#004 Ace Your Interview In Just 4 Steps

Are you currently looking for a job change? Is your interview already being lined up and you are bit stressed out on how to communicate any behavioral-based answers to the interviewer’s questions?

If this is the case, you may find this article useful. It will give you tips on how to organize your thoughts to articulate your experience in an effective way. These types of questions are asked in the interview to gauge how your past actions are going to reflect on your future behavior under similar circumstances.

Here are the 4 steps to handle interview questions which are either based on a company’s core values or your competencies.

1. Describe a specific situation or problem that occurred in the past, and, in particular, relate it to the applying position.

2. What actions did you take in that situation? Explain this briefly and let the interviewer ask you follow up questions.

3. What result came out of your actions? Were you successful or did you fail in your attempt?

4. What learning did you gain? Was the lesson learned worth reconsidering in the future under similar conditions? If not, what alternatives could be used?

Let me further explain it to you by showing some examples.

Sample 1: You are asked to describe an accomplishment that you achieved recently.

(Situation) It was the time when I was managing the project for the client “ABC”. During that time, our key resource decided to move on with the competition. We were at the critical phase of release one deployment which was due in three weeks. It was getting hard to find someone with his experience.

(Action) Due to time-sensitivity and the budget constraint for a quality hire, I took the initiative and decided to backfill the position. I was managing the team, but due to my interest in keeping myself involved with the technical aspects of the project, I could make this decision.

As I had been handling this project for five years, I had the domain knowledge too. So, in addition to leading the team, I took up the role and managed to get the project live in time and saved the billable position. I had to work longer hours for about two months to juggle both the roles until we found his replacement.

(Result) I was highly appreciated by my client for on-time delivery and by my boss for maintaining the client’s trust and saving the project’s billable hours. Also, I was promoted to the senior technical manager role in the next appraisal cycle.

(Learning) I realized, it’s always good to have hands-on technical skills to address any such unforeseen situations like this one.

Sample 2: Describe a time when you had a disagreement with your boss.

(Situation) I can recall the time when we had a team meeting with our manager regarding employee referral rewards. She announced prizes such as vacation days, coupons for dinner, movie, or spa for any closures. However, I was not fully convinced that this was a good idea.

(Action) Instead, I suggested an online survey to identify what matters the most to our employees before finalizing the reward options. Also, I ran the idea by my manager to include a few more options to choose from in the survey, such as city trips, adventure trips, or cash, in particular, as I believe cash motivates employees the most. My manager liked the idea and assigned me the task of creating the survey, distributing it, and collecting the results. I followed her instructions and got it done.

(Result) Not only did that make our employees feel valued and involved, but it also gave them great motivation to refer others, as we started getting a lot of positive responses. We also found out that cash was the most popular reward. My manager worked with the VP to gain approval for the cash reward. My manager appreciated me for bringing this idea to the table.

(Learning) I realized that it is always good to get your viewpoint across as one never knows when it might be an idea worth pursuing.

To sum it up, you will be at great ease when you talk about concrete situations, actions in that situation, the results and what you learned for answering any experience or competency-based interview questions.

Good Luck!