The most common interview questions you’re likely to come across in every role are things like:
- Why do you want this job?
- Tell me about your biggest weakness?
- What are the key strengths you bring to this role?
- Tell us about a time you were under stress at work?
- Et cetera.
But these, and the many other random questions you may face, are all often surface level questions that aim to find out deeper information about you.
In fact, most interviews are really a case of answering three ‘deeper’ questions, even if the interviewer doesn’t consciously see it that way.
The Three Key Questions
The three key questions most interviews are really seeking to find out are:
- Capability: Are you capable of doing the job? (Or, could you get there within the necessary time)
- Motivation: Are you motivated to do the job?
- Chemistry: Are you the type of person others in the organisation would work well with?
Understanding the above three underlying questions is very useful, as it allows you to prepare for interviews even where you may be on the receiving end of very random questions.
Keeping the three questions in mind also allows you to answer things you may not have prepared for, as you can take curveball questions and at least provide answers that back up your suitability for each of the above three factors.
And, in digital roles in particular, the ‘capability’ question often becomes easier to answer than in other fields, once you’re aware of it. In fields like accounting, or logistics for example, there may be expectations that you’ll know very long-established systems which either rule you in or rule you out of jobs. In digital roles, tools and systems change frequently, so not having used a specific tool or system may not rule you out.
For example, an interviewer may ask:
- “Have you ever worked with Microsoft Power BI?”
Ordinarily, an answer to this may be: “No, sorry, I haven’t”. But, understanding the deeper question the interviewer is really asking is simply “Are you capable of doing the job?”, you may instead answer something like:
- “I haven’t specifically, but I’ve worked with most of the Microsoft suite for more than ten years, and actually used to train people on Excel. I’m sure I’d have no problem getting to grips with it.” – this answers the ‘capability’ question, getting across that you’d likely be able to get there quickly.
- “I haven’t, but I was actually hoping for the opportunity to get into it. In a previous role I was so relied upon for Excel issues I ended up putting together onboarding training for new team members. I’d love to take a look at Power BI and see how quickly I can get to grips with it if that would be important for the role.” – alongside answering the ‘capability’ question, this also answers in relation to ‘motivation’, letting them know both that you’re self-motivated (and have proven so in the past), and that you should have no problem capability-wise.
Once you have the ‘three questions’ in mind, the rest should be self-explanatory, but, in case useful, here’s a simple checklist of a few tasks you can go through in preparation for interviews on the basis of the three.
| Capability | Go through the job description & figure out where you can directly prove capabilityWhere you have any gaps, think how you could prove you could fill those through roughly similar things you’ve done |
| Motivation | Note down elements about the day to day job that would motivate you, and what it is about them you find appealingGo through the company’s website to note down elements about their mission, or projects, or outcomes of what they do that motivate youFigure out who you’d be working with, and note down any motivations related to working with them |
| Chemistry | Look up the people you’re likely to be interviewed by on LinkedIn, X, etc, and see whether you like them, think they’d like you, or where you have anything in commonDo the same for the team you may be working withTake a look at anything like company values / operating principles / policies to see whether you align with those, so that you can mention them if suitable |