—Akhenaten (Egyptian Monarch)

We might remind ourselves that criticism is as inevitable as breathing, and that we should be none the worse for articulating what passes in our minds when we read a book and feel an emotion about it, for criticizing our own minds in their work of criticism.
—T. S. Eliot (American-born British Poet)

Stand up, be bold, be strong. Take the whole responsibility on your own shoulders, and know that you are the creator of your own destiny. All the strength and succor you want is within yourselves. Therefore, make your own future.
—Swami Vivekananda (Indian Hindu Mystic)

When in prayer you clasp your hands, God opens His.
—German Proverb

To speak kindly does not hurt the tongue.
—Common Proverb

Success usually comes to those who are too busy to be looking for it.
—Henry David Thoreau (American Philosopher)

The Eight Guiding Principles of Successful Investors

March 7, 2009 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

Eight guiding principles for successful investing in personal finance

“Success in investing doesn’t correlate with I.Q. once you’re above the level of 25. Once you have ordinary intelligence, what you need is the temperament to control the urges that get other people into trouble in investing.”
* Warren Buffett

I have invested in stock markets since I was sixteen. Largely, I have been quite a successful investor, if you disregard the current slump in the financial markets. Over the years, primarily though my mistakes, I have learnt several invaluable lessons that have shaped my personal investing philosophy. Here is a summary.

Do not invest money you cannot afford to lose. Know your limitations and own a mix of asset classes that are just right for you. Understand your ability to tolerate the hurts of losing money.
Buying a stock is the easy part. Knowing when to sell, especially in the case of hot stocks, is challenging. Do ample research before buying stocks or mutual funds. Establish a few criteria for selling and have the discipline to sell when a stock meets your criteria.
Invest; do not speculate. You cannot try to outsmart the market by trying to time the market or day trade. You cannot be right on every trade and every stock that you lay hands on—research has shown that even the best investors are right in about five of every eight stock purchases.
Do not fret about missing an opportunity. Opportunities abound in every market—bull or bear, short-term or long-term.
Do your own research. Stock research is indeed hard work, yet indispensable. Monitor stocks frequently. Pay attention to price-to-earning ratio (PE,) price-to-earning-to-growth ratio (PEG,) revenues and cash flow. Learn how to read company balance sheets and other financial statements.
Follow each company’s fundamentals carefully. Consider vital changes to the company’s operations, competitive landscapes, and industry prospects. Pay attention to macro-economic factors that may influence the industry.
Be skeptical of too much optimism and hype. Do not pursue past performance and buy a stock or mutual fund, possibly after a period of high returns. Watch out for stock analysts and investment advisors touting stocks after good news and playing down stocks that have already fallen. Understand that financial advisors may promote mutual funds that pay them high commissions and not necessarily get better returns for you.
Never lose sleep over your investments. Never let your emotions guide your investments transactions. Money is, after all, not the most important thing in your life.

Inspirational Quotations #261

March 2, 2009 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

Life is a language in which certain truths are conveyed to us; if we could learn them in some other way, we should not live.
—Arthur Schopenhauer (German Philosopher)

Ignore the people who tell you it won’t work, and hire people who embrace your vision.
—Michael Dell (American Businessperson)

Most people would sooner die than think; in fact, they do so.
—Bertrand A. Russell (British Philosopher)

Have confidence that if you have done a little thing well, you can do a bigger thing well, too.
—Joseph Storey

Write injuries in sand, kindnesses in marble.
—French Proverb

Even the greatest fool can accomplish a task if it were after his or her heart. But the intelligent ones are those who can convert every work into one that suits their taste.
—Swami Vivekananda (Indian Hindu Mystic)

However we may receive blows, and however knocked about we may be, the Soul is there and is never injured. We are that Infinite.
—Swami Vivekananda (Indian Hindu Mystic)

It is not enough to be busy. So are the ants. The question is: What are we busy about?
—Henry David Thoreau (American Philosopher)

The important thing is this: to be able, at any moment, to sacrifice what we are for what we could become.
—Charles Frederic Dubois

Many men owe the grandeur of their lives to their tremendous difficulties.
—Charles Spurgeon (British Baptist Preacher)

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Nagesh Belludi

Job Interview Questions on Personal Attributes

Job Interview Questions on Career Performance

Job Interview Questions on Communication, Conflicts

Job Interview Questions on Team Skills

Job Interview Questions on Managerial Skills

Job Interview Questions on Leadership Skills

Wondering what to read next?

Practice Simple Workouts

Eat and Drink Healthier

Wondering what to read next?

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Uneasiness in Striking up Conversations

Assuming Rapport

Pursuing Conversations

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