Question 1
How Are You Holding Up? How Are You Adjusting to Life Post-Quarantine?
Keep your responses general, vague, and more or less positive
It’s totally fine to acknowledge the struggles of the past year or to express hope or excitement about the future
Sharing a small titbit about finally getting to hug your mom again or enjoy a meal out is totally appropriate
You’ll also want to be careful not to reveal too much about certain extracurricular activities at the height of the pandemic: If you were bending the rules around local health guidelines, it’s probably best to keep that to yourself
Questions 2
How Did the Pandemic Affect Your Career Goals?
Be sure you’re answering this question with the role you’re interviewing for in mind
Did you realize that you want to work on a product that is more in line with your environmental values? Great! Feel free to mention that—provided the role you’re interviewing for has such a product
Did you decide to finally take the plunge on that career change you’ve been dreaming about for years? This could be a great opportunity to share your journey and pitch your transferable skills
Question 3
How Did You Adapt to Working Remotely?
What a recruiter is really getting at here is: How do you navigate unexpected changes?
Companies are always evolving with new hires, technological updates, new product rollouts, and more, and your prospective boss wants to know if you can roll with the punches
Whatever example you decide to use, be sure you tell it within a cohesive framework, like the STAR method:
Identify the Situation (e.g., you were thrown into remote work with little warning)
Explain the Task at hand (e.g., you’d never worked from home before, you live in a one-bedroom apartment, and your partner is on calls all day long)
Describe the Action you took (e.g., you and your partner made a schedule, you invested in noise-cancelling headphones, and you discovered the joys of working from a previously underutilized balcony)
Conclude with the Result (e.g., you increased your overall productivity and helped guide a new product to launch on time and under budget)
Question 4
What Have You Learned During the Pandemic?
In other words, are you able to learn and grow through the hard stuff?
Employers are always looking to hire people who are creative and solutions-oriented – They want to know that you can make the most out of a bad situation
There are a few different ways that you can answer this question
You might go the personal route and mention that you realized that you wanted to spend more time with your family or share that you learned a new skill or spent time developing a new hobby
Question 5
How Did You Cope with Stress During the COVID Era?
Another version of that question is, what do you do when things get hard?
This is another great example of a behavioural interview question—which means you can use the STAR method to craft a solid answer
Question 6
How Do You Feel About Returning to Work in Person?
This is now a common logistical question. Interviewers are genuinely trying to gauge whether or not you’re going to be open to returning to an office after working from home for so long
Depending on what type of setup you’re looking for (in person, hybrid, or remote), you’ll want to be sure to clarify: Will there be an option to work remotely? Will you need to be in the office full-time or is part-time an option?
“If you want to go back to an office, you might say, ‘I’m very open to going back into the office once things are fully safe, I would love to hear about your company’s return-to-office plans,’” Meegoda says.
If you’re angling for a hybrid work setup, you can ask about the company’s policies around working from home a couple of days a week
Question 7
How Do You Feel About Working Remotely Indefinitely?
If an interviewer is asking this, it could be an indication that the company is moving toward permanent remote work for at least some of its roles
So it’s worth asking what their long-term plans are—especially if you have strong or non-negotiable preferences around remote work
Question 8
What Is One Good Thing That Came Out of the Pandemic?
Ultimately, hiring managers are looking for people who are going to make great team members
They want to know that when things go sideways, you’ll be resilient enough to push through challenging times, open enough to learn something along the way, and optimistic enough to find the silver linings
That said, questions like this are tricky at best and triggering at worst
If you’ve experienced a COVID-related loss or hardship, being asked to identify something good that came from it could be incredibly painful
While the spirit of this question is well-intentioned, I think we can all agree it’s not a great one to ask
But that doesn’t mean it won’t come up during your job search (nor does it mean that the person asking is trying to bring up any bad feelings)
So it’s worth having an answer prepared
This article was extracted from Themuse.com and the full article can be viewed at:
