Top 7 Toughest Interview Questions I've Ever Been Asked

Since I started grad school, I've been on more interviews than in high school and college combined, easily. First, I relocated from Auburn, Alabama to Boston, Massachusetts (where I didn't know anyone) and had to find a job to pay my rent and living expenses. Once I reached a point that resembled financial stability, I started applying for internships and career-path jobs, both full time and part time. Anything I thought I might be qualified for. I went on lots of interviews, and I'm still working on that career-path job thing.

Last week, I went on an interview for an internship at Wiley Publishing. This was my first experience being interviewed by a panel—I sat at a conference table where four editorial assistants and one development editor took turns firing questions at me. That's right, I was interviewed by five people at once. As if the scenario itself weren't bad enough, they asked some seriously tough questions, too.

Here are the 7 toughest questions I remember from that nerve-wracking interview:

• Either in school or in a previous position, what's a mistake you made, and how did you deal with it?
• What about when things were prepared just right, but something went wrong through no fault of yours? How did you handle that?
  
• How have you worked with a difficult employer, supervisor, or client?
• When you're doing menial office tasks or grunt work, what strategies do you use to get through the day?
• What have you worked on at your current internship that has been meaningful or satisfying?
  
• In your previous jobs, when did you have to make a decision or take action beyond what you thought you were allowed to do?
• How did you improve a process or method of doing something?

Uhh . . . I don't know? It's not that I don't know at least one good answer to all of these questions; it's that I was completely unprepared to give the super specific examples they were asking for. When put on the spot, I don't remember the details about how I dealt with a major conflict with my boss last year, and it's difficult to frame such a scenario to put myself in a positive, professional light without preparation.

My advice: write down the toughest questions you've ever been asked in an interview and the trickiest ones you can think of. (And ask for input from friends and classmates, too!) Then, practice answering them. Try to remember difficult situations you've been in at past jobs so you can talk about them with fresh insight.

The less you let them put you on the spot, the better!