ShareYourGroupShareYourGroupInterview

Common interview questions

12 questions that come up in nearly every interview, whatever the job. Each has its own page with model answers for freshers and experienced candidates.

Why the same questions come up everywhere

An interviewer has about half an hour to answer three things for themselves: can this person do the job, will they do it willingly, and will they fit with the people here. The common questions are simply the shortest routes to those answers. "Tell me about yourself" and "Why should we hire you?" are about ability. "Why this company?" and "Where do you see yourself in five years?" are about willingness and staying power. "Tell me about a challenge" and "What is your weakness?" are about how you behave when things are not easy.

Once you see what each question is really for, you stop looking for clever answers and start giving useful ones: a fact about yourself that helps the interviewer decide.

One method for all of them

  1. Answer the question that was asked, in the first sentence.
  2. Support it with one fact, number or short story from your own life.
  3. Connect it to the job you are being interviewed for.
  4. Stop after one to two minutes.

Every model answer on these pages follows that pattern. For questions that begin "tell me about a time when", the story is told with the STAR method.

How to use the model answers

Do not memorise them. An interviewer who hears a recited paragraph will ask a follow-up, and a borrowed answer has nothing behind it. Read an answer to see its shape, then write three or four notes of your own facts in the same order and practise saying them aloud. Each page lists the likely follow-up questions so that you can prepare those too.

Start with these three

If time is short, prepare tell me about yourself, why should we hire you and one story for tell me about a challenge. Between them they cover the opening, the main argument and the behavioural part of most interviews. Then add questions to ask at the end, because every interview finishes there.

Practise aloud with a timer

Model answers are examples. They show the shape of a good answer, reviewed in November 2026. Use your own facts: an answer copied word for word will not survive a follow-up question. Employers differ, and nothing here promises selection. Names in the examples are invented.