When you prepare for a job interview, you likely go through your potential answers to a typical list of questions: "Tell me about your greatest achievement." "Walk me through your work history." "Tell me about a problem you faced at work and how you handled it." And, of course, the dreaded, "What are your biggest weaknesses?"
But according to Peter Roper, Google's head of mobile brand strategy, it's not the questions themselves that matter as much — whether it's in a job interview or just in a get-to-know-you conversation with his employees.
He says he may ask questions such as: "What's your favourite colour?", "What's the craziest thing that you've done?", or "What are some things on your bucket list?" But what happens afterward is more important, he says.
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"The questions don't matter as much as the conversation that happens after, in that it provides you a unique opportunity to really understand what someone's passionate about and what someone keys in on," Roper says in the AOL video below. "And that's kind of the best part of the conversation." Clicking with your interviewer is way more likely to get you that job than giving the perfect rehearsed answers.
He adds: "Our most productive people and productive employees are those that are happy...both happy and challenged, and feel that the work matters."
So next time you have a stressful job interview coming up, try to worry less about what to say — and more about how to say it. If you come off as passionate and authentic, you'll definitely have a leg up on the competition.
Watch the video below.