The 50 Most Common Interview Questions

 

 

Glassdoor has compiled a list of the 50 most common interview questions. If you are not familiar with Glassdoor, it's a website where employees and former employees anonymously review companies and their management. They also provide insight into the interview process of organizations. They found that the following questions are among the most common that organizations ask in interviews.

We won’t debate the relevancy of these questions and how it ties into making the best hiring decisions.That’s for another article.This is simply a quick reference guide to help you prepare for many of the questions that you will face.

I can’t guarantee that you are not going to have a few oddball questions thrown at you but I can almost guarantee with certainty that you will more than likely have to answer many of these questions at some point. Why not be prepared?

The best way to get ready is to practice, practice, practice and be ready to answer these questions with confidence and enthusiasm.

Most Common Interview Questions

1. What are your strengths?
2. What are your weaknesses?
3. Why are you interested in working for [insert company name here]?
4. Where do you see yourself in 5 years? 10 years?
5. Why do you want to leave your current company?
6. Why was there a gap in your employment between [insert date] and [insert date]?
7. What can you offer us that someone else can not?
8. What are three things your former manager would like you to improve on?
9. Are you willing to relocate?
10. Are you willing to travel?
11. Tell me about an accomplishment you are most proud of.
12. Tell me about a time you made a mistake.
13. What is your dream job?
14. How did you hear about this position?
15. What would you look to accomplish in the first 30 days/60 days/90 days on the job?
16. Discuss your resume.
17. Discuss your educational background.
18. Describe yourself.
19. Tell me how you handled a difficult situation.
20. Why should we hire you?
21. Why are you looking for a new job?
22. Would you work holidays/weekends?
23. How would you deal with an angry or irate customer?
24. What are your salary requirements?
25. Give a time when you went above and beyond the requirements for a project.
26. Who are our competitors?
27. What was your biggest failure?
28. What motivates you?
29. What’s your availability?
30. Who’s your mentor?
31. Tell me about a time when you disagreed with your boss.
32. How do you handle pressure?
33. What is the name of our CEO?
34. What are your career goals?
35. What gets you up in the morning?
36. What would your direct reports say about you?
37. What were your bosses’ strengths/weaknesses?
38. If I called your boss right now and asked him what an area that you could improve on is, what would he say?
39. Are you a leader or a follower?
40. What was the last book you’ve read for fun?
41. What are your co-worker pet peeves?
42. What are your hobbies?
43. What is your favorite website?
44. What makes you uncomfortable?
45. What are some of your leadership experiences?
46. How would you fire someone?
47. What do you like the most and least about working in this industry?
48. Would you work 40+ hours a week?
49. What questions haven’t I asked you?
50. What questions do you have for me?

Preparation Tips

Study the Company and Know the Position Description

Review the company’s website and other social media platforms before your interview. You should be able to speak confidently about the company services, customers, their industry, and know how you can fit into the organization to help them meet their future goals.

You’ll also want to review the job description. It’s a good idea to save a copy of the description in your own files as you apply just in case the description is no longer available online. Be able to speak in specifics about your experiences and how they match the company’s needs.

Mock Interview Practice

The best way to be prepared for the typical interview is by role playing and thinking about your response. Don’t worry if you mess up in the mock interview, you will be much better prepared for the real thing if you practice.

Practice using the S.T.A.R. method to answer questions that require more detail. You’ll likely be asked to expand upon your experience. The S.T.A.R. method is: Situation, Task, Action and Result.

First, present a specific situation you faced. Secondly, explain the task you had to accomplish and what action you took to address the issue. Finally, describe the results of your efforts. This last step is wrapping it up by explaining what you learned from the experience and how you will bring those lessons to the work that you will be doing for the organization.

Think about prior work experiences and craft a story to describe your accomplishments or to show how you dealt with a tough situation. Having a repository of career experience stories written down before an interview will make it easier to recall during the interview.

