Handling Tough Job Interview Questions – Work in Sports Podcast e082 - a podcast by Brian Clapp - Work in Sports

The standard job interview questions may seem old and tired, but you need to nail them to get the job. We give you a strategy to nail two of the most common, and tricky, job interview questions.

Hi everybody, I’m Brian Clapp Director of Content for WorkinSports.com and this is the Work in Sports podcast…



A few weeks back I had a QA session where I handled how you should answer the interview question “What is your biggest weakness”



It’s one of the cliché questions that comes up in just about every job interview ever… and it’s a tough one to answer. I gave you a strategy to attack that question and many of you really liked that discussion.



How do I know? Because that episode had a lot of downloads…and many of you have asked follow up questions about that subject.



So let’s do this again shall we?



This time the question comes in from Mike in Connecticut:



Hi Brian, Love the podcast I’ve learned so much from listening to you. You guys should really make t-shirts, I would definitely wear one around town. Anyway, my question, there are two questions I’ve really been struggling with during the interview process, and they seem to be common so I want to strengthen my approach.



1: Where do you want to be in five years?



2: Why should we hire you?



Can you help me with a strategy on these questions?



Mike this is good stuff – and yes we are working on some t-shirt designs. The hope is to give them out to people who ask questions, but also to the expert guests we have on the podcast. And me. I get one too.



In the meantime – I will give you a free month to workinsports.com, where as of right now we have 7378 sports jobs, and nearly 500 internships. Looking real quick – here is a marketing coordinator for a major sports network, game operations intern for an NBA team still in the playoffs that may or may not be my hometown team, and director of event services for one of those crazy course challenges through the mud and over fire pits to test your strength type deals. These guys are growing like crazy.



Anyway, back to your question –



The “where do you want to be in 5 years” question is the equivalent of asking someone at a bar what their sign is. It’s lacking any originality or creativity, but, no offense to the HR people in the audience, so are most of the people that conduct interviews.



Alas, it gets asked all the time – so let’s discuss.



What does the hiring manager want to know with this question? Three things really – do you have ambition? Is it realistic? Does this job match up with your long term goals and planning?



Ambition is so important in hiring, but it’s also a bit of a double-edged sword. Ambition means you’ll take on challenges,  you are determined, you’re not adverse to hard work and chance are you are pretty dependable because you understand that all of your efforts now will lead to your big dreams.



On the flip side – ambition can also be a red flag if you have a company without much growth opportunity or something that isn’t aligned with your big goals. So hiring managers are trying to get someone who is ambitious and has plans, but at the same time isn’t going to leave them in the lurch ina few months so they have to start this over again.



Also, they want to know if you are realistic about your goals. Sure it’s great to dream big, but to be starting an entry level sales job and saying in 5 years you want to own the team is a little ridiculous don’t you think? A hiring manager hears this and they think – this person is a little daft, or we’ll never be able to satisfy their wants.



Finally,

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