FUNDAMENTAL INTERNVIEW GUIDE Francis Bukenya paromauganda Interviews are designed to test our knowledge, skill sets and attitude. While your career is at stake in an interview, preparing for an interview can often save you from a heart-burn at the interview table. Heres a list of the 7 most asked interview questions and sample answers to help you create a smashing impression in the interview. 1. So, tell us about yourself? Undoubtedly the most frequently asked interview question. Its a question that most interviewees expect and the one they have the most difficulty answering. Your answer should be in alignment with your career objective which means that you shouldnt respond with comments about your hobbies, spouse, or extra curricular activities 1. Start with a brief introduction. Talk about skills that are key to the position applied for. Sample - During my 2 years of experience as sales executive, I have mastered the ability to prospect, generate business leads, and motivate my team members to reach targets. 2. Provide a summary of your recent work history. Keep your response limited to your current experience. Dont go back more than 2 years. Sample -Most recently, at The XYZ Corporation, I was challenged with turning around a stagnant territory that ranked last in sales. I developed an aggressive sales campaign that focused on winning new accounts and nurturing the existing client base. Within six months, my sales team and I were able to increase sales by 40%. 3. Tie your response to the needs of the organization. Demonstrate how your experience and skills are transferable to the open position. Sample - I have learnt about the challenges your I.T department is facing and my background in developing software for leading companies will add value. 4. Ask an engaging question. By asking a question, you gain control of the interview. Doing so will alleviate the stress you may feel to perform. Sample: What strategies are currently underway to reduce the employee turnover and improve morale? • Whats your greatest strength & weakness? Highlighting strengths & accomplishments Use specific examples to highlight your accomplishments. Explicit numbers, results and outcomes. Generic words are meaningless unless backed by data. For example, instead of using the word significant, use a number or percentage. Strengths that you can highlight: Committed Action-oriented Inquisitive/Curious research? Long-term approach The one question candidates love to avoid is, What is your greatest weakness? Do not give superficial answers like Im a workaholic or Im a perfectionist. These are boring and predictable answers and interviewers are used to hearing. They can even comeback and say, That doesnt sound like a weakness. Now why dont you tell me about a real weakness? So state a true weakness that doesnt have a major impact on your ability to do the job Sample: If you are applying for a non -managerial role In the past, Ive had some trouble sharing responsibilities with others. I felt I could do things better and faster myself. This sometimes backfired because Id end up with more than I could handle and the quality of my work would suffer. But I plan to take courses in time management and effective delegation I am weak in accounts and had a tough time when I was asked to work on a project with the Finance team. I have enrolled in an online program on basic Finance to overcome this. 2. Question 3 - Why did you leave your last job? If you left your last job under less-than-ideal circumstances, you probably dread the Why did you leave? question that almost always comes up at job interviews. Heres how to handle it. Never lie. If you were fired, dont say you quit. A background check will reveal this lie easily. Dont say anything negative about your former boss, coworkers or company. Any negativity, frustration or anger will only reflect negatively on you. Sample - If you were fired for not adhering to a company policy. I was asked to leave for violating a company policy that I feel wasnt communicated to me clearly. I should have taken the responsibility to read all of the company policies and ask questions about those I didnt fully understand. That will be the first thing I do in my next job. Any employer would love to hear stories about how employees take responsibility for their actions and learn from their mistakes. Make sure they understand that what happened to cause you to leave your last job was the exception, not the rule. Provide references or letters of recommendation to verify that your job performance is above par. 3. How would you……? (Problem solving question) The interviewer isnt looking for a right or wrong answer. They are more interested in understanding your thought process. Show your ability to think logically and demonstrate problem-solving capabilities by: 1. Ask questions to confirm exactly what the interviewer is looking for. 2. Explain how you would collect the information and data required to develop a solution. 3. Tell how youd use the information you gathered to develop and analyze alternative courses of action. 4. Share your solution or recommendation, explaining how you feel its the best option based on the info you were given 4. Where do you see yourself 5 years from now? The aim of this question is to test your foresightedness and also gauge if you plan for the future. Stick to professional goals and aspirations while answering this question. The interviewer does not want to hear about your dream vacation that you plan to take in five years or the industry that would like to be in. Talk about company related objectives. This is an opportunity for you to show that you want to succeed in the company and are keen to create a career path there. Sample Answer: As your company has a strong performance based culture, in five years time, I see myself playing a key role in the companys marketing initiatives in the role of a Brand manager. 