Keep a Record of Your Previous Interviews

After each interview, write down what happened, your impressions, the questions you were asked, and your general feelings.Try to do this as soon as you can after the interview. Reflect carefully on these because it will be a “lessons learned” so that you can use this to improve the next go round.

How to Answer Six of the Most Common Questions:

“Tell me about yourself.”

This may very well be the first question (although not really a question) that you will get. Be ready because this will set the stage for the rest of the interview.This is your chance to take control and showcase who you are and what you’d bring to the role.You want to paint a picture or tell the story to help the hiring manager see how you would be a good fit.

Don’t give your life history. Be brief. You want to be ready with about a one- to- two minute answer that summarizes your career with a focus on how your background matches the company’s needs.

Use a present, past, and future formula. Start with what you do now, then segue into the past, and top it off with the future and why you are excited about this opportunity.

List three to four key strengths you have that are pertinent to this job (experiences, traits, skills, etc.).

Talk about your strengths and abilities and remember to focus on the experiences and skills that are going to be most relevant for the hiring manager. It’s okay to tell a story or anecdote if it helps to relay the story to help them know a little more about you.

“Why are you leaving your current job?”

The reason why you are asked this question is because recruiters or hiring managers want to know your motivation for wanting to leave your current job. Is your boss a jerk? Do you want more money? Is your company culture a joke? One or all of those things may be the reason why you are looking but when you answer the question, be positive.You’ll want to discuss the positives that came out of your most recent job with a focus on why you think this new position is a great new career for you.

Never disparage your prior boss, co-workers, or the company. Are you looking to be challenged? That’s great. If the time has come to seek out a new opportunity, to expand your skills and knowledge, or to find a company in which you can grow, there’s nothing wrong with that. Those are positive reasons to seek out a new career. You rarely go wrong when talking about self-improvement. Interviewers love it when candidates are interested in bettering themselves. It’s a trait that indicates you could be someone who wants to grow with the organization.

Negativity never goes over well in an interview.You can always turn a negative into a positive and that’s the best rule of thumb for an interview.

“What are your strengths and weaknesses?”

Taking about strengths is an easy one. So, let’s focus on the weakness. The reason why a manager asks this question is to see if they are missing anything if they were to hire you. It’s also designed to test your character and mental awareness. Who’s perfect? Nobody. They want to see how you have identified what you need to work on.

Be sincere. Don’t just select a weakness just because it sounds good. Pick a weakness that is acceptable for the job in which you are interviewing. Don’t mention a weakness related to any of the required skills or desired qualities. For example, if you are a sales person, don’t mention that you have hard time meeting new people or by saying that you are too reserved.

Pick a weakness that is relatively minor and correctable. By correctable, that meanssomething you can improve through work, motivation, or training. If you say “It’s hard to speak in front of large groups of people.” That can be overcome and if it’s not germane to the role, it won’t matter to the hiring manager.

“What are your salary requirements?”

All companies have a budget and recruiters ask this question to make sure that everyone is on the same page. You will want to do your homework on this one.Know what you are worth and know what the same type of positions pay. There is enough information online that you can get a pretty good idea.

Know your “walk away” point. Know what you want and what you expect. Speak in ranges when giving figures. After you answer be comfortable with the silence that may come follow. Consider a statement like this: “I’m currently making $X, and I’m looking to make 10% to 15% more.

“Why should I hire you?”

Often times, this comes at the end of an interview. This is another great opportunity to seal the deal. By this time, you’ve heard about the position and should have a good idea of how you can contribute to the bottom line.

Stay focused on why your background makes you an ideal candidate. Tell them how you are going to contribute to the department and the company. Hiring managers love it when they think their job will be easier.

Tell them or explain how you will:

• Do the work and deliver extraordinary results
• Fit in well with the corporate culture
• Bring a combination of skills and experience that make you stand out from the crowd
• Make their life easier

This is an opportunity to reiterate your most impressive strengths and to describe your most memorable selling points.

