1. Tell me about yourself: - The most often asked question in interviews. You need to have a short statement prepared in your mind. Be careful that it does not sound rehearsed. Limit it to work-related items unless instructed otherwise. Talk about things you have done and jobs you have held that relate to the position you are interviewing for. Start with the item farthest back and work up to the present.
2. Why did you leave your last job? - Stay positive regardless of the circumstances. Never refer to a major problem with management and never speak ill of supervisors, co-workers or the organization. If you do, you will be the one looking bad. Keep smiling and talk about leaving for a positive reason such as an opportunity, a chance to do something special or other forward-looking reasons.
3. What experience do you have in this field? - Speak about specifics that relate to the position you are applying for. If you do not have specific experience, get as close as you can.
4. Do you consider yourself successful? - You should always answer yes and briefly explain why. A good explanation is that you have set goals, and you have met some and are on track to achieve the others.
5. What do co-workers say about you? - Be prepared with a quote or two from co-workers. Either a specific statement or a paraphrase will work. Jill Clark, a co-worker at Smith Company, always said I was the hardest workers she had ever known. It is as powerful as Jill having said it at the interview herself.
6. What do you know about this organization? - This question is one reason to do some research on the organization before the interview. Find out where they have been and where they are going. What are the current issues and who are the major players?
7. What have you done to improve your knowledge in the last year? - Try to include improvement activities that relate to the job. A wide variety of activities can be mentioned as positive self-improvement. Have some good ones handy to mention.
8. Are you applying for other jobs? - Be honest but do not spend a lot of time in this area. Keep the focus on this job and what you can do for this organization. Anything else is a distraction.
9. Why do you want to work for this organization? - This may take some thought and certainly, should be based on the research you have done on the organization. Sincerity is extremely important here and will easily be sensed. Relate it to your long-term career goals.
10. Do you know anyone who works for us? - Be aware of the policy on relatives working for the organization. This can affect your answer even though they asked about friends not relatives. Be careful to mention a friend only if they are well thought of.
11. What kind of salary do you need? - A loaded question. A nasty little game that you will probably lose if you answer first. So, do not answer it. Instead, say something like, That’s a tough question. Can you tell me the range for this position? In most cases, the interviewer, taken off guard, will tell you. If not, say that it can depend on the details of the job. Then give a wide range.
12. Are you a team player? - You are, of course, a team player. Be sure to have examples ready. Specifics that show you often perform for the good of the team rather than for yourself are good evidence of your team attitude. Do not brag, just say it in a matter-of-fact tone. This is a key point.
13. How long would you expect to work for us if hired? - Specifics here are not good. Something like this should work: I’d like it to be a long time. Or As long as we both feel I’m doing a good job.
14. Have you ever had to fire anyone? How did you feel about that? - This is serious. Do not make light of it or in any way seem like you like to fire people. At the same time, you will do it when it is the right thing to do. When it comes to the organization versus the individual who has created a harmful situation, you will protect the organization. Remember firing is not the same as layoff or reduction in force.
15. What is your philosophy towards work? - The interviewer is not looking for a long or flowery dissertation here. Do you have strong feelings that the job gets done? Yes. That’s the type of answer that works best here. Short and positive, showing a benefit to the organization.
16. If you had enough money to retire right now, would you? - Answer yes if you would. But since you need to work, this is the type of work you prefer. Do not say yes if you do not mean it.
17. Have you ever been asked to leave a position? - If you have not, say no. If you have, be honest, brief and avoid saying negative things about the people or organization involved.
18. Explain how you would be an asset to this organization - You should be anxious for this question. It gives you a chance to highlight your best points as they relate to the position being discussed. Give a little advance thought to this relationship.
19. Why should we hire you? - Point out how your assets meet what the organization needs. Do not mention any other candidates to make a comparison.
20. Tell me about a suggestion you have made - Have a good one ready. Be sure and use a suggestion that was accepted and was then considered successful. One related to the type of work applied for is a real plus.
21. What irritates you about co-workers? - This is a trap question. Think real hard but fail to come up with anything that irritates you. A short statement that you seem to get along with folks is great.
22. What is your greatest strength? - Numerous answers are good, just stay positive. A few good examples: Your ability to prioritize, Your problem-solving skills, Your ability to work under pressure, Your ability to focus on projects, Your professional expertise, Your leadership skills, Your positive attitude .
23. Tell me about your dream job. - Stay away from a specific job. You cannot win. If you say the job you are contending for is it, you strain credibility. If you say another job is it, you plant the suspicion that you will be dissatisfied with this position if hired. The best is to stay genetic and say something like: A job where I love the work, like the people, can contribute and can’t wait to get to work.
