The job interview questions and answers below come from what university career offices tell their own students to prepare. MIT’s career office says the first prompt you are likely to receive is “Tell me about yourself.” Its sample question list goes on to your strengths and weaknesses, why you want to work for the company, how you handled past situations, and whether you have questions of your own.
From the employer’s side, MIT says, an interview is meant to determine “a candidate’s knowledge and skills, fit for the role, and genuine interest in the position and company.” This guide is about job interviews for students and recent graduates. College admissions interviews and medical school interviews have their own question lists, as do MBA, law and graduate school interviews.
Job Interview Questions and Answers at a Glance
Each common question has a purpose, and the purpose sets the shape of the answer.
| Question | What it checks, per the career office | Shape of a good answer (our summary) |
|---|---|---|
| Tell me about yourself | MIT: whether you fit the company and the role | A short summary aimed at this job, not a life story |
| What are your strengths and weaknesses? | Yale: your self-awareness and where you can improve | A proven strength with an example; a real weakness and what you are doing about it |
| Why do you want to work here? | MIT: your genuine interest in the company | Specifics from your research, tied to what you would bring |
| Tell me about a time when... | MIT: your past behavior, as a predictor of future results | One true story, told in STAR order |
| Do you have any questions for us? | Yale: having none signals disinterest | Questions the company's website does not already answer |
How to Answer "Tell Me About Yourself"
MIT’s career office says not to walk the employer through your history “detail-by-detail.” The answer is a chance “to introduce your current relevant experience, skills and strengths you have developed over time, and reasons for applying to the role.” Augustana College’s career office puts it more bluntly: “do not go into your life story.”
Career offices do not agree on length:
- Purdue’s career office suggests covering your background and relevant experience in 30 to 40 seconds.
- Regis College’s interview sheet says one to two minutes, spoken.
- Towson University’s career center compares the answer to a 30-second commercial or “elevator pitch.”
Whichever length you aim for, time it out loud. The content stays the same: who you are now, what you have done that fits this job, and why you applied. A sample, written by us for this guide, for an entry-level analyst role:
“I’m finishing a degree in economics, and the part I’ve enjoyed most is working with real data. Last summer I interned on a nonprofit’s communications team. I tracked which emails led donors to respond and built a simple dashboard the team still uses. That’s why this analyst role caught my attention: it’s the same kind of work, at a larger scale.”
How to Answer "What Are Your Strengths and Weaknesses?"
Yale’s Office of Career Strategy says that with these questions, “employers assess your level of self-awareness and your honest assessment about where you can improve.” It recommends preparing two or three answers with examples, because “most interviewers are rarely satisfied with only one strength or weakness.”
For a strength, Yale wants an answer that is “specific about what you accomplished and how you did it.” MIT says to choose strengths “directly related to the role.”
The Weakness Answer
On two points, Yale and MIT agree. First, do not name a weakness the job depends on; Yale’s example is calling learning technology your weakness when the position requires Excel. Second, say what you are doing about it: MIT asks you to “discuss how you have (or are continuing to) overcome and address it.”
The career offices split over a weakness that sounds like a strength. Augustana’s office lists three ways to answer and calls one of them “your best move”: design the answer “so that your weakness is ultimately a positive.” Towson’s career center warns: “Avoid naming a weakness that could be seen as a strength.” Its examples are perfectionist and workaholic, and Yale says perfectionism as a weakness “can be seen as disingenuous.”
Our reading is that both can hold. The weakness itself should be real, as Towson and Yale ask, and the positive part is what you have done about it. A sample, written by us for this guide:
“I used to say yes to every request. In my sophomore year that left me with three club roles and a class project I turned in late. Now I check my calendar before I commit, and I give people a date I can actually meet. Last semester I turned down one role and handed in everything on time.”
How to Answer "Why Do You Want to Work Here?"
MIT’s list introduces its company questions as a chance for the hiring manager to get “a sense of your genuine interest in their company or organization.” Augustana’s career office calls this question “one of the most important ones that interviewers ask.” Yale’s advice is to “Be specific and avoid vacuous answers,” such as saying you are impressed by the organization’s reputation.
Yale also sets the direction of the answer: “Your answer should focus on what you will bring them, not what they can do for you.” That takes research. Purdue’s career office suggests noting the company’s “mission, values, culture, services, products, clients” from its website and catching up on its recent news.
A sample, written by us for this guide:
“Two things stood out when I read about your team. Your reports are written for readers outside the field, and that is the writing I did for two years on my campus newspaper. The role also starts with a rotation through three departments, which suits me. I want to learn how the whole process works before I specialize.”
How to Answer Behavioral Questions With the STAR Method
Yale’s career office says “Most interviews are behavioral interviews.” These ask for “examples of your past accomplishments as an indication of your future success.” Purdue’s Center for Career Opportunities says prompts that begin “Give me an example when” or “Tell me about a time when” are “the most common ways to start behavioral interview questions.”
MIT, Yale and Purdue teach the same structure for answering them: STAR, for Situation, Task, Action and Result. MIT’s STAR guide suggests how much of the answer each part should take:
- Situation, about 20%: enough context to follow the story. Your interviewer, MIT says, does not “need to know every detail.”