"Do you have any questions for us?"

Of course you do. What is important to you? What do you want to know? This question works two ways: It also helps you to know if the company is right for you.So don’t be afraid to ask questions that give you some feel about what it would be like to work there.

Here are Some Questions to Consider

• How does this position fit in with the rest of the company/organization?
• Is this a new position?
  • If so, what made you decide to create it?
  • If not, are you changing it in any way now?
• Where do you see this department / company going over the next year?
• What would a successful employee make happen for you?
• What kinds of things would you expect of me to enable me to advance within the company?
• What kinds of advancement opportunities are there for someone in this position?
• Is there anything else at all that I can tell you about myself to help you in your decision?
• If I may ask, how long have you worked here? What do you like most about it?
• What would a typical work day/week be like for me?
• After I start, what would the first few weeks look like for me?
• Are there any special projects coming up you’d like me to work on?
• How would you describe the company’s management style?
• How would you describe the company culture?
• What would you say employees like most about working here?
• Is there anything employees would say they like least?
• If I do get the job, how soon would you like me to start?
• What can I expect as far as next steps

Happy interviewing! Knock ‘em dead.

The Job Interview Questions You Need To Get Right!

 I often get asked to provide guidance to people looking for a career in PR and communications and many of their queries focus on how to handle job interviews.

Despite recruiting for very different organisations and roles, I find most interviewers tend to have a very similar approach to asking questions. Job interviews are a bit like exam papers – the same topics are always there, just sometimes dressed up in different ways.

I’m always surprised, therefore, when so few candidates shine in addressing the most obvious topics.

In my experience there are six questions that are likely to appear, in one form or another, in most interviews and if you prepare properly, these questions should provide you with all the opportunity you need to sell yourself effectively.

1. Why do you want the job?

An unbelievably obvious question. So obvious, in fact, that candidates seem to overlook its significance and don’t prepare a strong answer.

At a very simple level, if you can’t explain really clearly why you are interviewing for this role at this firm, you won’t get hired.

But many people focus too much on “the job” part of the question rather than the more significant “why” and “you”. This isn’t the time to talk at length about all the great things the job would involve. The interviewers already know that. It is the time to explain why you want it more than anyone else.

This is often the first question you will be asked in an interview and should be your strongest answer. Use it to set the scene for themes or arguments you want to develop in the interview, demonstrate your passion and interest in the job, and highlight the key reasons why you would be the perfect candidate.

2. Can you give a practical example of when you have done this?

Most jobs involve a level of technical knowledge or expertise that potential candidates need to demonstrate. Sometimes in interview you will simply be asked if you have a skill or not – eg. “have you got experience in dealing with the press?”. However for each key skill you want to promote, you should prepare a practical example of how and when you have used it, to help bring your abilities to life.

If you are applying to be a line manager, for example, it’s not enough to say you have lots of experience in managing teams. Be prepared to give a brief example of the sorts of team dynamics you have dealt with, maybe an issue or two you’ve had to overcome and the skills you’ve developed as a result. Similarly if the role involves budgetary control, be ready to provide brief examples of the range of challenges this has provided you with and what you’ve learned.

Experience-based questions make for better interviews, both for the interviewer and the interviewee. The employer gets more honest and grounded answers, the candidate gets the chance to provide a more memorable response. Make sure you take it.

3. Why do you want to leave your current role?

Interviews are a chance for candidates to tell their personal story – their narrative, if you like. Providing a sense of the journey you are on, where you have come from and where you are heading helps employers to see the logic of why you are sat in front of them today.

Unfortunately many candidates find it uncomfortable to talk about their existing role. Perhaps there are some frustrations about the role that the question may bring to mind – i.e. poor pay, fallouts with the boss, etc. In most circumstances, these aren’t relevant to why you should be hired for the next job, so set them aside.