5. Why should we hire you? Being specific and highlighting your strengths versus the competition is the key here. Stay away from generalities like I am the best or I am very hard working and dedicated etc. Talk in quantifiable terms that will make you stand out and pinpoint the qualities you have that are truly valuable to the company. Give real examples that show them you are best-suited for the job. Sample Answer: In the past, I have implemented projects on attrition management helping bring down the employee turnover rates by 4%. I believe this experience of mine and knowledge will add value as employee retention is amongst your companys top priorities. 6. Why do you want to make a career in ... (Sales, I.T, HR etc)? The interviewer wants to learn what you know about the chosen career. Knowledge about the domain and the job shows the interviewer you are interested and demonstrates initiative on your part. Sample Answer: I have always been a peoples person and counseling is a skill that comes naturally to me. Being armed with a Masters degree in H.R, I believe a job as an H.R executive will give me an opportunity to put my natural skill sets and education to practice. Art?? If the very word interview makes your palms sweat, your head itch, and your pantyhose bag at the ankles, then take a deep breath, sit down and read this easy step by step guide to interview championship. Dress appropriately. This one may seem basic, but it?s easier said than done. Before you start your rounds of interviews, be sure to have a comfortable, clean, fairly conservative outfit. Dont neglect such crucial details as dark socks for guys or stockings without rips for women. As an accessory, invest in a nice folder or portfolio in which to stash your resumes - otherwise you?ll end up hurriedly smoothing them out after extracting them from the bottom of your backpack. Be prepared, and ask questions. These cannot be stressed enough. Interviewers expect you to come in with a working knowledge of the company, as well as with a list of questions. This creates a some difficulty in that if youve really done your homework, you may not be able to think of any questions because you already have the company?s history, financial statistics, and the CEOs mothers maiden name memorized. If this happens, make up some questions ahead of time to ask during the interview. Also, and this is really crucial, know what the job is that you are applying for before you go into the interview. If you need a description of it, check with your university career services center, or you can even call the companys personnel department and ask to be sent information. If you dont want the personnel department to know its you calling, have a friend do it. Memorize your resume. Imagine the embarrassment if your interviewer asks you to elaborate on the summer you spent pearl diving off the coast of Tanzania, and you can?t even remember where Tanzania is. For every item on your resume, try to have a paragraph?s worth of information, in addition to what is already listed. Even better, try to think of a way in which each item illustrates one of your particular strengths or weaknesses. If youre too nervous to remember everything, its all right to hold a copy of your resume in your hand to jog your memory. But dont forget to continue making eye contact with your interviewer. Brand mgr Interviewers will want to know, first and foremost, whether you have the analytical capability and marketing knowledge to run a brand. Case questions will vary in their breadth or specificity - some may be more geared toward figuring out how an applicant formulates long-term strategy, while others will require candidates to price potential promotions. Interviewers want to hear what questions you might ask, what hypotheses you might create and what plan of action you will suggest. When answering a case question, you must reason out loud. Take a minute or two to map out the question and to organize it in your mind but then begin a dialogue with them. The 4 Cs and 5 Ps are a great way to ensure that youve touched on all key points. Dont openly refer to the framework, however. Beginning an analysis with Well, the first P is product will not impress your interviewer. Use the frameworks without being obvious. Money qn. So you researched and prepared extensively for the job interview. You created that perfect resume and cover letter. You even practiced answers to the common interview questions. You made sure youre dressed right, have references, and are on time. But you did little preparation for the all too critical – Salary negotiation with HR. Dont let all that effort go waste as a consequence of not being offered the salary you expect. Here are the top 7 things you need to keep in mind: 7. What do you want? Break your expectations in to three categories – Money, benefits and hygiene factors and jot down your expectation against each. Money would include – salary, incentives, bonuses and any stock options. Benefits would include –company car, travel, relocation expenses etc. Hygiene factors would comprise of – Job title, training, exposure, international travel etc. This will allow you to stay flexible and also provide alternatives to the employer during the negotiation. 8. Do your homework Get some basic facts around the overall state of the industry in which you are applying. A booming or sunrise industry will offer better packages. Check on the companys profitability and its market position. If you have some friends in the same company, try to find out the urgency to fill the particular vacancy. Superior information will give you an edge during the salary negotiation. 