INTERNSHIP INTERVIEW QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS

Do you have an internship interview coming up? Have you practiced answering some of the most common interview questions? If not, let’s change that.

Before we dive into these internship interview questions and answers, let’s just start with the criteria of a good interview answer.

What makes an interview answer a quality one? A good interview answer is confident. A confident answer reflects that you are prepared. It means that you know what you’re talking about.  You also come across as being confident by giving thoughtful, unrushed answers and not fumbling your way through it. Be prepared and know what you’re going to say, and close in a confident way as well.

There is also a difference between confidence and arrogance. Talk about your accomplishments without sounding like you’re a know-it-all. You don’t know it all. Believe me. No one does.

So how do you walk into your interview with confidence? Well, the simple answer is, be prepared. You want to have a good idea of what you’re going to say and how you’re going to answer each question. Not memorized like a parrot either because otherwise, you will come across like a robot. If you are prepared, you won’t be nervous either.

How do you prepare? Practice on your own or with friends or family. Find articles like this one and get example interview questions and practice answering them.

Remember that being prepared with your answer also shows the recruiter that you’ve done your research and this counts a lot.

Alright, let’s jump into some common internship interview questions.

Example internship interview questions.

Below I will provide some of the most common internship interview questions. For each question, I’m going to explain the question and give you an idea of how to craft your answer.

Tell me about yourself? 

What the recruiter is actually asking is how do you fit with our company? or this role? A good template to follow when crafting this answer is to make a narrative out of your resume. Highlight a couple of your top relevant accomplishments, and then focus it back on the company and why you’re a good fit for them.When crafting your answer, focus on a brief introduction of who you are, touch on a relevant piece of experience or an accomplishment, and then bring it back to why this company and your desire to work with them.

What do you consider to be your strengths?

Your goal here is to answer with strengths that show that you’re a good fit for this particular role. If you did your research, you should know what this company is looking for. So don’t list out every strength. Focus on a couple of key strengths. And remember, you don’t have to have work experience in order to have strengths.

If you’re stuck on what some of your strengths are, then go ahead and ask some friends and family members. Because we’re often blind to things about ourselves that are super obvious to others.

What is a weakness of yours?

Just like tell me about yourself, this is a pretty popular interview question. Stay away from the cliché answers. Being “a perfectionist” doesn’t cut it. You want to be honest with your answer, but you also want to pick a weakness that doesn’t directly tie to the role that you’re applying for.

So don’t say that you struggle with using computers if you’re applying for an admin role. That’s like shooting yourself in the foot. Your job here is to name a weakness, and give the recruiter a little context to show what you’ve learned from it and what you’re working to improve.

What do you like to do in your spare time?

This isn’t a trick question. If you get asked this question, they’re just trying to get to know you a little bit better. Remember, they’re trying to see if you are a good fit for the company and for their team. Just be yourself and try to keep your answer appropriate.

How do you stay organized?

This one shouldn’t be difficult to answer. You’re a student who has to manage your time well in order to stay on top of your courses, and your extracurriculars, and maybe even a part-time job, and of course your social life. So give them a specific example of how you do this.

Do you have a daily to-do list that keeps you straight? Do you use a diary? Describe how you utilize different tools to stay on top of all the things, and by doing this you’re going to show them that you’re able to handle multiple tasks and project deadlines in an internship environment with them.

How do you react to pressure or stressful situations?

The goal here is to show that you’re able to handle stress in a mature way. They want to know that you can work under the pressure of a deadline, or maybe the stress caused by a difficult colleague, without unraveling on them.

They need to know an example of how you handled a difficult situation in the past. So use examples from school, volunteer work, or a part-time job and show them how you handled yourself in a positive way.

How would you describe your learning or work style?

What they’re really looking for here is how well you work with others, and can you be productive with little or no direction. Are you a self-starter? Both are important to any workplace environment.

Now it’s okay to favor one work style over the other, everyone does. You either work better as part of a team or maybe you’re better working on your own. Follow up your answer with positive examples of how you’ve worked well in both scenarios. Show them that you can do well in both.

What are your career goals? or Where do you hope to be in five years?

Now obviously it’s hard to predict the future, but this is a great opportunity for you to reiterate what drew you to the company in the first place. So talk about the career path that you’re interested in. Or maybe it’s even less specific than that, maybe for you, it’s the industry that you’re interested in and part of what you hope to learn in your internship experience. So for you, it’s more about this industry and what specific industry segments or roles you are best suited for.

The important thing though, with answering this question, is to show that you’re taking your future seriously and let them know that an internship with their company would be a really exciting step in the right direction for you.

Give me an example of an accomplishment that you’re most proud of, and why?

So this can be anything. It does not have to be work-related. If you do have an accomplishment that’s relevant to the company or position you’re interviewing for, you should definitely use that though.

But if you don’t, there are other things that you can say. For example, do you have a story to tell about how you got accepted into your school?

Or maybe that you raised money for a volunteer effort? That’s another kind of accomplishment. No matter what type, think about how you can use it to tell a story. Remember, stories help them remember you.

What is a challenge that you’ve encountered, or a criticism that you’ve received, and what did you do to overcome it?

I recommend keeping this answer professional, and not personal. No one needs to know about your personal issues. That could lose the interview for you altogether. Instead, come up with an example from a part-time job or a class assignment, and then highlight how you were able to problem-solve to get through that challenge.

The biggest piece of this question that the interviewer’s trying to uncover, is how did you overcome it? What actions did you take to resolve it? Focus on providing them with that in your answer.

What relevant experience do you have? or Why should we pick you?

Don’t make it all about you. Because it’s not. Remember, they are looking for someone who can help their business. Turn it back to the company and what you know about their needs. This you will find from the job description and the research that you’ve done on the company. Tie your experience back to how you can help solve their needs.

Put the company and their needs first and make it less about you. And again, don’t stress if you’re a student and you don’t have that much work experience yet. Just think about choosing specific examples from your academic experience.

Just remember to focus on the company, and how you can help solve their problem.

Tell me about a time that you showed initiative or leadership.

This one is pretty straightforward. Sit down and write out examples that come to mind of times where you’ve shown initiative or leadership. And then focus on building a story around your best example that will be most relevant to the role. What they really want to see here is that you’re assertive and able to take action.

That’s it! In this article we gave you 12 example internship interview questions and answers. Good luck with your interviews. If this article gave you some new insights, please share it with a friend or two. If you’re new here don’t forget to subscribe to our newsletter.