Instead, try and explain what you have gained from the role and how it has helped you to progress your career on to the next stage. This could be opportunities it has opened up (the chance to develop new skills or experience) or avenues it has helped to rule out (confirming that you would rather concentrate on one aspect of the work rather than another).

Whatever it is, how you talk about your current role says a lot about how you think about your career and also the sort of employee you are. Don’t miss this opportunity to continue to reinforce your overall story.

4. What do you want to be doing in five years’ time?

Although another question people often find tricky, this is actually the same question as the one above, but framed in a different way. It is best answered by going back to your core narrative. What is your overall sense of purpose, professionally? What have you learned so far and where do you want it to take you? Providing this context will help the employer understand why you see this job as the important next step in your career.

Usually (though it does depend on the job you are applying for), prospective employers don’t expect people to stay in their organisation forever, so don’t feel the need to pledge the rest of your working life to your would-be boss. You also don’t need to describe in detail where you will be in the future (how could you know?), just the type of role and activity you want to be involved in. So if you are applying to be a press officer, saying you want to progress to the role of manager and ultimately to head up a busy newsroom shows ambition, is a logical next step and is a motivation most employers would see as a positive.

Of course there are some obvious watchouts here too. Where you are heading in the future does needs to fit with the role you are currently applying for. If you want to be an air hostess and are applying to be a trainee accountant, a reasonable employer might think you aren’t likely to be a good long term prospect. Also, whilst five years in the future is a good timescale to think about your next move, be wary of bringing that any closer. It takes a fair amount of time and investment to get the most out of new hires and employers will see it as a negative if you give off the impression you will want to move on too quickly.

5. What’s the biggest mistake you’ve made and what did you learn?

It’s a less obvious question, perhaps, but it’s still not unusual for employers to ask about your weaknesses, mistakes you’ve made or things you’ve got wrong. Answering it successfully definitely requires some thought and preparation. Unfortunately, saying nothing at all or providing a poor example is just as bad as highlighting a major failure on something that is key to the role you’re applying for.

What employers are looking for here is honesty, self-awareness and the ability to learn from mistakes. So talk about something you took personal responsibility for, what went wrong and then, critically, the learnings and insight you took from the experience. Even better, choose a story that has an element of humour about it. Ideally they will come away thinking you are human and occasionally mess up but, perhaps unlike other candidates, you are open in admitting your mistakes and have taken steps to ensure you don’t repeat them.

6. Do you have any questions for us?

The final question of a tough interview and by this point, most people simply want to get out of the room. Yet the invitation to ask the panel questions is often the best opportunity of all to showcase your skills and reinforce your key messages.

This is because it is the main or only time the panel will talk without the help of a pre-prepared script. By asking smart questions, it’s possible to engage them in a conversation about something that accentuates your strengths.

It also provides you with a chance to direct the conversation. So if you didn’t get a chance to mention something that’s relevant to your application, or didn’t do justice to a previous topic, a carefully worded question could provide you with the opportunity to have another go.

In addition, there’s more than one person doing the choosing at an interview. Let’s not forget, you also need to decide whether the job is right for you. Showing you have done your homework and have well thought-out questions will give off the impression you are taking the opportunity seriously and will also help you to make up your mind about them as an employer.

Preparing questions for the panel in advance is a must, but try and make notes as the interview progresses so that you have something fresh and relevant to ask. That said, this doesn’t give you permission to grill them for 20 minutes. Two or at most three brief questions will suffice. Interview panels work to tight schedules and they won’t thank you if your interrogation means they overrun or have to skip lunch.

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I tend to find most hiring decisions tend to come down to the same core set of issues. Who has demonstrated they have the best skills to do the job? Who seems to be the best fit with our culture and approach? Who has the most potential to grow in the role and organisation? And also who wants the job the most?

As the core issues about hiring are often the same, so the questions actually used in interviews are also fairly consistent. Even if they are dressed up in a different way, these six questions are common in interviews and you should be certain your answers to each promote your best qualities to the full.

