What is your current salary and what is your salary expectation?

Before accepting or asking any offer, it is important to know what package is offered by similar companies for same post. Such question may have following possible intention.

Possible Intention:

• To know if you are aware of salary ranges offered for specific job.
• To know how you price yourself for job, exorbitantly high or low.

Insights:

• You need to know the salary offered for a job with your skills and experience.
• If you are asking a good hike considering you current pay package then justify what skills and experience you have added after starting your current job.
• Remember that this question does not indicate that you are hired and salary negotiate would start.

Example Answer:

My current salary is $ xxxx per month/per annum. I learnt a couple of technologies and tools like Weblogic application server and business process management suite. I have successfully executed two projects on Java technology using the said tools. Considering this, I think I am worth more and expect around 30 percent raise.

Anti Pattern:

• Do not give a figure; better give a range.
• Do not start negotiating, the job is not yet offered.
• Do not hesitate. State assertively what your worth is.

Interviewer's Interpretation:

• Knowledge of typical salary ranges shows your initiative and good homework.

If some other organization gives you offer right now, will you consider it?

You can be trapped easily with this question, So be aware of the appropriate reply. This is a really tricky question asked in interviews. Do not get confused between yes or no.

Possible Intention:

• To know if you have any offers in hand.
• To judge your skills in planning and decision making.

Insights:

• The question asked has nothing to do with the real offer. It is for judging how you approach a situation where decision making is crucial.
• Do not conclude on the decision. Keep it pending, in an intelligent way, so that you can use it to your advantage later.

 Example Answer:

I have offers from other two organizations which are in the similar domain. I have to carefully many aspects other than just financial consideration. I would like to choose the job based on the basis of how it will you prefer working here if given an opportunity.

Anti Pattern:

• Do not say you will not take offer from competitor. It is logically wrong because you have not yet got offer from the interviewer. Answer would appear fake.
• Do not say "I will take other offer". Then you are directly denying or giving a negative signal for the offer from interviewer.
• Do not think this is real question related to offers. It is just a mind game to trap you.

Interviewer's Interpretation:

• To see of you are desperate enough to accept whatever is given to you.
• To know if you are flexible.
• To check if you can give formal long term commitment for work.

Why did you quit your last job?

Most of the time responding for the reason to quit the job is not easy because of greedy intentions. Such question definitely can be handled if and only if you know the in and out of the question. Let's have a look.

Possible Intention:

• To know the reason for your job switch.
• To know if you are just a mercenary who works for whoever pays more.
• To know your expectation that made you leave the previous job.

Insights:

• Be ready with a convincing answer. The interviewer is trying to judge whether to hire you or not, if you left previous job after a very short stint.
• Have a list of reasons which do not say bad things about your previous employers.
• If you have disagreements with your previous employers, do not wash dirty laundry in public.
• Do not give a flippant reply. It shows that you are not a responsible person and do not take your job serious.

Example Answer:

1. I had to leave in a very short period due to some family problem and continuing my job was not possible. Since I had not completed my probations, getting leave was difficult, when my family needed me the most. But I assured you that nothing of this sort will happen now since the problem has been sorted out.
2. I had a few disagreements with my manager in earlier employment, and as i could not make compromises with my core beliefs, I thought it would be good idea to seek out like-minded people who can foster those beliefs.
3. There was a gap between what I want and to do with my life and what the organization needed, so rather than having disturbances in my personal life as well as work environment, I decided to approach with same vision as mine.

Anti Pattern:

• Do not say you left because you did not like the working environment or the project that you were assigned. It may indicate that you are not adaptable. 

•  Do not say that you did not like working with earlier organisation and hence you left the job. 

•  Do not elaborate and dwell on the problem you might have faced earlier. 

•  Do not portray yourself as a victim.

Interviewer's Interpretation:

• The interviewer may appreciate your honesty and forthrightness so long as you can justify what your core beliefs are.
• The interviewer will understand that you have the courage to take strong decisions, but not out of malice.
• That you are sincere, thoughtful and responsible person who is capable of taking the right decisions. 

When was the last time you lost your temper at work?

Losing temper may reflect your working style. Be cauntious while answering such questions. Such questions may have following intentions.

Possible Intention:

• To know if you get off balanced frequently.
• To know if you can handle a situation calmly. If you cannot keep yourself cool in a certain situation then how you look at it after it is over.
• To know if you use such opportunity to play a blame game and say your anger was due to someone else's mistake.

Insights:

• Make sure that you are not playing a blame game.
• Try to give a safer response which would not hurt anybody.
• You can always blame yourself in a way and elaborate what you learned from incident.
• Good opportunity for you to say you get annoyed and angry on your own performance or way of handling the situation. This shows you strive for continuous performance.
• State the circumstances do not dictate or force emotions. This will demonstrate high Emotional Quotient.(EQ).

