How to Answer Common Interview Questions [With Free Download]

“I LOVE interviewing!” said no one ever, right?

Normally I’d agree with you, but I recently went through a job search process and for the first time in my life, actually looked forward to “proving my stuff” in interviews.

I know, I sound crazy. I haven’t always loved the interviewing process. I used to get sweaty palms and an upset stomach every time I had a phone interview or met with a hiring manager.

So, what changed? Well, obviously, as my career went on I had more material to pull from to prove my performance, but that’s not all.

I realized that half of my stress came from trying to answer those nerve-racking “tell me a time when” questions!

“Tell me a time when you handled negative feedback.” Oh man, okay, how do I spin this? I can’t say I texted my BFF for ten minutes about how much I disliked my co-worker, right?

“Tell me a time you dealt with conflict” Hmm, should I share that time or that time … or that time?

“Tell me a time when you navigated ambiguity.” Haha, welcome to my life, mister. No, I mean…

The thing is, these are common interview questions for a reason. They help an interviewer get a sense for how you think on your feet and a glimpse into your behavior and work style. They’re not going away any time soon.

So, I thought why not have “canned” answers for these questions that I could rehearse and have “at-the-ready?” What if I could just nail down my best example for each of those questions, write it out, and then use that example every time I got that question?

Which is exactly what I did.

I created a spreadsheet with some of the most common interview questions I was frequently getting and my top answers. (Which, by the way, you can get this template for yourself here! Just scroll to the form at the bottom of the post.)

 
I no longer had to spend hours of prep time before each phone or in-person interview, racking my brain or re-writing answers. Instead, I could focus on researching the company, getting really good at my elevator pitch and coming up with thoughtful questions to ask them.

The beauty of having this type of “personal cheat sheet” was that I became super confident, well-spoken, calm and under control for any question they threw at me. I knew I was choosing the absolute best examples to showcase my skills and abilities because I had vetted them beforehand and put them into my spreadsheet.

It was awesome. And it landed me the job.

Want to give it a try for your next interview? Just download the free template and fill in the blanks. Let us know if you like it!

Download the Common Interview Questions template by filling out your email address in the form below.

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