Is Your Resume Telling Them Not to Call You?

 

Do you find yourself in the midst of job searching shaking your head and thinking that the people who are reading your resume must be idiots? Why can’t they see that you are the perfect candidate for the job? Why don’t they get that you have done exactly what they are asking for in your current or previous position? What is wrong with them?

Why don’t they call?

Nothing is wrong with them and they are not idiots. They are good people who are completely inundated with hundreds of resumes for one single position.

It is frustrating, I know. It is not my intent to add to the frustration in saying this next statement:

The disconnect may not be from the reader, but in the reading.

In other words – it just might be your resume, specifically, your experience section tells them not to call.

Take a look at your resume and focus on this portion. Read through it quickly, not from the mentality that it is yours, but from a removed prospective as someone looking for a candidate.

Now answer this question: did you just read a job description?

Too often previous or current positions are listed on a resume as a job description, detailing what you were hired to do.

We need to change that into points that clearly demonstrate your value.

To be direct: employers do not care what you were hired to do, they want to know what value you added to give them an indication of what you can do for them. They are looking for people that have skills and value to bring to the table, not just show up at work.

Making the transition

Let’s break this down in an easy to follow methodology and not entirely recreate the wheel.

We will start with what you have currently listed on your resume.

For each bullet point write at the end of the sentence “which resulted in…” and finish the thought. Each action you list on your resume has value, and if it does not it should not be listed.

To complete the sentence think about who or what benefited by you performing the task. It could be a process, a division, clients, team members or the organization.

Now let’s beef it up a bit, let’s think about the tasks you did and how you improved them.

Human nature is to find a simpler, easier way to perform tasks. You can call it being lazy, I call it improving efficiency. So what did you change to make your life easier in doing any task? This is an improvement and something you can list on your resume.

Now let’s think about who you interact with: who do you work with, how, what do you do, how do you do it, who benefits and in what way?

Let’s say one of your responsibilities is running a report. Sounds simple enough and you may even have it listed as “create weekly reports” or something as non-descriptive.

We need to break it down to build it up. Think about how you create the report – where do you gather the information, what system or process do you use in translating data; who do you give it to and how – do you email them, print it out or verbally discuss it with them; what is their role? Now let’s take it a step further – why do you run the report? How does the individual, team or division utilize the report, is it used for assessment or forecasting, what role does it play in the next step?

Take all this information and put it into a new bullet point. Phrases and words can add in could be: gather data from X departments, create weekly X report utilized by X Manager, forecast monthly goals, evaluate existing status, strategy, communicate, and so on.

Now we have gone from a task bullet to a value bullet.

Writing takes more than one take

When you are revising your experience bullet points do not try to write them the first go round in resume language. You will either get stuck very early on or you will create a phenomenal bullet and then become discouraged that nothing else sounds as good.

Write it as though you were having a conversation, get the most of your information as you can and then go back to clean it up.

I am a professional resume writer and I never write a first draft in resume language. My first drafts are a mess and combination of styles of writing and speaking. It is most important that I get the information down first and then go back to modify.

This is not easy to do, give yourself a break if it takes a few times to get just one bullet right. Do not beat yourself up when writing it; actually, take you out of it all together.

National Staffing Employee Week

Companies need employees. Workers need jobs. And the staffing industry brings them together. Whether for temporary or seasonal engagements, or permanent placement, the staffing industry gives employees a bridge to permanent employment and it gives businesses the skilled labor and flexibility to create effective workforce solutions.

Bob Funk celebrates 50 years in employment staffing

Bob Funk, 75, who founded Express Employment Professionals' in 1983 with partner Bill Stoller, credits the Oklahoma City-based company's aggressive sales strategy with helping it to become one of the nation's largest staffing companies.

