Interview (EN)

There are two types of interviews in Canada: behavioural and technical.
Some of the employers consider the behavioural interview more important than the technical one.

The first few interviews that I’ve presented myself to were very disappointing. I was disappointed by my performance. I made a fool of myself because I didn’t prepare answers for the behavioural questions. I couldn’t understand why people asked me these questions when I was going for a technical interview – at least that’s what I thought. Questions like “How do you resolve a conflict with a colleague?” or “Did you ever have a conflict with your colleagues or managers?” were the thing that I most hated about the interview. And I still do. Back then I didn’t know how to answer them and interviewers said about me that I can’t articulate myself.

At that time I asked a few friends what kind of questions people were asking at the interview. They gave me some examples of questions that I might get asked, but no specific answer. You probably heard this before…”Say this, say that, oh, you’ll be fine, don’t worry, you’ll get the job…”
I went to all these interviews not knowing what to expect, saying to myself that it’s ok, I can always go and see what they ask me and get familiar with the interviewing process. Every time I came out of an interview, I wrote the questions they’ve asked then went on the Internet and spent a few days reading about this and writing down the answers. Then I learned them by heart.
I don’t know if you noticed but those who interview read some questions from a sheet. They probably printed the list from the Internet or from the company’s intranet where an HR person most likely prepared them.
All these questions have a standard answer that people expect to get; they expect you to say that you are not a person that will cause trouble, will get along with peers, will work well in teams and can resolve your own issues.

My strategy proved to be very effective because from then on I haven’t failed any interview.
I will keep updating the list of interview questions displayed on the lower part of the page as I go along.

Now, after working in so many places, I actually think that these questions are pretty important. Unfortunately, people are not honest in interviews and picture themselves as wonderful personalities. It’s after you get hired that you realize what kind of people you have to work with.


In the technical part of the interview you can talk about all your skills…. if you are given the opportunity, that is. Many times, the technical interview is very short and some of the questions you are asked are “Describe one day at work for you.” Or “How do you write your Test Cases?”
Some interviewers will tell you their stories, who are you going to work with if you’re hired, the projects…Others will give you a few tests, for example they will show you a screenshot of an application printed on a sheet and ask you what would you test in that screen.
If you’re going to an interview as a Bilingual Tester (testing in French) you have to speak French. I’m going to post another entry with the interview in French because there is more to say and there is a catch.

It’s very important that you take a look at your resume and ask yourself what are some of the things that the employer would want to ask you at the interview. If your previous contracts were short length, they may ask why you didn’t stay longer in one place. If you have long gaps between contracts they may ask why you didn’t work for so long.
Write all these questions on paper and prepare answers for all of them before you go to the interview. That’s exactly what they are going to ask.


On the phone interview, your voice is VERY important. Would you hire a person that sounds bored and uninterested on the phone as a babysitter for your kids? You must sound interested and excited about this opportunity and your voice must sound like it.

Body language – they say that 65% of communication is non-verbal. Despite this, many people fail interviews because they don’t know how to control their body language or they are not aware of the message they send.

As a final note, I cannot stress the importance of preparing for the interview very thoroughly and write all the answers that you will give on a paper. First of all because you don’t speak English well enough so you can improvise. What you may think it is inspired improvisation, it actually sounds more like babble. Second, because the answers to the behavioural questions are standard, this subject is not familiar to many of us. Third, because by preparing the material you’re reviewing your resume in detail and you’re becoming familiar with it. You will develop your vocabulary and learn English grammar. Most of the times it’s very hard to put on paper a few sentences that will be correct and will sound good.

This is just some of the information I have regarding this subject. In my courses I assign lots of time to discuss this part because it is so important and is so easy to fail an interview if you don’t have the right information!

All my courses are in English and for those of you who just immigrated and don’t speak English too well, this is an opportunity to get interviewing skills while practising your English.

To finish, here’s something interesting from Napoleon Hill’s book, “Selling You”: “Before you can successfully sell to someone else, you must first educate your subconscious mind to broadcast your belief in what you offer for sale.”
In other words, you must believe in yourself if you want others to believe in you.

Don’t forget to leave comments if all this stuff you’re reading was useful to you in interviews or you just want to share your thoughts about the interviews you’ve been to. Thanks and good luck!