Interview Questions For Young People

At most cases, young people do not have much work experience to discuss in an interview. You will need to help them communicate the skills they have acquired from school, home, or their community by tailoring the interview process to draw the best out of them in order to get a good sense of who they are, what they can bring to a role and company, and how they get along with other people.

In this essay, we'll compare the questions you'd ask a candidate in an interview and see how they may be tailored to a young person.

What drew you to this position?

A young person who is unfamiliar with interviews might not know how to respond in a way that highlights their skills. We propose that you ask some follow-up questions or prompts to help them respond, such as:

• "What is the job description drew your attention and made you think, 'I could do that.'"
   
• "Did something about the company appeal to you in particular?"

What can I do to help you advance professionally?

Replace "what sort of things would you like to learn in this role?" with "what kind of things would you like to learn in this role?"

What are your flaws?

Even for the most seasoned interviewee, this is a difficult question to answer. We recommend incorporating this issue into a discussion about professional development, with questions like:

• "Is there anything you think you'll require assistance with in this capacity that you haven't done before?"
   
• "Did anything on our job description appear to be a challenge for you that would require additional assistance or training?"
   
• "When learning something new, what do you find the most difficult?"

What interests you the most?

Because one-word replies, such as "rugby," "church," or "Instagram," are possible in this question style, use their response to learn more about them and gain a better understanding of what they enjoy doing:

• Rugby: "Did you appreciate being a member of a team?"
   
• Church: "Were you involved in any church events, either organizing or volunteering?"
   
• Instagram: "How do you believe Instagram marketing could benefit our company?"

Tell me about a challenge you've encountered and how you solved it.

This question is usually given to assess how a candidate has dealt with an issue in the past and how he or she will deal with one in the future. You may need to rephrase the question because young individuals are unlikely to have work-related examples of challenges. For instance:

• "Tell me about your transition from high school to university — how did you adjust to the different environment, schedule, and teaching style?"
   
• "Tell me about a time when you had to 'change tactics' and try a different strategy because something was no longer working, such as a school project or assignment." What were the outcomes? If you had the chance to do it all over again, what would you do differently? "

What is your expected salary?

Even for seasoned workers, this is a challenging question. A young individual is unlikely to know or feel comfortable responding to this question. They are presumably afraid that if they answer incorrectly, they will be eliminated from consideration.

For entry-level roles, we recommend specifying the wage in the job advertisement to make things easier right away. If you need to bring up salary during the interview, say something like "salaries for this position are normally between X and Y, so do you think this is fair based on your experience and ability to accomplish the job?"

Other excellent questions include:

• "Can you tell me about one of your role models and why?"
   
• "How would you characterize yourself to your friends?"
   
• "How has your family or school life prepared you for entering the workforce?" (i.e., are you expected to take responsibility for something in the family, such as looking after younger siblings? Or managing shopping budgets? Did you lead a school-wide movement to allow girls to wear shorts instead of skirts?)