Perhaps I have a vastly different idea of what these questions mean (though reading other replies here, I don't think I do), but the "translations" to these que

Perhaps I have a vastly different idea of what these questions mean (though reading other replies here, I don't think I do), but the "translations" to these questions are just horrible. "1. Tell Me About A Time You Failed Translation: Can you stomach failing until we figure things out?" No. No it doesn't. It's far more likely that they're asking you if you can identify that you've got something wrong in the past and have learned something from it. Rambling on about things that you didn't get wrong, but someone else did and were out of your control will only serve to make the interviewer wonder why you're avoiding the question. "2. Where Do You See Yourself In Five Years? Translation: Are you ambitious enough for a startup?" Again, no. This is a simple question to find out what sort of direction you want your career to go in. It's a common question to help evaluate whether the company and you are going to be a good match. If you want to be a CTO and they want someone who's OK staying more hands-on, this is the sort of question to help make sure you're not going to be unhappy later on. "3. Why Should We Hire You? Translation: Do you really understand the problem we're solving?" I'm really unsure how the author got to this conclusion. This is the same old question that's been asked for donkeys years, and the underlying reason for it (if any) is that they want you to sell yourself to them. Any halfway competent interviewer is going to have some much better questions for finding out if you understand the problem they're solving than this would give them. Now, of course, different hiring managers are going to disagree with what I've just written there, and that's just fine! We're all going to have different motives for interview questions, whichever side of the table you're on. Point is, you can't "translate" common interview questions like the article attempts to do as you have no idea what the interviewer is actually looking for. Be honest, be friendly, and be yourself. edit: formatting and duplication