Common Job Interview Questions & Answers for Students

Preparing for your first job interview is one of the most exciting yet stressful experiences for students. As a recent college graduate, surely you don’t have work experience to add in your CV and impress recruiters, however, there is much more you can do to prove your worth and get a decent start as your first job.

Whether it is your first campus placement or an off-campus job interview, you can ace your interview with the right preparation. Hiring managers frequently ask some common interview questions to college students and graduates looking for either part-time or full-time jobs.

“Here are a few categories of student interview questions and tips to answer them”

Types of Common Job Interview Questions for Students

 
There are different categories of student interview questions that employers ask. These include:

Interview Questions: About yourself

 
The best way to answer this category of questions is to think of yourself as a product that you want to pitch to the customer (Hiring manager!). The maximum number of questions are asked from this interview category, as you are a fresher with no prior work experience. Knowing more about you in depth helps employers to gauge your capabilities and suitability for the job opening. The common interview question can be in the form of:

## Tell us about yourself
## What are your strengths?
## What are your weaknesses?
## What are your hobbies?

These general questions that focus on describing yourself and personality usually act as an icebreaker. To avoid dreaming of a smart answer in front of the hiring manager, it is recommended to prepare answers for these top questions in advance and feel confident.

Interview Questions: About the company

 
The next common category of interview questions for students is how much you know about the company, industry, and job you are applying. Here hiring managers are interested in knowing how much you are aware of the company and your seriousness about the job opening. The common interview question can be in the form of:

## What do you know about us?
## Why do you want to work with us?
## How did you know about this open position?

Take this opportunity to show your seriousness for the job and how well prepared you are for it. Research completely about the company to answer any further question asked by the recruiter. In this interview question category for freshers, even inexperienced job applicants can perform well by just doing proper research about the company.

Interview Questions: About your competency

 
## Why should we hire you?
## Why do you want this job? or Why do you think you are a fit for this job?

The trick to answering this category of interview questions is to relate your USPs with your extracurricular activities, education, projects completed or internship experience. The common interview question, “Why should we hire you?” is an effective question for which you need to have a sales pitch in terms of your skills, qualification or any other certification you have earned to support your candidature. All these things may be clearly visible in your CV, but employers want to see your confidence in proving yourself as the right fit for the job.

Interview Questions: To conclude an interview

 
## Where do you see yourself in 5 years?
## What are your salary expectations?

Answering some of these questions can be tricky as you exit interview room after this round of questions leaving a final impression on the hiring manager. Moreover, facing questions related to salary and compensation need to be dealt with caution as you would not want to either miss this opportunity or want to be hired for lesser compensation. Similarly, with questions related to where do you see yourself in X number of years, employers want to get an idea that whether you are seeking a long-term association with the company or not and whether they can also plan to invest in your training & development, if required.

Final Thoughts

The above questions are the most popular interview questions for students and recent graduates with no prior work experience. Remember, every interview experience is different and you need to ace each one of the interview questions by preparing it. Be honest and go ahead.

All the best!