Interviews

Have you needed to handle sensitive or confidential tasks in the past and were you comfortable performing these tasks?
Describe your level of skill with computer programs like Excel, Word, PowerPoint, Access and Outlook. Describe your skill level with macros, pivot tables and spreadsheets, etc. Are there any additional software programs you have experience with that would be helpful in this position?
What two skills do you think define an effective administrative assistant?
A successful executive assistant seeks to improve processes within the office. What improvements have you attempted to implement in your office work? How did you get them implemented? What were the results?
What is your typing speed? (Note: Employers may put you through a timed typing test).
Tell me about a meeting you recently arranged. How did you coordinate and schedule it?
How do you organize your daily schedule and prioritize your activities?
Are you comfortable using a phone with multiple lines and handling a high volume of telephone calls?
How would you handle a boss who gave you an assignment without complete instructions?
You need to design a t-shirt for 80 employees – what are the first three steps you would take?
Plan an offsite event for 100 outstanding employees. Describe the plan and write the email that would go out.
What professional organizations are you a member of? How can they contribute to your performance in this position?
What is your experience with meeting coordination and calendar management?
Describe a checklist you would use to plan and execute a meeting.
What steps are involved in determining a retention period for records?
What experience do you have establishing a file system?
What experience do you have in proofing documents? (Note: Employers may place a document in front of you and ask you to proofread it).
Describe the different types of business communications you have been responsible for.
Describe a situation where you went out of your way to ensure customer/client satisfaction.
Are you familiar with budgeting?

You have been counselling a couple for three sessions, and you suspect there is domestic violence. How do you proceed?
Tell us about your experience working with people of a different race or sexual orientation from your own.
How do you imagine you would retain objectivity in a situation whereby you are counselling someone who is contemplating abortion?
What strategies do you use to maintain healthy boundaries and ensure you do not experience burn-out/compassion fatigue?
What do you believe are the strengths and weakness of a short, solution-focused therapeutic context? How do you imagine you will need to differ in your approach to meet the short-term approach?
Where do you feel are your greatest strengths in terms of dealing with the issues often presented in therapy?
Some of our clients require home-based counselling due to various physical or economic barriers. How do you feel about making home visits? How do you think you would fare in an environment whereby it is very dirty and cluttered and smells like cigarette smoke?
Think of a client you have either really liked, or really disliked. How did you deal with counter transference issues?
Tell us about how you handle termination of therapy.
What theoretical orientation, or primary mode of therapy do you bring to your work and why?
What factors do you believe go into a psychosocial assessment? Do you have experience with any standardized assessments?
What do you think are some of the biggest challenges you will face on this job?
Often times, you will be expected to counsel up to five or six clients (individuals, couples or families) a day. That is sometimes five to six hours of listening and talking. How do you feel you will handle this? What aspects of your personality are suited to this role?
Tell us about your biggest disappointment as a therapist/social worker/counsellor.
Can you provide an example of how you have managed a crisis, or averted a potential crisis?
Sometimes clients bring up issues or identify needs that fall more into the role of advocacy. How do you see advocacy as fitting into the role of a counsellor?
Tell us about your knowledge of the local community supports/resources.
Under what circumstances do you terminate therapy, even if it is not what the client wishes.
A 15-year-old youth comes to a session reporting they are actively suicidal, currently living in a youth shelter and on probation. How do you proceed?
What factors, issues or occurrences do you feel warrant consulting a supervisor on?

Describe for us a time when you used your leadership skills to resolve a difficult patient situation.
Describe a recent patient interaction which shows your ability to create trust and what steps would you take to develop an effective relationship with your patient.
Tell me about a time when your communication skills played a key role in achieving a successful outcome. What was involved and what part did you play?
Describe a time when you felt frustrated during an interaction with a patient. How did you deal with this emotion both during the interaction and afterwards?
How would you go about ensuring that you improve the quality of the care you give to your patients?
Can you please detail a time when a new and different approach to your patient proved beneficial? What did you do and what was the outcome?
Have you ever been through an emergency situation? What position did you handle during the emergency situation?
What are the key challenges of this field of medicine? What are your challenges?
Do you consider yourself to be social? Can you tell us of a time when you used your social skills to help patients?
How has your medical training prepared you to handle the responsibilities of this position?
Do you consider yourself to be social? Can you tell us of a time when you used your social skills to help the patients?
What medical procedures are you most comfortable performing?
What is your secret to handling ‘difficult’ patients, such as geriatric cases?
Provide an illustration of how your medical input aided in the treatment of a particularly difficult case.
How have you contributed to the growth of your medical group’s practice?
What are the main challenges you face as a practitioner in your specialty?
In terms of management philosophy or style, what would you change about your current situation?
What do you think of our community and its amenities?
What would be some short and long-term goals that you have with this position?
If the organization changes course and your goals must adjust with that, how do you adapt?
How would your previous co-workers and patients describe your skills, demeanor and professionalism?

Why did you decide to specialize in Human Resources (HR)?
Describe what you look for in a boss. Tell us about a time you challenged your boss.
Talk me through your resumé.
What do you feel motivates employees?
Tell us about your proudest moment.
What would you do differently in your career if you could do it all over again?
Recruiting: you have posted a job three times and no viable candidates have applied – what do you do?
Employees in your company show little to no interest in attending training and development sessions – how do you ignite interest and attendance?
If you had to explain a benefits package to a new employee from a different company with little experience with benefits, how would you explain it to them?
How would you deal with the situation of a frustrated employee? What steps do you see being involved in handling this situation?
In the HR field, there are days when it seems that everyone has a problem or question to be addressed. One day your calendar is completely full but an employee comes to you with an issue that needs ‘immediate’ attention. How do you address this?
An integral part of an HR professional’s role is to help employees understand policies and benefits and sometimes act on their behalf. What skills do you possess that will help you do this?
How do you identify what a company’s training needs are?
Tell me about some strategies you would employ when dealing with a staff from a range of different cultural backgrounds.
How would you prepare for a meeting with an employee that required discussing disciplinary citations?
What are four questions that you are not permitted to ask of an interviewee in an employment interview?
What process would you go through in setting the salary for a new position in your company?
Describe some of the trends in the area of occupational health and safety.
How would you address a situation where you are expected to fire someone on behalf of a manager?

How do you think you would cope with handling sensitive and confidential information?
What is your definition of effective international development?
What motivates you to work in international development in Canada or overseas?
How has your graduate school program qualified you for this position in international development in Canada (or overseas as appropriate)?
Describe your experience managing project budgets and supervising staff on an overseas project. What problems did you encounter/how did you handle them?
What experience do you have writing proposals for fundraising?
What experience do you have with obtaining funding from funding agencies? What experience do you have reporting on the progress of a project to these agencies? What experience do you have with other major donor organizations such as the U.N., World Bank, CARE, etc.?
Describe in detail an international development project that you designed, implemented, evaluated, and completed. How did you define and measure success in this project?
Describe your experience in international development in an urban or rural environment.
How has your professional development experience thus far influenced your views of international development?
How have you adapted your approaches to different cultures and people?
Describe your experience working in international development with diverse people in the same country (i.e. indigenous, tribal, or ethnic minorities as appropriate).
What have you done to improve or increase community support for your work?
How have you collaborated with others (community agency representatives from local NGOs, host government department officials, school leaders, CIDA or foreign development organization officials, or staff from other institutions or programs) to strengthen or sustain your efforts in the field?
Based on your past experience and coursework, how would you set up a program in your major area of interest now?
What if anything, does current research or literature say about international development projects like the one(s) you’ve implemented?
What was the most radical idea you ever introduced to an employer, and what was the result?
What kinds of policies and procedures have you created and to whom did you take them for approval?
Describe a time when you went beyond the “call of duty” to accomplish a task.
Give some examples of when your ideas were strongly opposed in a discussion. How did you react?

Where did the Dow close yesterday?
Tell me a stock you like and why?
What caused the most recent financial crisis? Describe a current event in the market.
What is the difference between an investor and a shareholder?
What is included in a pitch book?
Walk through a DCF analysis
If I had 100k, how would you advise me to invest it?
Provide your best example of a time when you used your business relationships or network to obtain something you wanted.
What do you see happening next with the economy?
Which of the four financial accounting statements would give you the best idea of whether or not a borrower is going to be able to continue making debt payments? (Interviewer presents you with four statements to review).
Can you detail your financial modelling experience?
Say you are at a meeting with a client and your managing director is giving a presentation. You suddenly notice a mistake in some of the calculations, which you have done for the presentation. Do you tell him? When? What do you say?
Why would two companies merge? What major factors drive mergers and acquisitions?
What is an LBO (leveraged buyout)? Why leverage up a firm?
Why might a company choose to issue debt vs. equity?
What could a company do with excess cash on the balance sheet?
What major factors affect the yield on a corporate bond?
How would you evaluate the creditworthiness of a light bulb manufacturer with three factories in Canada?
Suppose you are buying a new fixed asset – part cash and part debt. Take me through how it affects all the financial statements.
What did our firm’s stock close at yesterday?
Where is the market going? What do you think interest rates will be in the next 12 months?
Do you follow a particular industry or a stock? Which ones?
Walk me through the major line items of a Cash Flow Statement.
Say you knew a company’s net income. How would you figure out its cash flows?
What is the difference between a balance sheet and an income statement?
What is the difference between purchases vs. pooling?
What are deferred taxes? How do they arise?
What is working capital?
If a company has a consistent negative earning record and wanted to raise capital and could only do so by issuing debt, what type of debt should they issue? Why?

