Tips On Interviewing For A Web Design Company

By Joel Black on 11/15/2013

I recently participated in mock interviews with seniors at my alma-mater, Oglethorpe University, and discovered a few things that an interviewee might not know when it comes to an interview.  The seniors at Oglethorpe interviewed very well, I’ll list out a few strategies that worked well for them and a few things that you might want to skip over.

Tell Me About Yourself.

This is not a a circumstance where the interviewer wants to date you, this is an ice breaker where they are trying to gain some insight on where to direct the conversation.  Keep this related to things that would come up within the 8 hours per day you spend at work. You have to paint a picture of you in the position you are applying for. Lets look at examples of good answers and not so good answers.

Good:

• I am passionate about results and work hard to achieve them…
• I am active and love to play team sports, I work well within a team atmosphere… (your tying this into a work circumstance)

Not So Good:

• I grew up in Milton Florida and loved going to the beach…
• Im 37 years old and and enjoy playing video games online…

Have You Ever Had To Work With Difficult People?

This is not a venting session, this is to determine how you handle situations that are present in every job.  Don’t talk bad about people here, it’s a turnoff if you say “John really messed up the widget and I had to tell him how to do it right!”  You want to tell a true story first of all,  and it needs to be a story of how you helped or coached someone into learning how to do something the right way.  

An example from today in which a girl worked at the movie theaters where patrons purchased tickets for the wrong night.  She painted a picture of how the older couple was on date night and they made a mistake purchasing online.  I can already see this as my parents, a sweet old couple walking in and realizing their first night out in months, they might just miss.  I am relating to this story, and she told me she would have let them in to watch the movie even though they made the mistake.

I know this interviewee has a heart, is compassionate and her customer service skills are excellent.  She didn’t tell me any of that, she just painted a picture and let me fill in the blanks myself.

Why Should I Hire You?

This is a popular question, and an interesting one.  This is where you can brag about yourself a little.  There are many questions you may have prepared for that were not asked, such as what your strengths are or what are you passionate about.  This again is not a question where you would want to talk bad about anyone else or say how your better than another candidate, you do not know your competition in most cases.  If you were to answer this by saying you were the smartest candidate or you had more experience than everyone else, you would be assuming, and we all know what you get when you assume.

It might be better to highlight a track record of success or give specific examples of how you have overcome something and it has made you more knowledgeable in that specific area.

Do You Have Any Questions?

This is how I end all of my interviews.  I will ask if the candidate has any questions or ask  them what I didn’t ask.  I will change these questions up, depending on how the interview went.  What I, and maybe others are looking for here is how deep does your knowledge go about our business and how interested are you.  If your answer is, “I can’t think of anything else”, it makes me think you’re not interested or you didn’t do your homework.

On the other hand, if you ask something along the lines of “what does a day look like for this position?”, that says to me you take this seriously and you are interested and concerned.

Ask For The Job Or Next Steps!

You will miss 100% of the shots you do not take!  I had someone ask me one time, “do you like me?”  It caught me so off guard, I hired the guy, and he was a great designer.  I’m not saying to ask it like that, but ask if your skill set is in line with what they are hiring for.  If they say yes, ask when you can follow up.  If they say next week, ask if you can follow up Wednesday at 11.  Don’t be pushy, but do show that you want the job.

What Do You Think?

These are just my thoughts and perspectives.  What questions have you been asked in an interview, strange or not, and how did you answer them?