by Lana Stockton

Created on: January 27, 2010   Last Updated: April 04, 2010

The employer's job is to find the best candidate for the job. Your goal is to be that best candidate. With an all-time high in unemployed persons to choose from, sometimes the best candidate is culled out by surviving a series extremely tough interview questions.

Be prepared. While it's true that you don't know which questions will be asked during the interview, you can be sure they will border on the uncomfortable. If you get a particularly tough interviewer be prepared to pretend you're not sweating it out for the answers. How can you prepare for the unknown?

Preparing for tough questions

Don't fool yourself into thinking your answer is the only thing the interviewer will be waiting for. He will be assessing your composure, the length of time it takes you to formulate an answer and body language changes that take place while mentally calculating your response. The actual answer is only the icing on the cake.

Take a good hard look at your inner self. What kind of person are you? What do you have to offer an employer? Make a list of those qualities. They may include:  conscientious worker, proud of my accomplishments, try my best but sometimes fail, feel annoyed when others are wasting time, loose track of time, find it hard to set down a project until I've finished.

Once you have an honest list, take your qualities one by one and find a way to phrase them in a positive light. Doing this before an interview will be the advance preparation you need.

Some of the hard questions

1. Why do you want to work for this company?

Your answer needs to be positive. Saying, "Because I need the money," might be true, but can you find another true reason that is personal to the employer? Something such as, "Your employees appear so happy. It's important to me that I have a positive environment." You have complemented him on his company and let your need for an upbeat work area be known.

2. What is your best quality?

This one isn't too hard unless you tend to be shy about patting yourself on the back. Your answer should reflect a quality the company is looking for. You could say, "I like being around people." This is a good answer for a customer service job. Or, "I have a good phone voice," which is great for a call center job.

3. What quality do you like least about yourself?

This one is a bit tougher as you have to be careful how you answer. You must find a poor quality that can be viewed as an asset. Or better yet, take a good quality that can be viewed as undesirable at times.  You might say, "I find my best quality and my worst quality are the same. I expect myself to be honest (good quality) but sometimes it works against me."

Other questions you likely will encounter will be: "Where do you expect to see yourself in 5 years?" The answer will need to have something to do with the company and at a higher lever than entry. If you can't answer this question, then you may be viewed as lacking basic ambition, not caring enough to continue to work there or perhaps already planning on not staying very long. To this question, you must be able to relate to a job within their company.

The night before the interview, get a good night's sleep. Arrive well-groomed, refreshed and armed with your honest self-assessment in mind.

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