Here you need to keep your answer interesting and personable, giving a brief overview of your career history to date, why you chose your chosen career path, cover your academic background and wrap up with perhaps any professional / personal achievements. Your answer should be no longer than 3-4 minutes, and remember you want to set the scene and highlight initially your transferable skills to be elaborated at a later stage when talking through your C.V.

Describe yourself – remember you need to sell your technical skills and also you as a person, team member: Are you hard working, upbeat, enjoy being kept busy and challenged, objective, natural team lead/team player, how effective are you at upward and downward management. Team Fit is very important as is the ability to stay calm under pressure, especially if working in a very busy, demanding environment such as in the funds industry.

This is a great question. It gives you a chance to highlight your best points as they relate to the position being discussed. This is your golden opportunity to finish off the interview in a positive enthusiastic way, drawing from all your previous answers your need to sum up how you feel you are best suited for this position and what you can bring to this team. E.g: client focus, ability to resolve problems, objectivity, resilience, technical skills, market knowledge, number of years’ experience – Be sure to have three of four well-prepared points and examples.

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. Also this is your chance to highlight how you have progressed naturally in your career, for example from TA Administrator to Senior TA Administrator, TA Supervisor, TA Manager etc. and how you got there.

Think of genuine examples, be it project work outside of your roles to date, gaining added responsibility, pressurised time frames to work within, difficult goals etc. Prepare past and present examples to back up your views .

Say something about your interest and how it can help you on the job you are applying for. Like football can teach you team work, or baking can teach you accuracy. If you are applying for a job that requires you to be fit, you may mention physical activities that you do like swimming or any other sport. This is also a good opportunity to let your personality show, remember people buy into people!

Point out how your assets meet what the organisation needs. Do not mention any other candidates to make a comparison. Are you willing to put the interests of the organisation 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.

What makes you stand out from the other applicants? Portray your USP (unique selling points) in a clear concise manner. Put a bit of thought into this as we all have great experience and skills.

Talk about your positive as well as negative qualities. You must justify each of your qualities with an example and say how these qualities have let you grow in your professional life. When you are talking about your negative points say that since humans are not perfect you are also not perfect. Focus on how you have learned from your mistakes and how you tend to overcome situations with your negative qualities.

Think of a genuine one and always finish up with how you have overcome it / and are tackling it– if you genuinely feel you do not have a weakness, perhaps explain key arrears you feel you have greatly improved in throughout your career. Always turn a question like this around and focus on the positive, as opposed to the negative effect. 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.