“Tell me about yourself.”
Intent: Short summary of your professional self – not your life history!
- Summarize your career or academic history.
- Use your value proposition statement and share your professional story.
- Offer one sentence on what you’d like to do next in your career.
“What is your greatest weakness?”
Intent: Can you think critically about your professional skills?
- Choose a weakness that is not vital to the position, which you are actively working to improve.
- Don’t be cliché, i.e., “I’m a perfectionist.”
- Present a plan to improve the weakness and confirm it will not limit your performance.
Send a thank-you email to your interviewer at least 24 hours after your interview. Reference any topics from your interview, but be brief in length.
Behavior-based interview questions are used to determine how your past performance could demonstrate your future potential. Think ahead about these questions.
- Think of examples of your skills from a job, organization or volunteer activity.
- When you share your example, use the STAR Method.
- Situation: Set the stage for an example you plan to share by providing enough contextual details to tell the story.
- Task: What was the task at hand? What exactly was the project, problem or need?
- Action: What action did you take?
- Results: What was the result of your actions?
Examples of Behavior-Based Interview Questions
- “Tell me about a conflict you’ve faced when working on a team. How did you handle it?”
- “Give me an example of a time you saw a need in a workplace. What did you do to resolve it?”
- “Describe a failed project you have been involved with and explain why it was not successful.”
