1What are your strengths?
What they're really asking
The interviewer wants a straightforward answer about what you are good at and how it is going to add value for them. They are also checking whether your strengths match what the role actually needs.
How to approach it
You will certainly be asked this, so there is no excuse for being unprepared. Choose three strengths that matter for this specific role, back each one with a brief, concrete example and say how it would benefit this employer. At senior level, strengths such as building teams, making sound calls with incomplete information or turning strategy into execution carry more weight than 'hard-working' or 'quick learner'.
Example answer (203 words)
I'd say three things, and I'll keep them tied to what I think you need.
The first is building operations that scale. I'm COO of a payments business headquartered in Nairobi, and when I joined we were processing about 4 million transactions a month in two countries. We're now at 31 million across seven, and our cost per transaction has fallen by more than half. That came from standardising how we launch a new market, so country eight takes twelve weeks, not nine months.
The second is hiring. I've built a leadership team of nine, and seven of them are still with me after three years. I'm careful at the start, I take references myself, and I act quickly when a hire isn't working.
The third is that I stay calm when things break, and in payments they do. We had a major outage with a mobile money partner last year. I ran the incident personally for 30 hours, kept our largest merchants updated every two hours, and we didn't lose a single one of them.
For you, I think the first one matters most. You're planning to enter four new markets in eighteen months, and that's exactly the playbook I've been running.
Common mistakes
- Listing adjectives with no evidence behind them
- Choosing strengths that are irrelevant to the role on offer
- Naming so many that nothing sticks
2What are your greatest weaknesses?
What they're really asking
The interviewer is asking about your self-perception and self-awareness. They want a real weakness, evidence that you understand its effect on others, and proof that you are doing something about it.
How to approach it
Do not say you have none, and avoid fake weaknesses that are really strengths. Either use a professional gap, such as a lack of experience (not ability) in an area that is not vital for the job, or a genuine personal weakness with the steps you have taken to combat it. Struggling to delegate is a fair example, but make it specific: say how it showed up, what it cost and what has changed since.
Example answer (207 words)
The honest one is that I've been slow to let go of the external relationships. I'm Group Finance Director of a mid-sized manufacturer in Manchester, and I built our relationships with the banks and our two main shareholders myself, over about six years. They trusted me, and I liked being the person they called.
The problem was that it made me a bottleneck, and it held back my deputy. During our refinancing two years ago I was on every lender call, and I was the only person who could answer certain questions. When I was away for two weeks, things stalled. My deputy told me at her review, fairly directly, that she'd never once been put in front of a lender on her own, and she was right.
So I changed it deliberately. She now leads the quarterly lender updates and I join one in three. She owns our relationship with the smaller of the two shareholders completely. I also agreed with the CEO that I'd be measured on it, so it was in my objectives last year.
It's still not my instinct, and I have to remind myself. But she ran our covenant reset in March without me in the room, and it went very well.
Common mistakes
- Offering a disguised strength such as working too hard
- Naming a weakness that goes to the heart of the role
- Describing the weakness with no evidence of change
3What five personal characteristics describe you best?
What they're really asking
This shows which personal characteristics you value most and which you use to describe yourself. The interviewer uses it to judge how you would fit into their company and whether you would be happy in the position.
How to approach it
Pick five that are true and that people who work with you would recognise, then give a brief illustration for at least two or three of them. Include one that is not obviously flattering, because it makes the rest more credible. Avoid lists of generic virtues that every candidate claims.
Example answer (200 words)
Okay. Direct, curious, steady, stubborn and loyal. Let me put a bit behind a few of those.
Direct, because in a risk role there's no value in softening a message until nobody hears it. I'm Chief Risk Officer at a mid-sized lender in Frankfurt, and when our commercial property book started looking stretched in 2023, I took a paper to the board recommending we cut new lending in that area by a third. It wasn't popular, but we've had far fewer problem loans than our peers since.
Curious, because I like understanding how the business actually makes money before I tell it what not to do. I spent my first two months sitting with the lending teams rather than reading policies.
Steady. I think my team would say that. I don't get rattled when the regulator calls.
Stubborn is the less flattering one. Once I've formed a view, I can hold on to it longer than I should. So I've learned to ask someone I trust to argue the other side before I commit.
And loyal. I've had the same core team for six years, and two of them moved with me from my previous firm. People tend to stay.
Common mistakes
- Listing words every candidate uses with nothing to back them up
- Giving five words that all describe the same trait
- Picking traits that clash with the culture you have just been told about
4What is one assumption people make about you that is wrong?