Example Answer:

I was reviewing my work on test cases to be sent and before saving the computer had some problem. I got frustrated as the deadline was near. But now I have learned to keep my cool handle such situations.

Anti Pattern:

• Do not blame other people like team mates, managers or clients.
• Make sure that while describing the incident you do not get too much exited and aggressive. You may unknowingly say something which will call for trouble in the later part of interview.
• Do not give a message that whole world is against me and I have to fight and get angry to set things right. It would never be the case that due to your anger you achieved something right.

Interviewer's Interpretation

• If you blame other people it indicates that you are not a good team player.
• If you get angry with yourself but learn something from the incident then it is a good virtue.

With anger and frustration nothing can be accomplished. You need to keep your cool.

What is your opinion about working on weekends ?

Just YES or NO is not sufficient for such question, You always need to support what you say. Such Interview Questions may have following Insights.

Possible Insights:

• To know if you are flexible enough to come on weekends to work if need be.
• To know how is your work style and planning and do you usually overrun schedule.

Insights:

• Response should say that are flexible to come on weekends, holidays; work over time etc. whenever it is critical for the project.
• Make sure that overrunning the schedule is not a usual case for you because you plan better.
• Proactively you can also add what you will do, so that you do not have to face this situation often.

Example Answer:

I will be ready to work on weekends or holidays if it is really critical for the project. However, generally, that is not the working style I would like to adopt. In my opinion, if the initial planning is done with care, such situations would not occur frequently. In my last project, we had similar issues in the schedule, after the first client delivery, we had team meeting to understand the schedule slippage and then corrective action of adding a domain of expert in the team who was missing initially to deal with the problem.

Anti Pattern:

• Do not just say "yes" or "no". Elaborate.
• Never say that in my last project we have worked all weekends and holidays thinking that your hard work impress the interviewer.

Interviewer's Interpretation;

• Just saying yes indicates you are gullible whereas saying no indicates your inflexibility.
• Interviewer would form an opinion that if you have to work all weekends for a longer duration, someting is wrong with you or previous organization you worked with.

If I provoke you to fight with me what will be your reaction ?

Most Students find difficult to answer such questions when asked in interviews because they never experience such conditions. Such questions may have hidden intentions. 

Possible Intention:

• To know if you have a spirit to fight.
• To know you stay firm on your stand or give up easily.
• To know if you can distinguish between aggressiveness and assertiveness.
• To know if you can take a stand and have clarity of thinking about it.

Insights:

• It is a very crucial quality not to give up easily.
• If you are sure that your point of view is legitimate, stand for it. You may have to work little extra to convince.

Example Answer:

If the fight is on legitimate issue, i will fight. This means that I will not give up when I am convinced that my approach is correct. I will try to give more information to prove my point and simultaneously be open to positive views.

Anti pattern:

• Never claim that you are correct all the time and others should change their views.
• Never leave your politeness while answering because this is still acting and not real situation.
• Do not loose temper if any such type of hurting question is asked.
• Do not accept things because interviewer is senior. This shows you are gullible.

Interviewer's Interpretation:

• Gullible or confused candidates are not good because they can land into trouble while dealing with aggressive clients.
• Too much aggressive body language and tone indicate defensive nature.
• Polite, calm and firm response is what interviewer looks for.

What would be your reaction if somebody finds your error?

In the list of interview questions and answers this question is one to the favorite question asked by the HRs.

Possible Intention:

• To know if you are honest and open.
• To know if you take responsibility for what you have done.
• To know if you are ready to accept your mistakes or hist shrug it off.

Insights:

• You need to give confidence to the interviewer that you accept the mistake you did and ready to do whatever to correct it.
• To err is human. Nobody would be upset if you make mistakes. But disowning it is bad.

Example Answer:

If I am genuinely unaware that i have erred, i will apologize and will be ready to do whatever required to fix it. If it involves apologizing to the level of client, obviously, I will feel bad; but I will do it. I would use this incident to improve to myself and ensure that nothing of this sort would happen again.

In my project, it happened that some of the bugs which I put in the defect management software were rejected by developers. After discussion I could find that my interpretation if the requirements stated in the Software Requirements Specification (SRS) had some problem. This gave me an opportunity to sit with the developer and understand the business domain better. These helped me gain a sound understanding of the domain.

Anti Pattern:

• ' This has never happened with me and I would take care that it would not happen with me ever' is crafted answer very difficult to believe to be true.
• Do not just say that you would apologize and fix it. Important point is that you will learn from it.

Interviewer's Interpretation;

• Making an error is human nature and you learn from mistakes. Accepting your mistakes shows you are honest and willing to improve.
• Shows politeness and willing to learn.
• it also shows leader attitude of accepting your own mistakes and being responsible for the consequences rather than passing the buck to process, system or others.