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Job Interviews: Top Answers to Tough Questions Paperback – 16 July 2012

4.2 out of 5 stars 75

There is a newer edition of this item:

Knockout Interview
£11.03
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In stock
"I would recommend this book for anyone who is anxious about interviews or who wants to improve their interview performance."
Phoenix, May 2012

"In a tough market with strong competition for just a handful of roles, you need to be the best on the day. Only careful preparation and ensuring you match everything you say and do to the specific role, employer and eveninterviewer, will position you as a serious contender for the role. John once again combines a proven, thorough approach with practical tips that will equip you with the skills, examples and confidence required to achieve interview success."
Isabel Chadwick, Managing Director, Career Management Consultants Ltd

"John's book is a great asset to anyone who fears the interview process. Aswell as some very practical and useful exercises, designed to help capturepowerful information and to get you thinking, he gives a fascinating insightinto the psychological processes, making it much easier to understandand put yourself into the shoes of the interviewer. John's style is veryaccessible, demonstrating his years of experience and translating it intoan easy-to-read collection of hints, tips and guidance. I suspect a lot ofinterviewers will also want to use this book to help them raise their game!"
Kerwin Hack, Consultant Director, Fairplace Cedar

"This book is an extremely comprehensive guide on how to succeed in jobinterviews. John takes you 'backstage' into the mind of the interviewers soyou can understand what they are thinking and what they really want toknow when asking a range different of questions. Getting a job interviewinto today's difficult employment market is a privilege. This manual willhelp you to be much better prepared so that your next job interviewbecomes a positive opportunity to show what you can really offer, not anordeal to be feared. He covers everything from warm up questions to thetricky issue of salary."
Simon Broomer, Managing Director, CareerBalance

"John Lees is the career professional's professional; the doyen of careersexperts. His books and advice have helped countless numbers of peopleto enjoy better, more fulfilling careers. This book is an essential read foranyone who is about to attend a job interview."
Dr Harry Freedman, Career and Business Strategist,Hanover Executive

"John gives consistently good, pragmatic advice and provides suggestionsto help people make the most of themselves and the opportunities theyget. Easy to read, relevant and straightforward, the book offers so muchmore than standard self-help books - it provides practical steps to getreaders started and give them confidence to take ownership of theircareers. A great resource to ensure a head start in a competitive market."
Denise Nesbitt, Senior Change Delivery Manager,Talent & Development, Lloyds Banking Group

"John Lees' writing offers insight and knowledge which allows you tothink in new ways and achieve changes you didn't think possible. In thesedifficult and challenging times, his books help you achieve your nextcareer step."
Laura Roberts, Chief Executive, NHS Manchester

Why are you on the market right now?
If our
roles were reversed, what questions would you ask?
Sell me this stapler!

Tough questions like these can unnerve even the most confident jobseeker, proving that it's not always the best candidate who gets the job, it's the best interviewee.

Whether a first-time jobseeker, career-changer, or returning after a break, Job Interviews: Top Answers to Tough Questions is your indispensable toolkit. Now thoroughly revised and updated to reflect today's demanding job market, featuring:

  • 225 of the most common interview questions
  • A 'fast-track' preparation option if your interview is TOMORROW!
  • More sample answers to challenging questions
  • Insights into the employer mindset when vacancies are thin on the ground

    "This book is invaluable. Follow the guidelines and your chances improvebeyond measure. You will be sharp, focused, and not only make the mostof your own abilities, but also have a clear understanding of what youneed to offer to employers. This moves you from the 'me' agenda to the 'we' agenda."
    Stuart Walkley, Director, Oakridge Training and Consulting

    "As a careers adviser, I often find that clients know that preparation is the key to a successful interview but are unsure where to start. John Lees deals with this clearly and comprehensively. This book is based on real evidence gained from employers and this new edition has been comprehensively updated. I would recommend the book for anyone who is anxious about interviews and to people applying for any level of job, regardless of how much interview experience they may have."
    David Levinson, Careers Adviser, The University of Edinburgh

Product description

About the Author

John Lees has been involved in the training and developing of recruitment specialists since the mid 1980s, from both public and private sectors. He undertook an advisory role to the RN careers service, and has provided help for Army personnel beginning civilian careers. He was Chief Executive of the Institute of Employment Consultants (IEC) until 1993 when he left to become a Director of TGA, an employment research and careers advisory company. In 1999 he decided to go it alone and now runs his own human resources consultancy, specialising in career management and developing new tools to help with difficult career change decisions. John writes and speaks widely, and amongst his regular commitments acts as an online careers guru for lifebyte.com. John is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Personnel & Development (FCIPD) and Fellow of the Recruitment & Employment Confederation (FREC).