Oklahoma City businessman Bob Funk, owner of Express Personnel Services is seen in a 1983 photo. [OKLAHOMAN ARCHIVES PHOTO]

At the Express Employment Professionals' Oklahoma City headquarters near Northwest Expressway, workers have bobblehead figurines on their desks made in company founder Bob Funk's likeness and stamped with the motto "sell, sell sell."

Funk, who founded Express in 1983 with partner Bill Stoller, credits the company's aggressive sales strategy with helping the private company become one of the nation's largest staffing companies.
Funk, who is celebrating 50 years in the staffing industry, shows no signs of slowing down at age 75.
Funk grew up on a dairy farm in Duvall, Wash., and milk remains his drink of choice. Guests received milk cartons emblazoned with Funk's face and filled with milk duds at his 75th birthday party this year at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum.

Nearly every square inch of wall space in the reception area of his office at Express headquarters is adorned with Western memorabilia. A row of massive chairs covered in Brahma bull hide line one wall.

“It took me forever to remember that,” said Dana Miller, Funk's executive assistant, who gets a lot of questions about the chairs.

There are also bronzes of bald eagles at every turn, some life-size, captured in flight or diving to catch a fish out of a cast-metal stream. Funk said the eagles appeal to his sense of patriotism, and he also admires their size and character.

“They are always high flying, they are always No. 1 in the bird chain,” Funk said.

Outside of the staffing industry, Funk's real love is ranching. He flies out about once a month to his 160,000-acre Express UU Bar Ranch near Cimarron, N.M., but typically just for one day.

“We tease Bob that ranching is his true love,” said Jennifer Anderson, vice president of marketing and communications for Express.

The working cattle ranch is the largest source of seed stock females in the beef industry, according to its website. Funk paid $85.5 million for the ranch in 2006.

In 2009, he purchased the historic St. James Hotel & Restaurant in Cimarron. Built in 1872, the hotel was the scene of many Wild West-era gunfights and is said to be haunted. Jesse James and Wyatt Earp once stayed at the hotel. Funk's ranch also took over as operator of the nearby municipal airport in Raton, N.M., in 2014 when it looked like the city might close it.

When he started working on a dairy farm at age 14, Funk never thought about working in the staffing industry.

He graduated from Seattle Pacific University with a bachelor's degree in business administration and theology, but said he had no talent for preaching. After college, he worked as a credit reporter for the business reporting firm Dun & Bradstreet, but he was “too nice” for the business.

“I didn't like asking people for their credit reports,” Funk recalls.

Eventually, Funk found work at a small, regional staffing company in Seattle.

But he took the job too seriously, and spent a little too much of his time trying to help job seekers.
“'Bob, we do have to make a profit in this business,'” Funk recalls his boss saying. “I would bring people in on the weekends and Sundays and offer them spiritual counseling, encouragement.”
Funk still has big growth goals for Express moving forward. He wants to see the company grow to 900 franchise locations worldwide, up from about 750 locations in 2014.

Express achieved $2.85 billion in sales last year, but Funk would like to see sales grow to $4 billion.
The company has tracked record growth since the Great Recession. Sales are up 11 percent this year in the United States, according to the company.

Express claims to be the third-largest employer in Oklahoma, where it helps about 5,000 companies with their staffing needs, employing about 30,000 people in 2014.

“People don't think about us in that way because they work at other companies, but they are on our payroll,” Anderson said.

Funk also measures success in how many people the company puts to work.
“You are only as successful as the last person you helped,” he said.

Top 10 Business Schools Producing Billionaires

 Ever wonder how many billionaires are produced inside the world's top business schools? Seven of the ten top billionaire-producing business schools are in the United States.

By a wide margin, Harvard University tops the list. Harvard has produced 335 Rhodes scholars and 150 Nobel laureates. Nonetheless, few know about Harvard Business School's stellar reputation, as the world's top producer of billionaires.