What is your management philosophy? You observe a fellow member of management stealing small items from the company. How do you handle this situation?
Describe three components of your philosophy of management that demonstrate what you value and add, as an individual, to an organization’s culture and work environment.
Obviously as a manager, you must interact successfully with people, clients, upper management, subordinates, etc. in order to make a positive impact. Can you sketch out two or three key strengths you feel you have in dealing with people?
Tell me about a time when you reorganized a department or significantly changed employee work assignments. How did you approach the task? How did the affected employees respond to your actions?
Based upon your experience, what actions have you found most effective in building staff relationships? What hasn't worked and why?
How can a supervisor establish effective communication with staff?
Would you want your subordinates to like you or respect you as a manager?
It is sometimes desirable to lead other people by setting a positive example. Describe a work situation when your example served as a model for others.
How do you motivate employees? How do you reward them?
Some managers supervise their employees closely, while others use a loose rein. How do you prefer to manage?
Describe how you might go about motivating a group of employees to do something that they don't want to do.
What, in your opinion, are the key tools in building and maintaining successful business relationships? Give me examples of how you have made these tools work for you.
As a manager, how would you go about identifying the training and development needs of your employees?
Let's say that you have assigned work to one of your subordinates, and it was not done as you had expected it to be. How would you handle such a situation?
How might you go about getting cooperation of other employees that do not report to you?
What do you expect of those who report to you?
Providing feedback to subordinates is a key managerial responsibility. If you have had an opportunity to do this, how did you go about it? If you haven't had an opportunity to provide feedback to workers, what ideas do you have for providing this information to subordinates?
Give me an example from your past work experiences about a time when you had an underperforming employee reporting to you. How did you address the situation? Did the employee’s performance improve? If not, what did you do next?

Tell us about a marketing survey you developed. What did you learn from it?
What ideas or strategies would you suggest for rebranding our product?
What is the worst business or career decision you made and what did you learn from it?
Tell us what you know about our product.
Where do you see this industry/field/product going in two and five years’ time?
What four utilities should marketing provide?
Which marketing tools and techniques have you used?
You are coordinating a large product-launch event and expect 1,000 people to attend. Walk us through your critical path planning.
What kind of experience do you have with direct and online marketing?
Tell us about a time you led a team and didn’t get the results you were expecting. What did you do?
How would you tailor your marketing strategies to engage the following age demographic?
- Youthful
- Middle-aged
Explain to us your experience with interactive marketing.
What do you feel are some of the biggest mistakes marketing professionals make today?
What do you feel will be some of the largest challenges in marketing this product/service?
You are handed some market research to review, from which you need to develop your marketing plan. You really wonder if the market research was flawed and don’t believe it is accurately reflecting trends right now. What do you do?
What experience do you have with international marketing?
Do you have any online application or social media experience?
What marketing driven company do you admire?
Please critique our website.
Your sales team indicates a concern that the marketing/branding of the service/product is out of sync with what customers are saying on a day to day basis. How do you handle it?
Tell us about a marketing project in which you had to coordinate and manage a diverse team of people to achieve deliverables.
Give us an example of how you have effectively managed a tight budget to accomplish a marketing activity.
Can you give us an example of a marketing initiative you undertook that did not work out as planned?

