10 Real Life Tricky Questions During Interviews For You To Learn From

From navigating questions around your break to impressing the interviewer to hire you for a position that does not exist, here is what we can learn from 14 professionals at work.

You’ve sent your resume, you’ve received a call for an interview and it’s time now to get ready for the last step toward landing your dream job, that is the interview. An interview is considered to be the most crucial step in the process of recruitment since it is the only opportunity a prospective employer gets to assess the applicant on some specific qualities, after your resume screening. 

Niranjani Raman, Service Area Leader – Testing, Leader – Methods at IBM says, “At the initial stages of the career, the resume should reflect your technical skills, however when you start moving up the ladder, your resume needs to reflect your technical skills along with your people and leadership skills.” 

On a similar note, Ramya Nirmal, Director of Product Engineering Services at CI Global Solutions says, “Update your resume based on the job description because one resume does not fill all job requirements.”

While your resume speaks about your work experience and the skills or domain knowledge you possess, it is only during the interview that your confidence, communication skills, integrity, and your overall attitude towards work can be assessed. As per Sharanya Pathikonda, Associate General Manager – Customer Success at Exotel Techcom Private Limited, “Reasons for changing your job can be many like an increase in your salary, no growth in the existing role, exploring opportunities in a different market or changing your career path entirely.”. She adds that “You need to be clear about what you want and if the reasons are all of the above, then prioritize between them”.

Consider the interview as an opportunity to market yourself in the best possible way, so put in as much thought and effort in preparing for the interview as you had for your resume. Thanmayi Mruthyunjaya, Senior Staff Software Engineer at IBM India Pvt Ltd. suggests, “If you are planning to continue in the same role then you can start preparing in the areas fitting your role, for example, if you are a software engineer and are working in front end UI technologies then you should become proficient in the Algorithms and Data structure. However, if you are planning to change your job in a different role, then try to have a preset experience in the role you are planning to shift to by doing tech assignments in your current company.”

Researching the organizaion is also another area which needs your time and attention. Akansha Kapoor, Marketing Specialist at Dow says, “It is always good to understand the company’s portfolio of products and brands, strategic alignment, growth projects and corporate communication. Good resources for these are the Annual Reports, Investor PPTs and blogs/vlogs about the company. Ad campaigns are also a good source to understand the target growth areas.” She adds that “It is good to talk to existing employees of the company, and to be able to use some of the company lingo during the interview”.

Looking at all of the above, it becomes important that you prepare yourself in advance for all possible scenarios and tricky questions that may arise on the day of the interview.

How to handle tricky questions at the time of the interview 

You should bear in mind that no matter how hard you prepare for an interview, there is always a possibility that a completely unanticipated question/scenario will be thrown at you by the interviewer. These are questions prospective employers use to assess your ability to think and function under pressure and in unpredictable situations. We, at Women’s Web, asked around and have made a list of some of the most common tricky situations/questions you’ll face during interviews and the ways to deal with them.

Tell us about your failures

Anjali Gupta, Product Owner at Hansen Technologies says, “One of the trickiest situations is when I am asked about my failures. I do talk about a few of my failures but I keep it brief and instead talk about what I learned from it and how I was willing to try again after failing.” She adds “It is important to showcase the current work done, challenges faced and how you figured out the solution in your current job. If you are a fresher, then this experience will come from your internships or the projects you did.”

Deepa Davala, Assistant Manager at Accenture also agrees. She shares, “The question of what is your weakness can be quite tricky – do the background work to find out what sort of an answer is the recruiter looking for.”

We see a break in your career, can you explain why?

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