- How do you deal with pressure?
ANSWER:
| RIGHT |
|---|
| I meditate a half hour a day and go to the gym. It helps all the time. Once at Pizza Palace we were short-staffed. The cut-and-cash guy was behind and started complaining. I stayed calm and took a break to help. He came over later and thanked me. The next time we got slammed, he stayed calm too. |
| WRONG |
|---|
| I go to the gym and meditate. It helps me stay calm in stressful situations. |
2.What are you most proud of?
ANSWER:
| RIGHT |
|---|
| When I was an executive assistant at Kallas, our top execs were spending too much time on customer misunderstandings. I created a call system that eliminated 95% of those and saved 10 executive hours a week. |
| WRONG |
|---|
| I’m very good at collaboration. I worked with my team at Kallas to redo our scheduling system. We saved $20,000 in travel costs. |
3.What do you know about our company?
ANSWER:
| RIGHT |
|---|
| I know you make the finest golf products in the world. I also know you’re looking to raise your market share, which is why I’m so excited about this job. At Phair Sports, I grew business 60% in two years and consistently exceeded sales goals. |
| WRONG |
|---|
| You make golf balls, clubs, and hats, and sell them to major retailers like Walmart. I really like your products and in fact I use them exclusively when I play myself. I know you’ve got two plants—one here in Massachusetts and the other on the West Coast. |
4.What’s your dream job?
ANSWER:
| RIGHT |
|---|
| A job like this where I can do end-to-end project management for multiple projects in a Lean business environment. At Raytheon we had to cut costs drastically or lose $70 million in contracts. I managed our Lean training project that improved quality by 30% while cutting costs 45%. We kept the contracts and the client ordered $50 million in new work. I’d love to have that kind of impact full time. |
| WRONG |
|---|
| I’d like a job with flexible hours, great pay, lots of vacation time, and a nice fat 401k. |
5.Why is there a gap in your resume?
ANSWER:
| RIGHT |
|---|
| My mother was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. I took time off to help my father care for her. I learned a lot about stress management during that time. I also took continuing ed classes to keep my license up to date. |
| WRONG |
|---|
| My mom was sick and I stopped work to help take care of her. |
6.Why are you changing careers?
ANSWER:
| RIGHT |
|---|
| I’ve always been interested in tech. I loved my job as an office manager, but my favorite part was the system administrator duties. Saving the company $20,000 a year by automating our system monitoring and relocating our hardware was a real high point for me. I want to make that more central to my job. |
| WRONG |
|---|
| I’m really tired of being an office manager. I’ve got solid tech skills and I want to use them. I think I’d really do well as a system administrator. |
7.Are you open to relocating?
ANSWER:
| RIGHT |
|---|
| For this job, yes. I’m excited about it because it uses the multidisciplinary design process. At Doane & Daviau, I used that to develop two multi-million dollar projects with 15% less rework than my colleagues. I would definitely relocate to do that full time. |
| WRONG |
|---|
| For the right position, yes. |
8.Tell me about a mistake you made
ANSWER:
| RIGHT |
|---|
| I plugged in our rechargeable pallet jack to the wrong outlet and fried a $3,500 battery. I showed the manager the outlets look identical. We put a fixture on the outlet and plug so nobody can make that mistake again. |
| WRONG |
|---|
| I plugged in a rechargeable pallet jack the wrong way and destroyed a $3,500 battery. I was pretty mortified, but my boss told me it could’ve happened to anyone. |
9.Walk us through your resume
ANSWER:
| RIGHT |
|---|
| Well, at Northwest Medical Center, I worked in the ICU for three years. I received five commendations for efficiency from the charge nurse. Before that I was at Cornerstone Hospital for two years, where I helped raise HCAHPS scores 20%. Most of that was thanks to diligent patient education.xs |
| WRONG |
|---|
| It’s got my summary at the top, which starts by saying I’m a Registered Nurse obviously. Then it talks about my last three jobs. In the most recent, I worked at Cornerstone Hospital, where I was responsible for handling all ward nurse duties and responsibilities… |
10.Do you have any questions for me?
ANSWER:
The interviewer can learn a lot from what you ask.
Ask questions that show your interest and understanding.
Top 5 questions to ask in an interview:
- What’s the next step?
- How long does your hiring process take?
- What would you expect me to accomplish in my first six months?
- What would my day-to-day routine be?
- What’s the key to succeeding at this role?