24. Why do you think you would do well at this job? - Give several reasons and include skills, experience and interest.
25. What kind of person would you refuse to work with? - Do not be trivial. It would take disloyalty to the organization, violence or lawbreaking to get you to object. Minor objections will label you as a whiner.
26. What is more important to you: the money or the work? - Money is always important, but the work is the most important. There is no better answer.
27. What would your previous supervisor say your strongest point is? - There are numerous good possibilities: Loyalty, Energy, Positive attitude, Leadership, Team player, Expertise, Initiative, Patience, Hard work, Creativity, Problem solver
28. Tell me about a problem you had with a supervisor - Biggest trap of all. This is a test to see if you will speak ill of your boss. If you fall for it and tell about a problem with a former boss, you may well below the interview right there. Stay positive and develop a poor memory about any trouble with a supervisor.
29. What has disappointed you about a job? - Don’t get trivial or negative. Safe areas are few but can include: Not enough of a challenge. You were laid off in a reduction Company did not win a contract, which would have given you more responsibility.
30. Tell me about your ability to work under pressure. - You may say that you thrive under certain types of pressure. Give an example that relates to the type of position applied for.
31. Do your skills match this job or another job more closely? - Probably this one. Do not give fuel to the suspicion that you may want another job more than this one.
32. What motivates you to do your best on the job? - This is a personal trait that only you can say, but good examples are: Challenge, Achievement, Recognition
33. Are you willing to work overtime? Nights? Weekends? - This is up to you. Be totally honest.
34. How would you know you were successful on this job? - Several ways are good measures: You set high standards for yourself and meet them. Your outcomes are a success.Your boss tell you that you are successful
35. Would you be willing to relocate if required? - You should be clear on this with your family prior to the interview if you think there is a chance it may come up. Do not say yes just to get the job if the real answer is no. This can create a lot of problems later on in your career. Be honest at this point and save yourself future grief.
36. Are you willing to put the interests of the organization ahead of your own? - This is a straight loyalty and dedication question. Do not worry about the deep ethical and philosophical implications. Just say yes.
37. Describe your management style. - Try to avoid labels. Some of the more common labels, like progressive, salesman or consensus, can have several meanings or descriptions depending on which management expert you listen to. The situational style is safe, because it says you will manage according to the situation, instead of one size fits all.
38. What have you learned from mistakes on the job? - Here you have to come up with something or you strain credibility. Make it small, well intentioned mistake with a positive lesson learned. An example would be working too far ahead of colleagues on a project and thus throwing coordination off.
39. Do you have any blind spots? - Trick question. If you know about blind spots, they are no longer blind spots. Do not reveal any personal areas of concern here. Let them do their own discovery on your bad points. Do not hand it to them.
40. If you were hiring a person for this job, what would you look for? - Be careful to mention traits that are needed and that you have.
41. Do you think you are overqualified for this position? - Regardless of your qualifications, state that you are very well qualified for the position.
42. How do you propose to compensate for your lack of experience? - First, if you have experience that the interviewer does not know about, bring that up: Then, point out (if true) that you are a hard working quick learner.
43. What qualities do you look for in a boss? - Be generic and positive. Safe qualities are knowledgeable, a sense of humor, fair, loyal to subordinates and holder of high standards. All bosses think they have these traits.
44. Tell me about a time when you helped resolve a dispute between others. - Pick a specific incident. Concentrate on your problem solving technique and not the dispute you settled.
45. What position do you prefer on a team working on a project? - Be honest. If you are comfortable in different roles, point that out.
46. Describe your work ethic. - Emphasize benefits to the organization. Things like, determination to get the job done and work hard but enjoy your work are good.
47. What has been your biggest professional disappointment? - Be sure that you refer to something that was beyond your control. Show acceptance and no negative feelings.
48. Tell me about the most fun you have had on the job. - Talk about having fun by accomplishing something for the organization.
49. Do you have any questions for me? - Always have some questions prepared. Questions prepared where you will be an asset to the organization are good. How soon will I be able to be productive? and What type of projects will I be able to assist on? are examples.

