Interview Questions And Answers Forum

alisiddiqui

Banned

Registered: 2015-02-23

Posts: 949

What Are Your Skills?

Tips For Answering Interview Question "What Are Your Skills?"

An Overview:

This is yet another question that is quite often bombarded in an interview. Though, it is a common question that is asked across industries yet interviewees seem to fumble while answering it. But, what makes them uneasy? Is the question really odd? Is it that they don’t know about their own self? Is it too much to ask for? Well, not really!
Whenever an interviewer asks, “What are your skills”, you tend to fumble because:
◆ You have not thought and PREPARED for the question before.
◆ Even if you have, you are not pretty sure about your skills.
◆ Lastly, you are dumbfounded to face such a question at such an unusual circumstance!
One needs to dwell upon the psyche of the interviewer in order to understand how one can answer the question.

Question About Your Skills

When the interviewer asks, “What about your skills, Can you list your skills for me?”, he basically wants to know two things:
1) Are you well aware about yourself? Can you enumerate your skills and abilities? Can you demonstrate you skills by stating examples/instances?
2) How well does your skills and abilities in sync with the job requirements? How would your skills add value to the project/job in concern?

An Example

Now that you have understood the psyche of an interviewer, you will surely agree that you need to be well aware of your skills, in advance. Let us consider an example:

Interviewer:

What are your job skills?

Interviewee 1:

Well, ah… I am a team player. I love to work around in teams and deliver results well in time. I can work in diverse teams and I feel I would be the right fit for the organization.

Interviewee 2:

I am a team player and most importantly an idea champion. I have a knack of listening more than what I speak and perhaps, that is why I tend to gel well with team members and generate ideas from them. I make sure that everyone get a chance to voice his idea and thus, is equally involved in the project/job. Having said that, I believe I shall bring value to the project, for I shall be able to manage and involve the multi ethnic members of the team.

Conclusion:

Clearly, interviewee 2 has not only stated that he is a team player but he has further mentioned key traits of an ideal team player and how he would benefit the project in concern.