You applied for your dream job, and you now have your first interview. What will you present yourself to impress the recruiters with your skills and experience, and what questions will they ask?

With the launch of ChatGPT and a bunch of internet resources, you can easily search the most common and frequently asked questions during the interview. 

So how to impress the recruiters with those everybody-already-knows questions? Let us give you some tips!

The easiest-but-most-tricky question: Could you tell me about yourself?

Why do they ask this question while they already read your information on your resume? Simply, they would like to know more about you - things that you don't mention in your resume. 

Here is the formula for this question: describe your current situation, your past job experience, the reason you're a good fit for the role, and how you align with the company values.

Be yourself! This first question is very important as it gives the interviewers the first impression about you and distinguishes you with other candidates.

It's also more impressive if you can also add more interesting facts related to your hobbies and interests.

What do you know about our company?

Make sure you do some research before applying and again prior to the interview. If you have thought about your job search and have specific reasons for applying, then you’re more likely to really like their job.

How to do research: surf the company's website, social media channels, news, etc to find out some specific facts like business model, what is their service, their target audiences, values and culture.

After answering, you can even ask them questions specific to their business like "Can you tell me more about how you live your values?”. This turns the interview into more of a back-and-forth conversation which will help the hiring manager see you as a colleague – and someone they should hire.

Do you have any questions for me?

Stay away from "yes" or "no" questions, as well as queries that you could answer with a quick online search. 

Here are questions you can ask:

• Can you share more about the day-to-day responsibilities of this role? How would you describe the pace of a typical day?
• If I were hired for this role, what would you want me to achieve in my first two months?
• What mechanisms are in place for performance reviews and when would I receive my first formal evaluation?
• In your opinion, what is the single most important indicator of success in this role?

Here's what to do when you don't know the answers  

The tip here is don’t rush into the answer. Be calm and take some minutes to consider the question and if you need to, ask for clarification. Make sure your answer has real meaning and be honest.  

“I’m not very familiar with that concept, but…”

“That’s an interesting question. So that I understand exactly what you’re looking for, do you mind unpacking the question a little more?”

If you do leave the interview thinking, “Oh no I really did badly”. Think back across the entire interview, it’s most likely most of the interview was conducted well. Learn from any errors or confusion that may have occurred so that you can address this next time.

And if it was your absolute dream job, and you feel quite badly about how you did in the interview, you might find a short email to the HR contact or recruitment agency acknowledging the feedback or oversight might just get the cut through you need.

Good luck!