How to best answer the interview question ‘What are your passions?’

What are your passions? This is a question that you can expect to be asked in any job interview.

This question is designed to gauge your personality and interests beyond your professional experience. Your professional qualifications might overlap and prove to be similar to that of the other candidates interviewing for the role. But this question presents an opportunity to show your unique interests and set you apart from the others there for the same role.

What are some variations of this question?

While this question is quite common, hiring committees might not always ask it in this precise form. A few other variations of this question are:

-What are your favourite hobbies?

-What are some other interests of yours?

-What do you like to do when you’re not working?

-What activity excites you the most?

-If you had a day off and could do anything you wanted, what would you choose to do?

-What do you find yourself talking about most frequently?

If you encounter any of the above-mentioned questions, have no fear – it’s the same thing we’re talking about.

Why do interviewers ask this question?

To finalise a good answer, it would help to understand why is it that hiring committees ask this question in the first place. Interviewers ask this question to get an idea about your personality and interests that lay outside the domain of your work. Your professional qualifications and track record can show how capable you are at your job, but it might not always give the complete picture of how you are as a person and a co-worker. They want to know who you are once you step outside the threshold of the office and how that person ties into the one they know.

A person with passions is one who is engaging, creative, and motivated. Your passions give interviewers a glance into your priorities and other interests. Knowing what drives you also gives interviewers an idea as to how well your passions align with your job and how committed to your role and to learning you will be.

How to answer this question effectively?

Be truthful and authentic:

The first thing to remember while answering this question is to stick to the truth. Interviewers often care more about the passion with which you present the answer than the answer itself. They can easily identify fake or invented passions, so it's best to speak about something that genuinely excites you.