Job interview tips for Switzerland: common interview questions and format

An advert is not a wish list. It is a preview. Whatever appears in it three times is in the interviewer's head when they ask.

Two occupations, two completely different conversations. For sales roles, 81% of adverts name customer contact and 63% name German — so you will almost certainly be asked to describe a difficult customer, in German. For electricians, 30% name leadership and 13% a driving licence. That conversation is about site responsibility and getting around, not about customers. Recommending the same preparation for both would be nonsense.

What I tell people is unglamorous and it works: print the advert, mark every requirement, write a situation from your own record next to each one. Not a quality — a situation. Something that happened.

The side effect is the real prize. Prepared that way, you also answer the questions you did not see coming, because you talk about your work in examples rather than adjectives. Everyone says "resilient". Only someone who lived it says "we were two people instead of four for three weeks, and here is how we split it".

The usual shape: greeting, your self-presentation in three to five minutes, questions about your background, questions about the role, your own questions, then the practical part — availability, notice period, and for non-EU applicants the permit situation. Money usually waits for the second round.

In an SME you often sit across from the owner or managing director. It is more technical, shorter, and the decision sometimes lands the same day. In larger companies HR runs a structured first interview, frequently with identical questions for every candidate so the answers stay comparable. That is why some interviews feel like a form: they are one. Do not take it personally.

What rarely happens here and surprises people from abroad: stress questions, trick questions, power games. Swiss interviews are almost always factual and polite — including the ones that end in a rejection. I find that pleasant. It also makes preparation less dramatic than the internet suggests.

"Tell me about yourself." Not a biography. They want to hear how you tell your career towards this role — two or three minutes, from the relevant to the current, plus one sentence on why you are sitting there. Starting at school means you missed the question.

"Why this role?" tests whether you read the advert. An answer that would fit any company is the worst possible one. Two concrete points from the advert, tied to something you have done. Done.

"Strengths and weaknesses" — more on that below, because most guides advise badly here.

"Where do you see yourself in five years?" tests whether you will stay. Changing roles every three to five years is completely normal in Switzerland, so nobody needs a five-year vision. An answer describing growth inside this company beats an ambitious number.

The question does not test the weakness. It tests whether you can assess yourself and whether you work on things. Naming a disguised strength is not an answer — and any recruiter with a few years behind them spots it instantly, because they have heard it a hundred times.

What works has three parts: a real weakness that does not make this job impossible, a situation where it got in your way, and what you do differently now. Roughly: "I asked for help too late for a long time. On one project that cost me two weeks. Now I set a point at which I flag it if something is not moving."

The expensive mistake is naming a weakness that hits the core requirement. If 81% of sales adverts demand customer contact, "I am not that keen on direct customer contact" is not refreshing honesty, it is the end of the interview. Being honest does not mean removing yourself from the race.

Banking, insurance, consulting, law: suit, muted colours. Here underdressing is a signal and overdressing never is.

Industry, trades, construction, healthcare: neat and practical, shirt or blouse, no tie required. Turning up to a site interview in a suit reads as though you misunderstood the job.

Tech, startups, agencies: noticeably casual, and a suit stands out badly. My rule of thumb when unsure: one step more formal than the company's team photos.

For a video interview the same applies from the waist up. Two things go wrong more often than the clothes: light behind you instead of in front, and a background that tells its own story.

The rule is simpler than people expect: a question is permitted if it relates to the work. Family planning, pregnancy, relationship status, religion, political affiliation and health questions unconnected to the role do not. Faced with an impermissible question you are entitled to answer untruthfully with no consequence — that is not a grey area, it is the point of the rule.

None of which helps much when it lands unexpectedly. What helps is a prepared bridge back to the job: "I think what you are getting at is availability — I can start on 1 November, full time." You have not lied, you have given away nothing private, and you have answered the question that was actually behind it.

Honestly, it is rarely malicious. More often it is somebody without HR training who has a worry and phrases it badly, which is why the bridge works better than the correction. If it keeps coming back after you have deflected once, that is information about the employer — and worth taking seriously.

The misunderstanding that costs the most nerves: candidates count in days, companies count in diaries. What sits between two rounds is often nothing more dramatic than one manager's holiday. Concluding after ten days of silence that it is decided is usually wrong.

The opposite is also true and gets discussed less: rejections frequently never arrive. Not out of rudeness — processes simply go quiet once someone else has signed. A process that has gone two weeks past the date they named, after one polite follow-up, can be written off internally. That is not giving up, it is capacity planning.

In practice: never run one process at a time. There are over three thousand companies with open roles on this platform right now, and someone holding three live conversations negotiates differently — calmer, more concretely, and able to name a deadline rather than receive one.

Two or three sentences: thank them, pick up one concrete point from the conversation, confirm your interest. The concrete point is the part that works — it shows you listened, and it gives you room to add something you did not land well in the room.

If nothing arrives after the date they gave you, one polite follow-up is fine. After that, stop. Swiss processes often run longer than announced, usually because of holidays and diaries rather than a decision against you. That is hard to sit with, I know.

And a rejection is no reason to end the contact. There are over three thousand companies with open roles on this platform right now. The odds that the same one is hiring again next year are good — and then somebody there already knows you.