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ McGraw-Hill Education / Europe, Middle East & Africa; 3rd edition (16 July 2012)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 264 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0077141601
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0077141608
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 15.19 x 1.57 x 22.91 cm
  • Customer reviews:
    4.2 out of 5 stars 75

About the author

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John Lees
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John Lees is one of the UK's best known career strategists. John specialises in helping people make difficult decisions - difficult because they don't know what to do next, or because there are barriers in the way of change.

He is based in the UK but has delivered workshops in the USA, South Africa, Mauritius, Switzerland, Australia and New Zealand and is a presenter at business conferences and consumer events. He has also featured as a speaker at the world's largest international career conferences in the USA. His books have been translated into Arabic, Georgian, Polish, Spanish and Japanese.

Alongside his day job, John serves as an ordained minister in the Diocese of Exeter where he is Bishop's Officer for Self Supporting Ministry. He is also National Officer for Self Supporting Ordained Ministry.

John is the creator and moderator of the Career Coach Forum, an international LinkedIn group for career professionals with over 10,600 members.

John has written a weekly careers column for 'Metro' and thought leadership pieces for 'The Times' and 'The Guardian'. He appears regularly in the national press with features in a wide range of titles including 'Management Today', 'Cosmopolitan', and 'Psychologies' His coaching work has been profiled in 'Coaching at Work' and 'The Sunday Times'. TV appearances include the BBC interactive ‘Back to Work’ programme, BBC 2’s ‘Working Lunch’, Channel 4’s ‘Dispatches’, and ITV’s ‘Tonight – How To Get A Job’). He is a regular blog contributor to Harvard Business Review online and in 2012 wrote the introduction to the 'HBR Guide to Getting the Right Job'.

'How To Get A Job You Love' regularly lists as the best-selling careers book by a British author, and previously a WHSmith Business Book of the Month. John is the author of a range of career titles including 'Get Ahead in Your New Job' from McGraw-Hill. Other business titles include 'Secrets of Resilient People' (Hodder & Stoughton), and 'The Success Code' (John Murray Learning, 2016).

John is a graduate of the universities of Cambridge, London and Liverpool, and has spent most of his career focusing on the world of work. He is the former Chief Executive of the Institute of Employment Consultants (now the IRP). He has worked with a wide range of organisations on career management issues including: British Gas Commercial, The British Council, CIPD, Endsleigh, Fairplace, Hiscox, The House of Commons, ICAEW, Imperial College, The Association of MBAs, Lloyds Banking Group, Marks & Spencer, NAPP Pharmaceutical, Oakridge, Tribal, and business schools across the UK. John is an Honorary Fellow of the Institute of Recruitment Professionals, a NICEC Fellow, and was a founding Board Director of the Career Development Institute.

Customer reviews

4.2 out of 5 stars
4.2 out of 5
75 global ratings
Sexist, poor grammer, poor layout and incorrect spelling.
1 Star
Sexist, poor grammer, poor layout and incorrect spelling.
John Lees is an ordained Anglican Priest. He is Associate clergy in Cheshire and also serves as Assistant Diocesan Director of Ordinands.John has a brilliant CV himself.I am stunned that a Priest from the Church of England has taken this task and position on job hunting as I myself were critized by an Anglican Priest for being too greedy when working for my bread and butter and not scrounging like the rest of Benefit Britain on State handouts.Funny that only this one Priest got around to the Biblical Truth of the virtues of work. John should teach other Priests the virtues of working for a living.This book was heavily based on Matthew DeLuca's book "Best Answers to the 201 most frequently asked Interview Questions".I value originality. A book based on another Authors work, even when adapted and recognized, does not carry the same weight as an authentically written book.On page 82 there is a spelling error. In stead of "learned", it is printed "what you LEANED from them".On page 102 the word "not" is repeated twice.On page 180 question 134 is answered by: "I had to break the news not only that was she leaving but that she would not be replaced."In stead of " ...she was leaving..."On page 98 a model answer is quoted in italics as "I've only had difficulties with one manager, and they were minor ones. Essentially SHE wasn't too good at delegating..."Again question 41,43,134 and 136 are sexist, expressing John's personal opinion that woman should not be in the highest position in an organisation and that men should not be their subordinates but only their Managers. Many examples portray woman as the unreliable, inefficient and problematic workers in an organisation.I would love to read a book written for men on how to deal with female colleagues at work, both juniors and those in Senior positions as the lack of respect is infuriating.In the UK the law prohibit discrimination based on gender.On page 117 John contradicts himself by first stating a model answer as: "I've learned what I can in the role." with: " I've learned all there is to know about the job." (In the last paragraph regarding how to answer the question "Why do you want to leave your present job?".)The layout of the book could have been more conveniant for readers. Eg., on page 240 the Job Offer Checklist should all be on one page rather than having it cut in two over two pages so that readers can photocopy that section and fill it out in one page as a preparatory excersise.A lot of repetition.
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Top reviews from United Kingdom