According to the annual Wealth-X and UBS Billionaire Census of 2014, as charted below by Statista, Harvard Business School (U.S.) has created 64 billionaires, far outpacing the second runner-up, Stanford University (U.S.), producing 23 billionaires from its Graduate School of Business. Following at a highly respectable distanced third is Columbia Business School (U.S.) with 14 billionaire alumni.

Rounding out the top 10 list of the world's business schools counting billionaires among their alumni are:

#4 University of Pennsylvania Wharton School of Business (U.S.) at 12;

#5 University of Chicago Booth School of Business (U.S.) at 10;

#6 INSEAD (France) at 9;

#7 New York University Stern School of Business (U.S.) at 7;

#8 International Institute for Management Development (Switzerland) at 5;

#9 University of Southern California Marshall School of Business (U.S.) at 5;

#10 London Business School (U.K.) at 4.

"Pursuing higher education is not a prerequisite for attaining billionaire status: 35% of the world’s billionaires do not have a bachelor’s degree and some even dropped out of high school," the Wealth-X report reveals.

Most of these remaining 35% of the world's billionaires, nonetheless, just attended high school, albeit perhaps, some pretty fine elite private high schools, which a good friend of mine who did, recently told me is all one really needs for a good life, when such a "great books" liberal education is obtained early on in one's life at the tender ages of 7-18 — The Wonder Years!

Notwithstanding, "of the 65% who have been awarded a bachelor’s degree, many go on to pursue further studies. For example, 21% of “educated” billionaires have a Masters in Business Administration, and 11% of “educated” billionaires hold a Ph.D.," the Wealth-X study reports.

Among these top 20 colleges and universities listed below (compiled by Wealth-X, including 16 inside the United States), having undergraduate alumni, who have gone on in life to become billionaires, only 16% of the world’s billionaires attended these schools; 84% did not, electing instead to attend among 700 alternative higher education institutions.

#1 University of Pennsylvania (U.S.) at 25 (billionaire undergraduate alumni)

#2 Harvard University (U.S.) at 22

#3 Yale University (U.S.) at 20

#4 University of Southern California (U.S.) at 16

#5 Princeton University (U.S.) at 14

#6 Cornell University (U.S.) at 14

#7 Stanford University (U.S.) at 14

#8 University of California Berkeley (U.S.) at 12

#9 University of Mumbai (India) at 12

#10 London School of Economics and Political Science (U.K.) at 11

#11 Lomonosov Moscow State University (Russia) at 11

#12 University of Texas (U.S.) at 10

#13 Dartmouth College (U.S.) at 10

#14 University of Michigan (U.S.) at 10

#15 New York University (U.S.) at 9

#16 Duke University (U.S.) at 9

#17 Columbia University (U.S.) at 8

#18 Brown University (U.S.) at 8

#19 Massachusetts Institute of Technology (U.S.) at 7

#20 ETH Zurich (Switzerland) at 6

How wealthy are these billionaire business clubbers in 2014?

The annual Wealth-X and UBS Billionaire Census, which provides the most in-depth accounting of the world's wealthiest people, says:

• The typical billionaire has a net worth of US$3.1 billion with mean cash-on-hand at US$600 million.

• The typical billionaire is 63 years old.

• Most billionaires do not reach the US$1 billion threshold until their late forties: 93% of the world’s billionaires are older than 45 years. Whereas, 1% of global billionaires are younger than 35 years, which includes Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg, and Google's Larry Page and Sergey Brin.

• The typical billionaire has nearly half of his or her wealth in ownership of privately-held businesses.

• The typical billionaire owns four properties worth some US$94 million collectively.

• There are a record 2,325 billionaires in the world today in 2014, up 7.1 percent from last year.

• Four of five of these billionaires are men, of which 60% are "self-made" wealth owners (at US$3.2 billion in mean net worth), 26.9% collectively inherited and self-made their wealth (at US$2.9 billion in mean net worth), and 13.1% purely inherited their wealth status (at US$3.2 billion in mean net worth).

