There are some questions that we can almost guarantee you will be asked at a job interview. Therefore, it is a good idea to consider them in advance and think about how you would answer them.

It might be formulated a little differently, but chances are high that you will be asked something along these lines:

• Tell us about yourself
• What are your strengths and challenges?
• What do you expect from your manager?
• How would you describe yourself as a colleague?

Practise answering out loud – that way it is easier to feel if you stumble and then you know if you should practise a bit more. The better prepared you are, the more confident you seem.

Prepare a couple of questions to ask at the interview. The meeting is not an interrogation but a conversation that should lead to figuring out if you are the right match for what the company is looking for – and, if the company is what YOU are looking for.

The questions should reflect, that you have done your research on the company and preferably also questions that you are not able to find the answers to anywhere else.

Examples of such questions could be:

• What do the employees say is the best thing about this workplace?
• A year from now, what would it take for me to say that I have succeeded in this position?

Generally speaking, it is a good idea to pick up on what’s relevant. This means, that if you have noticed specific words that have been used more times, or if they mention something that you could not have known about beforehand, then ask about it.

Read more about questions

Usually, the process is as follows: You’ll receive a link to a questionnaire to fill out. It consists of questions that relate to your way of acting and thinking, and it may ask some questions about your attitudes and values to certain matters. Some of the questions might be very similar – and may be asked more than once – to make the profile as accurate as possible. Sometimes you’ll be asked to choose between two opposite poles in which you might agree with both or none of the answers.

This is all part of the way the typical personality profile is build.

Stay true to yourself when answering

The best advice we can give you is to make sure that you respond as honestly as possible and not as you think the recruiters would want you to respond.

It can be very tempting to try to respond in a way that will make you appear as someone who fits into what you have read and know about the company, but it will usually show in the completed profile if you have “cheated”.

For example, if you don't like giving presentations, it will be unsustainable for you to give presentations on a daily basis. It is therefore important to be honest so that you do not end up in a job where you do not enjoy it. You will find yourself being pushed out of your comfort zone from time to time in most jobs, but being permanently out of your comfort zone is not something anyone enjoys.

The most important thing is that you become aware of your own strengths and challenges, because then you can address them and create strategies to remedy situations where they could otherwise be problematic.

Keep in mind; the test cannot tell us anything about the cause for specific kinds of behaviour. It identifies certain superficial behaviour with the purpose of enhancing better collaboration, self-reflection and communication.

Our experience is that the vast majority of students recognise themselves in the profiles we present to them during our DiSC workshops. Chances are that you will recognise yourself in your profile as well. Therefore, many of the statements presented in the profile will not come as a shock either – which is a good thing. An important feature of the personality profiles is that they help remind you of how you act in given contexts – and they give you a language to talk about your behaviour in.

The terminology that a personality profile provides is a great tool to utilise in a dialogue about behaviour. A topic that is otherwise difficult to address, as it often becomes either very personal or very hard to define. 

All the concepts in the personality profiles are appreciative and approving; there are no rights or wrongs - nor are there any good or bad results. It’s all a matter of perspectives and own preferences.

The goal of the appreciative language is to show that people act differently, and all ways of acting are more or less appropriate in different situations or in collaboration with different people. It’s all a matter of preferences and understanding oneself in the given situations.

Sometimes, we experience students who can’t recognise themselves in the description of the personality profile. If this happens to you; don’t panic. It is a good thing because it means that the descriptions actually say something.

In those cases, we urge you to find out what parts of the profile that does not fit your self-image – and what you think would fit better. In other words, we encourage you to break down the profile and get cracking on the self-reflection process – and learn something from the profile.

• Relate to some of the questions that stood out to you. Was there anything where you thought you were really in doubt or where you really felt sure?
• If you have wondered about some of the questions, use it constructively; prepare yourself so that, when you talk about the profile, you will mention the parts you came to think about. In this way, you can show self-insight and reflection.
• Make sure to find a balance between being humble and showing what you can do - this is best done by attaching your "behavior" to examples. This makes your conversation both credible and relevant.

It is not only in connection with recruitment that personality profiles are used:

Personality profiles in a group context:

It is quite common to use profiles in connection with tasks to be solved in groups. It can be a good tool to find out where you can complement each other in the work.

Often the best tool for cooperation is an attention to one's own behavior. Because if everyone has it, you have a common attention that provides mutual understanding in a collaboration.

Moreover, there are no "person combinations" that are better or worse in a group context. It's all about knowing yourself and your strengths and limitations; and then it is very much about chemistry between the individuals in a group – something that a profile cannot show.

Personality profiles in individual task solving:

A personality profile can also be beneficial in connection with "optimisation" of individual task solving. In this connection, it can be a good tool for creating a dialogue about which types of tasks that suit you, and thus help with how tasks outside your "comfort zone" can be managed better, if necessary.

The assessment is never the first step in a recruitment process so to even be invited you need to do your homework.

These are some of the preceding steps:

• Research
• Cover letter
• CV
• Update your LinkedIn

Prepare yourself just as you would prepare for a job interview.

Get as much information as you can about the the day itself beforehand – that ensures the best preparation possible.

Other elements can also be part of the process.

These could be e.g.:

• Video application
• IQ test
• Personality profile
• Teamwork profile

Your personal preferences is the basis of your answers to the personality profile.

Logical thinking, on the other hand, is the focal point of the IQ test. Therefore, you must find some online examples of IQ tests to train your logical reasoning and just to get an idea of what to expect.

The assessment day itself often focuses on teamwork and working under pressure.

It is often a long and exhausting day. You will be observed and scrutinized during the day and that in itself creates a pressure – that is an undeniable circumstance of the day.

The observers (the recruiters and maybe some future colleagues) will look for both the specific skills required to solve the tasks they face, and also your “soft” skillset:

• How do you work with the other candidates?
• Which role do you take?
• How do you cope with pressure?

They will do that by giving you a task that creates a pressure and a need for collaboration and taking action. That task can be everything from dismantling an imaginary bomb to simulating a specific more realistic situation where choices have to be made.

The assessment day also often contains an “ordinary” job interview – ordinary in the sense that it is a dialogue about you, the job, your competencies, mutual expectations etc. like a separate job interview. For that, you should prepare as you would have if it wasn’t part of an assessment day.