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 13 December 2014
This is a brilliant book! It explains how you should approach a job interview and how to answer questions without saying too much or too little. I bought this book after a series of failed job interviews which left me pondering what was I doing wrong? I had all my answers drafted long ago, but after reading this book I redrafted them all. And guess what? - I got the first job I applied for! Even if you get a question which is not included in the book (which happened to me), you will know how to come up with an acceptable answer on the spot. Highly recommend!
4 people found this helpful
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Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 6 January 2017
Good Stuff: The downloadable worksheets are worth the cost of the book on their own and really help to get the creative thought juices flowing, which is really what you need to be achieving

Not so Good: Too much padding, and no matter how thorough any author is with this type of book, they will never provide the answer to the key question(s) you will undoubtably be asked, and website worksheet links not where they should be

I bought this book in November 2016 on the lead up to changing job. With more and more interviews now relying on competency and experience questioning, I wanted to be as ready as possible to provide good answers to likely tough questions.

I had already been through a couple of tough interviews and not been successful, so this book along with John Lees' two other related books on this subject 
The Interview Expert: How to Get the Job You Want  and  The One Page CV: Create your own high impact CV. Clever, clear, and comprehensive. Get noticed and beat the competition.  were I hoped, going to get me over the line next time round (which as it happens, they did!).

As I've already highlighted above, there are many of this type of book around and it's just not possible for the author to provide the answers to the specific questions you think you will need, or indeed will most likely be asked, so it's important to use this book as a guide on how to pull out key points in your work and/or life history that may be relevant to the job you are trying to land. Rather than try to give specific answers to questions you may be searching for, the author gives an example of a question and then provides not only an answer, but the logic behind the interviewer asking that question in the first place. Understanding this, is key to help you develop good answers to the questions not contained within the book.

Overall this is a very interesting read, especially if you take the time to use the worksheets located on John Lees' website (though the link may not be completely accurate). I would recommend anyone looking to change job, to read and work through this book. After all, it worked for me, so I hope it will for you.
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 31 July 2017
We run a Job Club and use this book all the time. It's been an enormous help to many people in preparing for interviews. We use this book to do mock interviews and people borrow it to help prepare for their interview. Packed full of all the questions you are likely to be asked and good sensible suggested answers.
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 22 March 2016
Too vague not that much useful at all
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 11 February 2018
This book has supported me to prepare every single interview I have gone through. Together with 'Knock out CV' the best HR-related books I have ever read.
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 26 August 2013
It's a very good book. It gives you guidance on how to answer most interview questions. It would be better if it gave more detailed examples for some answers.
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 5 March 2018
This helped me prep for my interviews. Was so much more confident. Had all my answers to every and any question ready. Got the job.
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 23 March 2014
really useful book, some examples of answers are a bit off though, i have bought you're hired as well as this one and together they're perfect.

Top reviews from other countries

Cliente Amazon
5.0 out of 5 stars Very Useful
Reviewed in Spain on 20 November 2015
Great book, it helps me to prepare the interview really good, and you can find a lot of examples for use in a interview.
Bobbie
5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent Book!
Reviewed in the United States on 21 September 2012
Even though this book came from England and some of the phrasings are slightly different, this is an excellent job interview book. The questions are explained and then answered. It's a great resource.
ReadWithJoy
2.0 out of 5 stars Very disappointing
Reviewed in the United States on 16 April 2014
I wasn't very impressed with this book. Downloaded it on my Kindle because I had an interview coming up. I didn't find there to be much substance in the entire book. I could have just stuck with what I found on the internet for free and saved myself some money.