It is said that forewarned is forearmed, and a compilation of tricky interview questions along with the best answers is indeed a boon to wary candidates, recruiters sometimes love to grill candidates and their interviewee find themselves on the receiving end, fumbling for an answer.
The Best Possible Light
It helps to know beforehand what employers are really up to, what they are really asking, and accordingly pickup the various tactics, that would eventually show the candidate in the best possible light.
Catch You Off Guard
In order to catch you off guard, a question like this might be put across, tell us about your greatest weakness. Well this question is probing you about your shortcomings, now going by your instinct, when you happen to be in an interview like situation, or a real interview situation, you are going to be doing a really great job in concealing your flaws to the best of your ability.
Positive Spin
Approach the whole situation pragmatically, the best thing to do is to frame your answer in a manner that has a positive spin to it. It is quite possible that strengths and weaknesses happen to be the two sides of the same coin.
Play the Potential Downside
This question can possibly be answered by playing the potential downside of what is perhaps your greatest strength. Say for example you happen to be a natural team worker. You still find it difficult to cope with the many conflicts that arise, at the same time you find it difficult to assume the all important leadership abilities and how do you go about handling the same.
What Motivates You
Another likely question is what motivates you. The interviewer wants to find out about your motivation, primarily she or he is interested in knowing, what is it that you enjoy doing and what is it that you do really well. In order to best answer this, you would need to draw examples from your previous work experiences, extracurricular activities or even your studies, which should present you in a positive light as a candidate who is strongly motivated by the job in question to which he or she is applying.
Tactics and Strategies
Next likely question is how are you able to prioritise your tasks and manage your time effectively. Well the answer to this should not be just one instance where you were able to accomplish this successfully. What your interviewer wants to really find out is the tactics and strategies you employ in order to get yourself organized.
Time Management Techniques
Be ready to describe the approach you are employing to prioritise and list your tasks. Familiarize yourself with the time management techniques that you would be employing and the way you would put across in the interview.
Lateral Thinking
They might be interested in knowing about your lateral thinking skills along with some credible examples. Essentially speaking, lateral thinking is the ability of a person wherein he or she uses it to look at a problem with a fresh perspective, and come up with a completely new solution.
Highly Prized
Employees with such a capability are quite highly prized by companies, without them corporations are unable to innovate or come up with creative ideas, novel and fresh products. Needless to say, their presence impacts the top line and the bottom line in a big way, otherwise the organization is bereft of their new spin.
Final Words
In order to satisfactorily answer this question, you need to think about those times when you were faced with problems in real life, which seemed to be insurmountable, but you somehow devised ways and means and were able to manage and overcome them. It was quite possible that your solutions involved a creative approach with an element of originality, this is exactly what the employers really want to find out, and you crossed the threshold successfully by now.