Interview questions and answers for Switzerland

Step 1: Collect the twelve questions your interview is likely to hold

Start from the advert, not from a universal list. Mark every quality and requirement it names — each one becomes a question in the room. "Independent way of working" in the text becomes "tell me about something you set up on your own"; "client contact" becomes a difficult-customer question. The advert is the most honest question list there is, because it describes what the job actually needs.

Then top up from the four families that SECO, the State Secretariat for Economic Affairs, lists on arbeit.swiss as the typical employer questions: your professional career so far including education and training, your abilities and personal qualities, your motivation for looking and for applying ("Why are you looking for work? Why this job? Why at this company?"), and your suitability and career goals ("Why should the company hire you?"). Two or three questions per family is enough — beyond about twelve you are preparing an exam, not a conversation.

Step 2: Write three keywords per question — never a script

The format of your sheet decides how you sound in the room. A written-out, memorised answer turns the interview into a recital, and it collapses the moment a follow-up question leaves your script. Three keywords force you to build the sentences in the moment, which is exactly why you sound natural.

The three keywords are always the same three kinds: the core of your answer in two or three words, one concrete example from your own work (project, situation, result), and the point where your answer touches this specific job. For "how do you work in a team", that might read: "not a lone fighter — reorganised handovers on project X — advert asks for interdisciplinary team". Three anchors like that become a one-minute answer in the room, slightly different every time you give it — which is what you want.

Step 3: Put numbers on the five Swiss fact questions

Five questions have a numeric answer, not a narrated one: salary expectation, workload, availability, permit, language level. Our count of the open adverts shows how rarely the advert answers them in advance: around one and a half per cent state a salary figure, around two per cent a start date, and about half a per cent mention the permit question at all. Whatever the advert leaves open will be asked to you — and a number you visibly search for in the room reads as unprepared.

Salary: fix one annual figure in CHF before the appointment, and know that many Swiss employers pay it in thirteen monthly instalments — the "13th month salary" is part of the annual sum, not a bonus, so quoting an annual number avoids every misunderstanding. Check your figure against the Confederation's national wage calculator or a professional association, which is also what SECO recommends. Workload is a Pensum stated in per cent ("eighty to one hundred"); availability is a date derived from your notice period; the permit is one plain sentence about your status — and if you are applying from abroad, say what that means in practice rather than leaving the recruiter to guess.

Language level: seven in ten adverts demand at least one language, but fewer than three per cent state the level as a CEFR code — the grading happens in the interview, done by you. Use the CEFR scale (B1, B2, C1) rather than "fluent", and set it honestly: the conversation itself is the live language test, and an overstated level fails within two minutes, while an honest "B2, used daily at work" holds.

Step 4: Write out the two uncomfortable questions in full

Every application carries one or two questions you would rather avoid: the gap in the CV, the dismissal, the weakness question. Those two are the only ones that earn full sentences on your sheet — not to recite, but so the wording is settled before your pulse rises.

The pattern is the same for all of them: one sentence of honest fact without a cascade of justification, one sentence pointing forward. "The role was cut in a restructuring; since March I have been applying specifically in maintenance, which is why I am here" is complete — adding more explanation makes it worse, not better. Swiss interviewers rarely dig when the short version is coherent; what makes a room nervous is evasion, not the fact itself.

Step 5: Note three questions of your own — and know which ones are off limits

"Do you have any questions?" is not a courtesy — it is where you prove interest. SECO's advice is to note these in advance: more about the role itself, the workplace and working conditions, what is expected in the first months, the team and the company's values. Three prepared questions are enough, and at least one should pick up something said earlier in the conversation, because that proves you listened.

Preparation also runs the other way: questions about pregnancy and family planning, religion, political views or health without a link to the job are not admissible in a Swiss interview. You do not need to argue law in the room — but knowing in advance which questions should not come makes you calmer if one does, and better at steering back to the job.

Step 6: Settle which language the interview will run in

This is the step most arrivals skip, and the numbers say why they should not: about a fifth of open Swiss adverts are written in English, but roughly a quarter of those English adverts also require German. The language of the advert does not reliably tell you the language of the interview — an English posting can lead to a largely German conversation, a German one to an English technical round, and about a fifth of all adverts demand two languages outright.

The fix costs one sentence: when you confirm the appointment, ask which language the interview will be held in and who will be in the room. If the answer includes a language you are weaker in, prepare your two or three core answers in that language too. And in German-speaking Switzerland, if you speak standard German but do not follow Swiss German dialect: saying so up front is completely normal and counts against nobody.

Step 7: Say the sheet out loud once — then cut

A sheet that was only read is half a preparation. Say every answer out loud once, against the clock: sixty to ninety seconds per answer is the target, and whatever runs over gets cut, not defended. Speaking aloud exposes the keywords that do not carry — on paper they all look fine.

Three ways to practise, and they are not interchangeable. A friend asks the questions and tells you honestly where you dodge — free and effective. A freely available language model with a voice mode questions you patiently, but knows neither your advert nor Swiss interview conventions. Our practice interview runs the conversation live by voice, asks questions built from your specific advert, and scores each answer individually — though it measures your answer against a rubric, not the mood of a real room, and for a highly specialised technical round a colleague from the field is the better sparring partner. For tightening structure and length in the final evening, the scored round is the fastest route.