1. How did you find me?
2. Is this a retainer or contingency assignment?
3. Are you dealing with the client’s HR people, or do you have direct contact with the hiring manager?
4. How long has the client been with you?
5. How many candidates have you placed with this client?
6. When will I find out the name of the principal or client company?
7. May I have a written job description?
8. Where is the position located?
9. Where is the company headquartered?
10. To whom does the position report?
11. Can you tell me about this executive’s management style?
12. Why is the position open?
13. What happened to the person who previously held this position?
14. Is this a new position?
15. How long has the position been open?
16. How long have you been working on the assignment?
17. What does the position pay?
18. Are here any pay or compensation constraints that I should take into consideration?
19. What can you tell me about the person who will be interviewing me?
20. What is his or her position, title, management style?
21. Who will make the final hiring decision?
22. After you present my resume, when can I expect to hear from you regarding the status of this position?
23. Can you describe, specifically, how the company navigates/balances work? and personal-life issues?
24. What might I do that would violate the culture of the company during my interview?

1. Explain detail objects? - Sol: Detail objects are attached to dimensions, one cannot drill on details nor link on details when linking multiple data providers. While Customer ID would be a dimension, customer name, address, phone and soon should be details.
2. What is BOMain.Key? - BoMain.Key file contains the information about the repository site i.e it contains the address of the repository security domain.
3. What is Business objects Repository? - it is nothing but metadata.
4. What is domain? How many are there in a basic setup? What are they? - Domain is nothing but logical grouping of system tables, There are three domains usually in a basic setup, They are Secure, Universe, Document. Business objects are sometimes called domain objects (where the word domain means the business), and a domain model represents the set of domain objects and the relationships between them.
5. When is the Repository created? - In 5i/6i versions after installing the software, whereas in Xi version a repository is created at the time of installation.
6. Can we have multiple domains? - Yes. (Security domain can not be multiple).
7. How do you restrict access to rows of a database? - In XI version it can be done by using row-level security in designer module whereas in 5i/6i it is done by supervisor.
8. What is a category? - It is nothing but grouping of certain entities.
9. What is a Universe? - It is a semantic layer between Database and the designer used to create objects and classes. (It maps to data in Database).
10. What is an Object? - It is an instance of class, its nothing but an entity.
11. What do you mean by Object qualification? - Object qualification represents what kind of object is that, usually we have three types of object qualifiers they are measure, dimension, detailed.
12. What is the size of data base? - In general it will be anything between 4-8 Terabytes.
13. What is a loop? How can we overcome? - Loop is nothing but a closed circular flow; it can be overcome by making use of Alias and Context.
14. What is a join? Explain different types of joins? - Join is used to link to tables depending upon the data requested by the user, Usually we have Inner Join, Outer Join, Left Join, Right Join, Full Outer join.
15. What are Linked Universes? - If the data provided is from two different data providers then we can link those two universes, such type of universe is called Linked Universe.
16. What are Alerter, Filters, Breaks and Conditions? - Alters are nothing but they are used to draw attention to a block of data by highlighting. Breaks are nothing but grouping the data without any change in the format. Condition is used to retrieve data which meets certain criteria. Filters are used to get necessary data.
17. What is the difference between master-detail and Breaks? - In break common fields are deleted (here in this case the table format is not changed) whereas in master-detail , we declare certain entity as a master to get the detailed information or report in this case the table format is changed.
18. What is metrics? - Metrics are a system of parameters or ways of quantitative and periodic assessment of a process that is to be measured; these are used to track trends, productivity.
19. What is a Set? - Its nothing but grouping of users.
20. What is the use of AFD? Where it can be stored? - used to create dashboards. It can be stored in repository, corporate or personal.
21. what is the source for metrics? - measure objects.
22. Why do we need metrics and sets? - Metrics are used for analysis and Sets are used for grouping.
23. Is there any bug in 6.x? - In earlier version of 6.0 they had, but 6.5 is the best version with out any bugs.
24. What are the general issues in migration process? - Alignment, performance.
25. What is the use of BO SDK? - Bo SDK main use is to suppress “no data to fetch” using Macros.
26. How can we improve performance? - By making use of Aggregate tables.
27. Analysis in BO? - Slice-Dice and Drill analysis.
28. How can you check the integrity? - By making use of Check integrity button.
29. What are Universe parameters? - Name of the universe, description and RDBMS connection, size and rights.
30. Types of Universes? - Simple and Complex.
31. What is the use of BCA? - BCA is used to refresh and schedule and export and save as.html,.rtf,.xls ,.pdf.

A TechInterviews reader sent in the questions he faced at a major global company. The questions are fairly generic:

1. Tell me about your analytical skills, cite some examples of how you have used your skills in the past.
2. What are some of your long term goals?
3. What are your short term goals?
4. Where do you see yourself five years from now?
5. Tell me why I should hire you?
6. What does customer service mean to you?
7. Why did you leave your last job?
8. Describe your definition of a team player?
9. Sight examples of when in the past you have proven to be a team player?
10. How would you handle a conflict with another employee?
11. What do you believe you can gain by working at this company?
12. Give me some examples of times in the past, when you were able to avoid a conflict, by thinking on your feet. Tell what you know about this company.