Describe a challenging problem you faced on a clinical rotation. How did you solve the problem?
What is your most memorable experience working with a patient?
In what area of occupational therapy (OT) would you like to specialize?
What would you do if a patient came in three days in a row, saw three different OT’s and came to you complaining that nothing was working?
How have changes in health care in recent years, affected the field of OT?
As an OT, you will occasionally have to deal with uncooperative patients. Tell me about a time when you had to deal with an uncooperative and maybe even combative patient. How did you handle it?
Tell us about your experience with having to coordinate the integration of case management functions including patient care, discharge, and home planning processes with other hospital departments; external service organizations; agencies and health care facilities.
Please tell us about your philosophy and definition of advocacy.
How do you ensure you maintain boundaries as an OT?
Briefly provide us an example as a case manager where you conducted a review for appropriate utilization of services from admission through discharge. How did you evaluate patient satisfaction and quality of care provided?
As an OT case manager, describe the most challenging experience you have had with having to introduce yourself and explaining your role to a patient and their family. Why was the introduction challenging and how did you build a positive relationship and communication channel going forward?
When do you make a decision as an OT to refer patients to counselling/social work in order to complete their complex discharge plan?
Working in a group, describe your role when you had to collaborate with clinical staff in the development and execution of the plan of care, and achievement of goals? What was the size of the team? Did you face any challenges either in your role or working with difficult team member?
Please tell us about your experience investigating and reporting adverse occurrences.
An OT must always be organized, since patient care is vital. What tools or processes have you created (aside from standardized ones) for assessing patient care needs?
As a member of an interdisciplinary team, you will establish personalized care plans. We don’t always get along with everyone we work with. Tell me about someone who you worked with or for, whereby you held differing views on a patients care plan. How did you handle this situation?
List three traits you feel are required to be a successful OT. (After you answer). Now which of these three do you feel is your greatest weakness?
Where do you draw the line between OT and physical therapy?

How did you become interested in physical therapy as a career?
How would you deal with a patient who is not doing their exercises?
How would you handle a situation if you disliked the patient? Do you think patients receive quality care regardless of the physical therapist's feelings?
What do you think is the biggest issue in physical therapy?
Describe a challenging problem you faced on one of your clinical rotations. How did you solve the problem?
What do you know about our hospital/organization? About our community?
Tell me about a time when you had to handle an irate physician, co-worker or patient. How did you handle the situation and what was the result?
What is your most memorable experience working with a patient?
Describe your work or volunteer experience in physical therapy.
Where do you see yourself in five years? Do you plan on specializing? In what area?
What would you do if a patient came in 3 days in a row, saw three different therapists, and then came to you complaining how nothing they did was working?
Do you have patience, tell me about a situation where you showed a great deal of patience?
Being a Physical Therapist allows you to see progress in your patients, how does this motivate you? Why?
In your opinion, what kind of a profession is Physical Therapy?
As a physical therapist in my hospital (care home, etc.), you will be working as a member of the care team. As such, teamwork is important to us and essential to success. Tell me about a health care professional or someone you have worked with that you didn’t get along with. What made it so difficult? How did you handle this?
As a physiotherapist, you will have to work with patients from all walks of life. Tell me about situation when you have had to consider the patient’s culture in their therapy. What were the considerations, what was your recommendation and why?
Give me an example of when a member of the health team disagreed with your plan for the patient. How did you handle this?
How would you typically treat a patient with low back pain?
How would you handle a patient with a diagnosis that you were unfamiliar with?
Not all patients cooperate when you are working with them. Describe a situation where you had to work with an uncooperative or even combative patient. What did you do?

Can you sell a product you don’t necessarily believe in?
What steps or strategies would you take to handle a prospective client’s resistance to purchasing?
How do you close deals?
How do you handle a client who is displaying remorse over buying the product/service you have sold them?
Talk about the most difficult sale you had to make. What did you learn from it?
Are there any sales that you have lost? Why?
You have a sales goal of $500,000. You have two weeks left to reach your goal and you are $100,000 short. What is your plan to hit your number?
Provide an example of how you gathered information on a customer and their needs in a sales meeting.
Suppose you go onto a job site and the customer is using a competitive product. How do you convince them to use your product?
The marketing department has some materials that you feel do not adequately speak to customer needs. How do you convince them that their strategy is out of line with customer opinions/attitudes/needs?
Interviewer hands you a pen and asks, “Please sell this pen to me.”
What personal qualities do you feel you possess that lend well to a career in sales?
Tell us what you know about our main competitors’ services/products.
Give us a specific example of where you demonstrated up-selling, or cross-selling on a sales call.
Describe how you would prospect for sales in this industry.
Tell us about a time you really had to persuade someone.
How have you handled getting past the gatekeeper when cold-calling?
Are you excited by not knowing what sales calls you will have to make that day, or do you prefer a routine and expectation of what you’re going to do every day?
Make us a three-minute sales pitch as to why you are the best candidate for the job.
What is your psychology of selling?
If you were a copy machine sales person, and knew that a new product was coming out in a few days, yet your manager has told you that the company has important sales numbers to meet on the old product, how would you handle a situation in which a very trusted and loyal customer wishes to place a large order of copiers with you, just before news of the product release has gone public?

