- Give me an example of a time when you had to meet a deadline. …
- What was the most difficult task you performed on your internship last summer?
- Tell me about a time when you had to go above and beyond the call of duty to get a job done.
- Give me an example of how you manage your time.
For many students, an internship can be the first step toward starting a career. If you’re nervous about the interview, you can get ready by reviewing these common internship interview questions.
7 BEST Behavioural Interview Questions & Answers!
Why Are You Interested in This Internship/Company/Industry, and What Skills or Experiences Do You Hope to Gain?
As you might guess, this question is used to measure if your expectations and career goals align with the internship and what the company can offer you. The interviewer also wants to make sure you’re actually excited for this opportunity and want to work with them.
Show enthusiasm, do your research to come up with a thoughtful response for what drew you to the company or role, and get specific. The interviewer knows you’re looking for a learning opportunity—tell them what you want to learn from this internship in particular, and make sure it aligns with the organization and what you know about the role so far. You can also use this question as an opportunity to talk about your experience, passions, and values.
For example, if you’re interviewing for a marketing internship, you need to go beyond saying, “I’m really interested in getting marketing experience.” Instead try:
“I’ve always been really interested in mission-driven companies, and your commitment to community engagement really speaks to the values I’m looking for in a company. I’m really excited about this opportunity because I think it will give me exposure to thinking about messaging for many different audiences and through many channels. I was looking at your social media, and am really fascinated by how you craft posts for all of your different initiatives.”
(Read this article on explaining why you want the job for more advice on answering this question.)
What’s the Best Team You’ve Ever Been a Part of, and Why?/What’s Your Ideal Team?
The “team” question can come in many shapes and sizes. However it’s delivered, the interviewer wants to understand how you work with others so they can envision how you’ll work within their team. Simply put, does their team culture and your potential boss’s management style make sense for you?
If you have real examples from past experiences that you can draw on to explain your dream team, great! If not, go into detail on what you believe makes for a stellar group dynamic.
For example, “Good communication is important for a great team” is the start of your answer, not a complete statement. You’ll also want to define what good communication means to you and what it looks like in practice. A better answer would look something like:
“Good communication makes for a great team, and creating best practices around how a team is going to communicate is really important. For example, for my last class project our team met weekly and created shared Google Docs so we could collaborate even when we weren’t with each other, and we all agreed we could call each other whenever we needed something. This synthesis of working styles helped us to stay on track, work efficiently, and ultimately get along with one another.”
If it seems appropriate, you can also address how you like to be managed. Do you like a lot of direction and check-ins, or do you like to discuss your projects and then run with them on your own? If you have no idea how you like to be managed because you’ve never had a boss before, that’s OK! Consider the best teachers or mentors you’ve come across. What about their leadership style did you like? How did they guide you or others, and what about that stuck with you?
Just remember: This isn’t supposed to be a vent session where you bash former teammates (that attitude says more about you than them). If you’re using a negative team experience as an example of what you don’t want, focus more on what you learned from that experience rather than what wasn’t good.
Popular Internship Interview Questions
These are some sample internship interview questions and answers that can help give you an idea of the types of questions that might be asked in a job interview, and how you can answer them effectively. Of course, you’ll need to customize the answers and make them about your unique career and education history.
To that end, below weve include some of the most common interview questions that top internship programs now ask. All of these questions come directly from our latest Internship Survey, which was administered late last summer to more than 12,000 interns at 110 internship programs and which we used to create our 2018 Internship Rankings.
9. “Tell me about your leadership experience. Tell me of a time when you have demonstrated leadership and how did you lead.”
5. “Name one of your weaknesses and what you’re doing today to turn that weakness around.”
12. “Give me an example of when you went above and beyond your responsibilities without being asked.”
13. “Explain a time that you needed to persuade a group of people to choose your idea over someone else’s.”
FAQ
What are the top 10 behavioral questions in an interview?
- Tell me about yourself. …
- Why are you interested in this internship? …
- What attracted you to our company? …
- What skills can you bring to the company? …
- Do you work better alone or with a team? …
- How would others describe you?
What kind of questions are asked in an internship interview?
- How do you handle a challenge? …
- Can you work effectively under pressure? …
- How do you set goals?
- Can you handle criticism?
- How do you handle a mistake pointed out to you? …
- What’s your ideal approach if you disagree with someone at work?
What are common questions in a behavioral interview?
- #1: Tell us a bit about yourself.
- #2: Why have you applied for this internship?
- #3: Why have you applied for an internship at our company?
- #4: Why do you want to work in this industry?
- #5: What are your strengths?
- #6: How do you prioritise your work?