What they're really asking
This tests whether you have a high degree of self-awareness. It is a strong indicator of emotional intelligence: do you really know how you affect the people around you?
How to approach it
Pick a real first impression and explain where it comes from, which shows you understand your own effect on people. Then show what is actually true, with evidence, and what you now do to close the gap early. Avoid assumptions that are secretly compliments.
Example answer (212 words)
People often assume I'm cautious, possibly too cautious to back anything new. I think it comes from how I behave in investment committee. I'm quiet, I ask a lot of questions about the downside and I rarely speak first. I'm Head of Investments for a real estate fund manager in Riyadh, and a couple of developers have told me they assumed I'd be the one blocking their deal.
Actually, I've backed some of the less obvious calls we've made. In 2022 I pushed for us to go into purpose-built student housing, which nobody in our market was doing at institutional scale. We committed SAR 450 million across three assets, and they're now running at 96 per cent occupancy and ahead of our target return.
What I've realised is that the quietness costs me something. People don't bring me early ideas because they think I'll shut them down. So I've changed two things. I now tell a sponsor at the first meeting what would make me say yes, not just what worries me. And I hold an open session every month where the team pitches half-formed ideas, with a rule that nobody kills anything in the room.
It's made a real difference. Most of our pipeline this year came out of those sessions.
Common mistakes
- Choosing a flattering assumption, such as being too modest
- Explaining the gap without saying what you do about it
- Blaming other people for misreading you
5What is the one mistake you have made in your career that you wish you could go back and change?
What they're really asking
The interviewer wants proof that you can own a real error, understand why it happened and show what changed afterwards. Every leader has made a mistake, so being unable to name one is a warning sign.
How to approach it
Choose a real mistake with real consequences, not a minor slip. Take ownership without excessive self-criticism, explain what you would do differently and how it has changed your behaviour since. If you cannot think of a specific story, keep looking before the interview: every leader has one.
Example answer (208 words)
The one I'd change is a hire. About five years ago, as Commercial Director of an agricultural inputs business in São Paulo, I hired a head of sales for our northern region from a competitor. He had the relationships, he had the numbers, and I was under pressure to fill the role quickly because we'd just lost two big distributors.
I knew from references that he had a reputation for being hard on his teams. I told myself the results justified it and that I'd manage it. I didn't. Within a year we'd lost six of his nine people, including two I'd personally developed, and the region's sales actually went down because nobody was left to service the accounts he'd won.
I let him go after fourteen months, which was about eight months too late. Rebuilding that team cost us the best part of two years in that region.
What I learned was twofold. I now treat a pattern in references as a fact, not a risk to be managed. And I don't let urgency override the process. If a senior role takes four months to fill properly, I cover it myself in the meantime. Since then I've made eleven senior hires, and ten are still with us.
Common mistakes
- Picking a trivial error to avoid any real exposure
- Blaming circumstances or other people for the outcome
- Failing to say what you now do differently
6What would your previous employers say about you, and what would they consider your weaknesses?
What they're really asking
The interviewer is cross-checking your self-awareness against what your references will say. They want an honest, balanced view, including the criticisms you have actually received.
How to approach it
Answer as if your former boss were in the room, because at senior level they will often be called. Give two or three strengths they would name, then one genuine criticism you have heard from them directly, ideally in a review, and what you have done about it. Make sure it is consistent with your answer on weaknesses.
Example answer (208 words)
My last CEO would say I was the person he called when something had gone wrong with people. I was HR Director for a hospitality group in Dubai, about 9,000 staff across 22 properties, and I led us through the 2020 closures, which meant temporary layoffs for a third of the workforce, and then the rehiring. He'd say I handled that with care and without any legal fallout.
He'd also say I built a proper leadership pipeline. When I arrived, almost every general manager was hired externally. By the time I left, 70 per cent of GM appointments were internal.
On weaknesses, he told me this directly in my last review: I could be too slow to bring him bad news while I was still working on a fix. There was one case, a dispute with a contractor supplying staff to two of our hotels, where he heard about it from one of the hotel owners before he heard it from me. That was fair criticism, and it was embarrassing for him.
Since then I've had a simple rule. If something might reach my CEO from outside within 48 hours, he hears it from me first, even if all I can say is that I'm working on it.
Common mistakes
- Giving only praise, which no reference will match
- Offering a weakness that contradicts what referees will say
- Criticising the former employer instead of answering
Practise on your own CV
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