- Task, about 10%: what you were responsible for, or the goal.
- Action, about 60%: the steps you personally took.
- Result, about 10%: the outcome, with numbers where you have them.
MIT calls the percentages a guide and puts the weight on the Action step. Yale adds: “If possible, quantify your answers.” Purdue ends its Result step with a question: “What did you learn?”
Not every career office uses those four letters. Regis College’s sheet builds behavioral answers from three parts: an overview of the situation, the obstacles or challenges, and the end result. Both structures ask for one specific story, your part in it, and how it ended.
MIT adds two cautions. Say “I,” because “using “we” statements can make it difficult for an employer to have a clear understanding of what your skills are.” And keep the story true, since an answer that is not truthful “may not match up with your application materials” such as your resume.
Prepare Stories, Not Scripts
MIT suggests preparing three to five stories in advance. One story can serve several questions: MIT notes that its own sample leadership answer could also fit questions on communication, work ethic and time management. It warns against memorizing a script, which “can seem unnatural or disingenuous to an interviewer.”
A sample, written by us for this guide, for “Tell me about a time you worked on a team that was falling behind”:
Situation: In my junior year, my group of four had three weeks left on a market-research project, and half of our survey data was still missing.
Task: I had volunteered to run the schedule, so getting us back on track was my job.
Action: I split the remaining surveys by person and set up a shared tracker so everyone could see what was left. I scheduled two 15-minute check-ins a week. When one teammate fell behind, I asked what was blocking him, then took over the data cleaning so he could keep collecting.
Result: We submitted on time with every survey in. I still set check-ins at the start of every group project.
When the Question Is "What Would You Do?"
Some employers, Towson’s career center notes, “will present you with specific scenarios and ask you to describe how you would address them.” The U.S. Office of Personnel Management, in its guidance on structured interviews, calls these situational questions. They ask applicants “to describe what they would do or how they would behave in a situation similar to those encountered on the job.” Behavioral questions rest instead on what OPM calls “the behavioral consistency principle that past behavior is the best predictor of future behavior.”
Our suggestion: answer a situational question with the same four parts: the situation as you understand it, your goal, the steps you would take, and the result you would aim for.
Questions to Ask the Interviewer
Near the end, Yale says, “it’s common for the interviewer to ask if you have questions for them.” Yale calls “no” the worst answer you can give, because “Not having questions for them signals disinterest.”
Career offices differ on how many to bring. MIT’s interviewer-questions page says “You are expected to have several questions to ask your interviewer(s).” Regis College’s sheet says to prepare two, one about the job and one about the organization. Yale says to prepare “at least a few.”
Three questions taken from the career offices’ own lists:
- “How will you know you’ve hired the right person in 3 (or 6) months’ time?” (Regis College)
- “What skills do you see as most important in order to be successful in this position?” (MIT)
- “Is there a typical career path for people beginning in this role?” (Yale)
Yale rules out two kinds of questions: anything you could answer from the organization’s website, and questions on salary, benefits and schedule flexibility. Asking about those before an employer has chosen you, Yale says, “can be seen as presumptuous.” In Yale’s words, “In most cases, the time to negotiate is when you have an offer.” Negotiating that offer is a later step.
After the Interview
MIT’s career office says to email your interviewers “within 24 hours to thank them for their time and reiterate your interest and excitement for the role.” If you met several people, it suggests writing to each one separately. It also suggests a few notes for yourself on what went well and what could go better, to help you prepare for the next one.
Where ExceptionalGrad Fits
ExceptionalGrad’s Internship and Job Interview Preparation service works from the same idea as this guide. The page describes ideal preparation as “practicing the most common and difficult interview questions, and then developing strategies that are applicable to any other question.” The page says advisors help develop those strategies while “ensuring that the most common questions and appropriate answers are practiced thoroughly prior to interview day.” The answers stay yours: we help you shape and practice them, and we do not script them.
The preparation comes down to a short list: an answer to each question in the table, practiced out loud, and three to five true stories in STAR form. If you want an advisor to practice them with you before interview day, get a free consultation.
Frequently Asked Questions
What are the most common interview questions?
Questions about you, the company, your education and experience, your career plans and your past behavior, which is how MIT’s career office sorts most of its sample list. Its closing questions add two worth preparing in advance: “Why should I hire you?” and “Is there anything else I should know about you?”
How do you answer "What is your weakness"?
Name one weakness the job does not depend on, Yale’s and MIT’s rule, and say how you manage it, as Regis College’s sheet asks. Purdue says to mention how you are improving “so that they will not be liabilities on the job.” Augustana warns “a careless answer can virtually end your consideration as a candidate.”
How do you answer "Tell me about yourself"?
Give a job-focused summary: your current studies or work, one or two experiences that match the role, and why you applied. The career offices quoted here range from 30 seconds to two minutes. If you are unsure what to stress, Augustana College suggests asking: “What area of my background would be most relevant to you?”
What should you ask at the end of an interview?
Ask two or more questions the website does not answer: about the work, how success is measured and what happens next. MIT’s list includes “Could you describe the hiring process?” Yale’s list includes “Can you tell me about your performance review process?” Yale also says to leave out salary and benefits.