First interview QUESTIONS Flashcards
Tell me about yourself.
Walk me through your CV.
Thank you for the opportunity to interview with you today.
Skills:
Education:
Experience:
Type of person:
Why do you want to work for our company?
Before submitting my resumé, I wanted to be sure about our fit and thus engaged in research about your company and found 3 key reasons to eventually send my application.
I saw that you’re quite known for customer-centricity and have an impressive track record of growing and expanding, being a company that was founded in the 1910s. This commitment to high-standard means that I will be working with other ambitious professionals. I, myself, have shown customer centricity in my customer-facing roles and I really love to work for a company that does that as it’s a necessity in today’s super competitive world.
I also appreciate that the company is built in small teams with flat hierarchies meaning that I’ll be able to make meaningful relationships at work and be confident that there’ll be feedbacking opportunities.
Thirdly, I appreciate your social commitments outside of your main purpose through the Drying Little Tears initiative where you recently provided school material to foster children in the US or even renovated a kindergarten here in Germany. Being someone who has been very invested in mission-driven volunteering, I can see a big alignment here.
All of the points mentioned makes this role at SIXT a great foundation for my future career.
Why am I applying to this role?
I saw a strong match between my profile and the job description such as my love for data, numbers, taking ownership and collaborating with others. I looked further into the company to understand whether I really wanted to apply here and found strong reasons to do so: customer-centricity, good track record, positive ratings/reviews on glassdoor. To me, this meant high standards and working along other ambitious people. This made it impossible to take a chance at landing such an opportunity.
What do you do in your free time (internship question)?
I prefer to use the majority of my free time wisely.
If I’m not studying, I am often reading books, particularly self-development ones. The current book that I am reading is Linchpin by Seth Godin. It is a great book because it provides useful insights about career development.
I am also learning German so that I am able to communicate more fluently with other people, especially those who can only speak German. This would enable me to take on further volunteering commitments in Germany.
Finally, I am always doing one sport. Last semester, I was involved with Ultimate Frisbee with the university sports and it was a great experience and shows my commitment to teamwork. These days, I mostly take walks and runs.
What do you plan to do during your internship?
First: Understand the expectations from my direct manager. I appreciate any advice to ensure that I can make the most of my time here.
Second: I want to make a positive contribution to the team and the company. Thus I would ensure that I am able to get to know the people in my team, their tasks and understand how I can contribute.
Third: I want to be able to develop workplace skills and interpersonal skills in the office to make me a better team worker.
What are your strengths?
My strength include my selfless attitude. For example, at university, I became a buddy for a fresher last semester and I went above and beyond to help and advise her based on my experience studying the same program, including helping her to settle in Munich. To this day, she tells me she doesn’t know where she would be without my continuous help and we are friends now.
Other strengths include a passion for numbers, self-discipline.
What are your weaknesses?
Struggle to say no (example: project in Data Science using STAR framework)
lacking in practical experiences
very sensitive sometimes
Plans after your internship?
Return to the university, start my Master’s thesis and use the experience that I have gained during the internship to get the grades that I need.
After that, I look forward to get a full-time job. If you have any openings at that time and you see me as a great fit for your team, I will definitely apply for them.
How do you stay organized?
I leverage the use of technology tools such as G-Cal, G-Sheet and G-Keep to stay organized. On the google sheet, I usually have an overview of what should be done this week, boxed into days, in order of priority. I then proceed to plan the day the night before on G-Cal so that my family at home knows when not to call me. I use G-Keep to keep track of tasks, that are not necessarily to be done this week, but per category.
Reacting to pressure and stressful situation
Give example last summer DSFin project, biting more than I can chew a week before my exams and feeling extremely overworked. However, I resorted to techniques I often resort to –> take off half an hour to meditate to help keep perspective. Helped to gain a pragmatic view on my priorities and act accordingly.
How do you work/working style?
I can simultaneously be a team-player and a good individual contributor. As a team member of the consulting team, I have contributed to the conversation a lot and always tried to help my fellow consultants, as well as ask for help from them. As a member of the sales team, I could contribute individually by pushing sales numbers.
Where do you see yourself in five years?
I’m interested in Financial Planning and Analysis because this seems like a perfect fit for someone with my background. I also know that this kind of role blends internal audit and internal consulting, which are greatly transferable skills. I enjoy working with numbers and data, and if I’m able to indulge in this on the daily, this is what I want. Thus, in five years, I see myself working in the FP&A
Most proud-of accomplishment:
Academically: I think that I am very proud of my academic history. What I’m proudest of dated from a long while, when I was ranked among the best in my country for a subject called “Additional Mathematics”. The reason why I cherish this so much is because noone expected it. I did not have a special history of topping the country at Mathematics but I was working silently towards this goal and it paid off. It showed me how much dedication, discipline and hard-work can be rewarding and ever since, I keep aiming higher.
A challenge you encountered and what did you do to overcome it?
The situation was that I was not engaging a lot with my leadership during my first role with AIESEC. In our first feedback sessions, I got this feedback. However, I took it positively and immediately worked on how I was engaging with the team. For example, I made sure that I was the first person to come to meetings and last to leave, which lead me having a lot of personal 1-1s with my teammates. Eventually, when other feedback sessions came, I got positive feedback, and I could also feel the appreciation coming from my teammates.
Why should we hire you?
You should hire me for three reasons.
First is that my profile, skills and qualities are a strong match for the job description which means that I am well-made for this position.
Second, is that I am commercially aware. I will always work hard to create value for the company and will also have a frugal attitude towards company resources and supplies that are costs to the company.
Third is that I always take ownership of my professional and personal development. Always improving and growing so that you can see a positive return on your investment on me as an intern.
An example where you showed leadership/initiative
The situation is that I was leading the Sales Team in Munich during the covid-19. At that time it was very difficult to sell exchanges and perform as a team, engagement was difficult and thus members were dropping out of my team. We were 6 initially, and after two dropouts, I realised that I cannot afford to lose more people, especially not after having given them the AIESEC training.
Thus, I decided to work on the team culture. One notable thing that I did was having our team meetings end with one Karaoke where we sang together. This helped to increase attendance, positivity and engagement in the team. Eventually, the outcome was that nobody dropped out and performance even improved after that.
About SIXT:
Exceed customer expectations for better/more convenient and sustainable mobility.
co-CEOd by two SIXT bothers
Do you have any questions for us?
Yes, I do. I have three questions for you.
Firstly: Say I get hired, what could I do between now and the starting date to prepare for the job?
Secondly : How would my performance be measured in this company?
Thirdly: What’s the best thing about working for SIXT?
Talk about your Excel skills.
I know how to use formulae such as SUM, SUMIF, create data visualisations/charts, merging, changing fonts/colord. I conceptually understand index matching such as VLOOKUP and XLOOKUP, however, I am yet to apply these functions. I have used Pivot Tables once in a Project Study at university, but I have no recollection of how it worked. What I don’t know is VBA, PowerBI and PowerQuery.