Which of the following do you think you do best: negotiation, planning, or data management?
What strategies would you utilize to go about ordering optimal inventory levels?
Some raw materials are becoming short on supply forcing a production line to shut down. How do you handle the situation?
Describe your negotiation style.
Tell us what you know about the just-in-time (JIT) principles. What do you think are some of the biggest risks associated with this principle in this industry?
What are some cost-saving strategies you have implemented in your previous positions? How would you propose to save costs in this job?
Related to the position you are applying for; please provide a specific supply chain related accomplishment.
What do you foresee as the most complicated logistics associated with this position?
Give us proof of your detail orientation and problem-solving skills.
What do you feel is a critical trait that separates good supply chain managers from exceptional ones?
Your assembly line has been shut down and the supplier says they will not be able to supply for two weeks. How do you persuade the supplier to improve that date?
Since a majority of our suppliers are global, tell us how you will navigate the language and cultural barriers.
What do you imagine might be some ethical issues faced in this job?
A supplier has delivered a product that does not meet your specifications. How do you handle it?
The sales department wants to make a product obsolete that the marketing department said would be sold for one more year. The inventory write-off would be about $800,000. How do you convince vendors to take some of the inventory back?
Material costs for your product are drastically rising and as a result, you feel the retail price will have to be raised. The sales and marketing department feel by raising the price, it affects the products brand category. How do you convince your colleagues of the necessity of a price increase?
You are interviewing a supplier to determine the business fit between your company and theirs. What kinds of questions do you ask of that supplier?
What are the pros and cons of a centralized purchasing function?
What are some of the ways materials may be purchased?
Describe the procurement process.
What do you feel would be some key performance indicators?
Define “supply chain.”
What are the characteristics of an effective request for proposal (RFP)?

What was your hardest class experience?
Why are you passionate about teaching?
How would you accommodate students with different learning styles?
How do you feel you might respond in situations where your values conflict with the policies and values of the school administration? Have you ever been in this, or a similar situation? How did you or would you resolve it?
How will you address your principal when you are in disagreement about an important situation?
What do you fear the most about teaching?
How would you handle a situation where a student comes in complaining about another student being rude at recess?
What is your philosophy of teaching?
What will you do if it is clear that one or two students do not understand a particular topic and the rest of the class is ready to move on to something more advanced?
How do you feel you can reach children that have continued to be underperforming?
How do you communicate with parents who are unwilling participants in their child's education?
What would you do with a student who is having trouble or test anxiety?
What do you think are the factors contributing to the educational achievement gap?
What classroom management strategies do you bring to a group of students that are currently considered out of control?
Describe a balanced literacy program in your classroom.
What makes for an excellent mathematics (etc.) program?
How do you accommodate diversity in your program?
If I were to walk into your classroom, how would I know that you valued equity?
How do you motivate students to become active learners in your classroom?
Tell me about an experience, in or out of the classroom, which has prepared you for teaching.
In your unit planning, describe your unit assessment and evaluation strategies.
What do you see as your role as a staff member?
How do you plan for the first day of school?
What advice would you give to a new teacher about classroom management?
Describe some of your experiences when collaborating with other staff members. How have you demonstrated collaboration?
Under what circumstances would you refer a student to the office?
How would you deal with parents who are accusing you of picking on their child?
If a large percentage of your students failed a test or assignment, how would you respond?
How do you prepare report cards?
If you are called in as an occasional teacher and find that there is no lesson plan for you to follow, what would you do?

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Interview Questions by Field

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Interviews

Interview Questions by Field

General Questions

Academic

Accounting

Administrative Assistant

Advertising

Archivist

Archaeologist

Call Centre

Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA)

Counselling/Therapist

Event Planner

Geographic Information Systems (GIS)

Grad Rotational Programs

Health Care

Hospitality

Human Resources

Information Technology

International Development

Insurance Underwriter

Investment Banking/Finance/Economics

Journalism

Laboratory Technician

Lawyer

Management

Marketing

Market Research

Occupational Therapy

Operations

Personal Trainer / Exercise Science

Physiotherapy

Policy (Analyst, Advisor, Associate)

Public Relations

Research

Sales

Social Work

Sport Management

Supply Chain

Teaching

Technical Writer

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