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Typical interview questions

18 questions · 18 pages

• What questions are asked in a Swiss job interview?The questions follow the qualities named in the advert. In Swiss adverts those are above all flexibility, willingness to learn and working independently — with shares from our ongoing analysis and a prepared example for each.
• How do I answer the salary question in a Swiss interview?Give an annual gross figure for a 100% workload. Why Swiss adverts print no number, how to build yours from federal wage data, what a 13th month salary legally is, and four scripts for the four moments the question lands.
• Which interview questions are illegal in Switzerland?Swiss law has no list of banned interview questions — it has one sentence in Art. 328b CO. What it means for pregnancy, origin, religion, convictions, debts and health, why your consent cannot widen it, and how rarely an advert supplies the anchor a sensitive question would need.
• How do I handle an unfair question in a Swiss job interview?Unfair and unlawful are not the same thing. How to sort a question in the two seconds you have, how to translate an intrusive question back into the job requirement it is aiming at, and how rarely a Swiss advert names a hard condition that would justify the question in the first place.
• What motivates you at work?What a Swiss employer is testing with the motivation question, which word Swiss job adverts use for it, and how an evidenced answer is built. Counted from the open adverts in our own Swiss index.
• What are your strengths — and how do I back them up?A Swiss cantonal HR manual tells hiring managers not to ask about strengths at all — it tells them to ask which tasks you did well. What that changes about your answer, which adjectives in the advert are not even about you, and what counts as proof here.
• How do you work in a team? Examples that convinceWhat a Swiss employer is really testing with the teamwork question, how a convincing answer is built, and one worked example — with figures counted from live Swiss job adverts.
• Tell me about yourself — what does the employer actually want to hear?Not your life story — the half of your profile no document can prove. 54.2% of English-language Swiss adverts name at least one such quality, and 63.4% of French ones. With the four-move structure, a worked example and the mistake that costs the minute.
• What do you know about our company?In Switzerland this question tests preparation, not enthusiasm — and it is harder than it sounds: 87.3 per cent of the employers advertising in English in our index have a company name that says neither what they do nor where they are. What the federal register publishes about every Swiss company, the one field it deliberately withholds, and the answer in three sentences and a question.
• Why do you want to leave your current job?What a Swiss employer measures with this question, which reasons you can actually anchor in the advert, and a three-part answer with a worked example — with figures from open Swiss postings.
• What was your biggest professional success?Pick the defensible success, not the biggest one. Why three quarters of German-, French- and Italian-language Swiss adverts name no result at all, what the Confederation as an employer counts as performance, and the four-move answer with a worked example.
• How do you handle conflict at work?Swiss employers are listening for an order of steps, not a temperament: direct first, then the line manager. With the federal SME portal’s house rule, counts from live Swiss job adverts and a worked answer.
• How do you take criticism?What a Swiss employer is actually testing with the criticism question, why disagreeing is part of the expected answer here, and a worked example — with counts from Swiss job adverts.
• Tell us about a failure — the question behind the questionIt is a calibration, not a confession: the employer is working out what you can be relied on to handle. With the three-part answer — decision, report, consequence — a count of what Swiss job adverts actually name as entrusted to you, and the article of the Code of Obligations that makes exactly this knowledge the yardstick. As of 5 September 2026.
• How do you handle stress and pressure?What a Swiss employer is really testing with the stress question, the line Swiss labour law draws between an exceptional peak and a normal workload increase, and how to answer with a mechanism instead of an adjective.
• Do you have other applications running?Why Swiss employers ask about your other applications, what belongs in the answer and what does not — with the statutory wording on notice periods, job-search duties and recruitment agencies. As at 5 September 2026.
• When could you start?Why Swiss employers ask for your start date, how to work the date out from your notice period, and the point at which it becomes binding — with the statutory wording from the Code of Obligations and a count of our own adverts. As at 5 September 2026.
• What do you do in your free time — and why does HR ask?No Swiss job advert asks this question — where the words free time appear at all, the employer is talking about itself. Why it still comes up in the room, which part of your private life the law actually makes your employer's business, and a worked answer.