• Men make up 2,039 of billionaires worldwide. They own 82.7 percent or US$6.4 trillion of the combined wealth of all billionaires, which increased by 12 percent in 2014 to US$7.3 trillion. Or better still, this amounts to about 4 percent of global wealth.

• One in five billionaires are women, of which 65.4% are "self-made" wealth owners (at US$2.2 billion in mean net worth), 17.5% collectively inherited and self-made their wealth (at US$3.4 billion in mean net worth) and 17.1% purely inherited their wealth status (at US$3.5 billion in mean net worth).

• Women make up just 289 of billionaires globally. These few remarkable women own just 12.8 percent or US$930 billion of the total wealth of all billionaires.

• Just as astonishing, altogether, these billionaire's total wealth at US$7.3 trillion is far more than the combined market capitalization of all listed firms on the Dow Jones Industrial Average, Slate reports.

Where do these billionaires reside around the world?

New York is home to the world's most billionaires at 103 — far ahead of Moscow with 85 billionaire residents and Hong Kong with 82 billionaires calling The People's Republic of China their homestead. Europe still has the largest number of billionaires, making the European Union (which includes several asset protectionsafe havens, including Lichtenstein, Austria, Luxembourg, Switzerland, and The Netherlands, to name just a few) as their permanent domicile, which one can see in the map from Statista below.

Eight of the 20 countries with the most billionaires are in Asia, says the 2014 Wealth-X and UBS Billionaire Census findings.

The Wealth-X record-breaking number of billionaires worldwide in 2014 (2013 shown in parenthesis) are as follows: North America is 609 (552); Latin America is 153 (111); Europe is 775 (766); Africa is 40 (42); Middle East is 154 (157); Asia is 560 (508); and finally The Southeast Asia Pacific is 34 (34).

How do these billionaire business school alumni maintain their capital reserves?

Wealth-X data reveals 46.9% of billionaires’ wealth is concentrated in their ownership of privately-held businesses — these are companies whose stock is not publicly traded. This amounts to 47%, or US$3.4 trillion, of the wealth of billionaires being privately-held, one and a half times more than the US$2.1 trillion, or 29%, of billionaire wealth being publicly-held.

This leaves 5.1 percent of the remaining wealth (about US$160 million in net worth) of these billionaires invested in real estate and luxury items (including art), and 19.1% (or about $600 million), as cash-on-hand ready for furtherance of investments and philanthropy (including charitable giving back to the colleges and universities that made 65% of these super wealth owners), according to Wealth-X.

As a result, billionaires tend to have huge capital reserves, which creates high-cash yield investments through structured financial instruments, such as interest-rate swaps, credit default swaps or foreign exchange rate derivatives, according to Simon Smiles, Chief Investment Officer of UBS Wealth Management.

In his discussions with billionaire clients across the world, Smiles says three questions are on the minds of billionaires and the trustees of their wealth trusts, "They want to know what they should do with their cash balances in a zero rate world of — apparently, after many false starts — rising inflation; what investment themes they should focus on over the longer term; and how they can generate investment returns less correlated to movements in global equity markets."

Smiles says inside the 2014 Wealth-X report, billionaires are constantly on the lookout for exotic investment strategies that not only protect, but also, substantially grow their wealth. Such wealth-creation means, especially attractive to billionaires, known as “alpha” strategies, involve investments that create cash out of risk advantages by selling derivatives and "exotic" financial instruments to structure low risk, higher cash yields, and greater returns on investments.

Billionaires are also interested in stakeholder management issues across global communities, involving what is termed as "secular" investments, involving rising standards of living, urbanization, and population growth, and their impact on heightened protein consumption, not only in developed countries, but especially in under-developed countries and emerging economies across Asia, writes Smiles.

"As a result, the investment opportunities offered by this long-term secular investment trend are varied: public equities, private equity, and direct investments, such as agricultural land and fisheries," Smiles typically advises his global high-net billionaire clients.