As of: March 7, 2024, 12:00 p.m
By: Marco Blanco Ucles
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During job interviews, HR managers can pester employees with unpleasant questions.
It is important not to let this unsettle you.
If you receive an invitation to an interview after your application - whether virtual or in person - you have already overcome the first hurdle and are among the favorites.
So far so good.
However, such a conversation should not be underestimated.
HR managers often don't just want to hear the usual run-of-the-mill phrases from you, but also want to check your interests and quick-wittedness with clever trick questions.
Finding the right answers is often not that easy; you have to keep a few points in mind.
Job interview: answer questions briefly and honestly
You can be asked a lot of unpleasant questions during an interview - quick wit is required.
(Symbolic image) © Westend61/IMAGO
If a question comes to you that you didn't necessarily expect, you have to stay calm.
Think for a moment and then answer honestly and briefly.
“The further you go into your explanations, the greater the chance that you will babble or digress,”
explainskarrierebibel.de
.
Below you can prepare yourself for seven typical trick questions that HR managers like to ask.
1. How are you today?
What at first sounds like the standard question can actually give the HR manager some information about you.
An answer that is too brief can make you come across as arrogant and also creates an uncomfortable silence.
However, the job portal
Indeed.com,
which recently caused a stir with a survey on equality between women and men, also warns against telling the other person, for example, about a sleepless night due to excitement and instead recommends: “In view of the important You are of course welcome to admit that you are a bit nervous during the interview.
That breaks the ice and seems likeable.”
2. Do you plan to start your own business one day?
Of course, employers want to know whether they can plan for you in the long term or whether you might want to switch to self-employment in the foreseeable future.
This question may be uncomfortable for you.
You have to manage the balancing act so that it doesn't give the impression that you are planning to jump off in a timely manner.
At the same time, you don't want your counterpart to think that you no longer have any professional goals or dreams.
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3. What is your marital status?
When it comes to female applicants in particular, companies often want to know what their current marital status is.
Of course, the company wants to know whether the applicant could become pregnant in the near future and therefore be out for a long period of time.
But men are also affected by this question.
The good thing: you don't have to answer it.
These types of questions are inadmissible and may not be asked at all, but that doesn't stop many HR managers from doing it anyway.
“The question about marital status is generally inadmissible.
Such questions can therefore also be answered incorrectly,” explains the
Hasselbach law firm
.
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4. What bothered you most about your previous bosses?
Speaking negatively about previous employers is a no-go in a job interview - this also applies to individual people from your past.
Therefore ,
Indeed.de
recommends : “Either explain that your job change had no personal reasons whatsoever or you turn the question around and explain which characteristics of managers you particularly value.” Under no circumstances do you fall into the gossip trap.
5. How do you know you've done a good job?
With this question, the HR manager will check your personal characteristics.
If you base your successes on yourself and your own criteria, you are considered an intrinsic person.
On the other hand, you come across as extrinsic if you measure the quality of your results based on the assessments of colleagues, customers and superiors,
explainskarrierebibel.de
6. What would you do if you won the lottery tomorrow?
With this trick question, HR managers want to find out your reasons for the position.
The key question that the company wants your answer to clarify is: Are you only working for the company for financial reasons or are you actually interested in the position?
7. What is your biggest concern about this job?
The company can kill two birds with one stone with this question.
On the one hand, it shows how intensively you have dealt with the company and your potential job in advance.
But that's not all, explainskarrierebibel.de
:
“It shows what challenges the applicant expects and how he intends to deal with them.
Of course, you also find out how open the applicant actually is.”