9. Salary discussions during the interview Many employers will throw the salary question in the middle of an interview. This trick is used as most candidates are likely to agree on a lower salary figure due to their anxiousness to crack the interview. Do delay talking about compensation as far as possible. Say something like I am keen on this role and your organisation but Id like to hold on to salary discussions until we are both sure that I’m right for this job. 10. Negotiate the basic salary first & Get the lowdown on benefits Many H.R managers will try to engage you into discussing about benefits and perks before getting to a consensus on basic salary. This gives the HR manager leverage in justifying why your basic salary should be lower. Always agree on the basic salary first and then move on to perks and other non monetary benefits. Benefits can often go upto 25% of you total package. Do get the details on Medical & life insurance, travel allowance, pension plans, educational assistance programs, overtime allowance, dependent care for parents/spouse, paid holidays, profit sharing and stock options. 11. Keep selling Continue selling yourself throughout the negotiation process. Keep reminding the employer of the impact you will make, the problems you will solve, the revenue you will generate and the unique skills and talents that you bring to the table. Highlight your interest and enthusiasm to work for the organisation 12. Wait for 24 hrs Dont rush into accepting any offer on the spot, no matter how lucrative. Infact a good idea is to buy some time. Tell the H.R manager that you are interested in working for the organisation and would need about 24 hrs to consider the offer. Think about it – You will be spending 8-10 hrs daily in this new job so a 24 hr wait is worth it. 13. End it on a positive note The last step of salary negotiation is to set the groundwork for what kind of performance will lead to a larger raise or promotion in the near future. Talking about future performance and expectations will make a positive impression and will help you to end the negotiation on a positive note. Most job seekers think that the salary negotiation process is complicated. Actually, its not, IF the negotiator understands a few central tenets - and that the process begins at the very first mention of money. An old assumption of negotiating is that he or she who gives the dollar figure first usually loses out in some way. You always want to try to get the person interviewing you to give figures first. That puts you in a position of power, the power to not respond immediately, the power to react in a deliberative fashion, the power to put off further discussion - and mostly, to eventually get more compensation out of the process. Even more important, it is critical for the job seeker to understand that putting off the salary discussion is always to his/her advantage for four basic reasons: If you come in low, sometimes the other person will assume that your experience isnt so sophisticated as the job requires. People who think like this will equate salary with expertise, unfortunately. That isnt always true, as we know. Another problem with coming in low is that a prospective employer might low ball you; that is, come in with an offer less than he/she originally intended. That is bad business planning, but in a this quarter business climate, too common. Later on, you might find out that youre being paid less than your peers and less than market. Coming in at the right level sounds fine, but theres a problem here, too. Youve limited your negotiating stance for later on in the discussion. What if the job turns out to more than you had thought? Then, youre stuck. Presenting too high a salary might mean immediate elimination from consideration. Most people will think thats good, since they dont want to talk about a job that cant afford them. My contention is that given todays market, salary is not the entire picture and that we need to consider total compensation, which can be widely variable. And we do want to hear what that total picture is before making a decision or being eliminated from the process, which means GO FOR THE OFFER. There are many ways of initially avoiding the salary discussion, keeping in mind that the longer you avoid it, the more opportunity you have to build value. A response to the salary question might be, I hate to eliminate myself from consideration at this point because of a number. Money is extremely important to me, but at this point, fit is the key consideration. Would it be ok if we deferred this discussion until we have a better idea of how my skills fit the situation? Imagine youre sailing through an interview: The HR people loved you, and the hiring manager is talking about what youd be doing in the position six months from now. But then you reach that nerve-wracking moment. Your interviewer leans back and utters that agitating query: So, what are your salary expectations? Worse yet, he simply asks what youre making now. Your next few words will be crucial. Salary negotiation is a fact of job-seeking life, and preparation is vital. Do your homework Always walk into an interview with a minimum salary requirement in mind. You can determine a realistic, but satisfactory, salary by doing a little research. Luckily, the Web hosts a plethora of salary survey sites - the more reliable ones are compiled by government agencies, employment agencies, universities and professional associations. Use them to find the average earnings in your industry for positions ranging from entry level through executive level. For example, the Department of Labors Occupational Outlook Handbook, located at stats.bls.gov/oco/oco1000.htm, features salary information, job descriptions and an employment forecast for each industry. The Bureau of Labor Statistics (bls.gov) also offers a thorough package of employment information and statistics by region. Dont forget to ask friends and alums of your school who work in the industry what a typical starting salary for a new graduate is in the job of your choice. Make your choice Once you have an idea of the kind of money you can expect, you should determine three figures: how much money you think you need; how much you want, and what you think you can live with. Put together a personal budget, keeping in mind that things like income tax, loan payments and health care will probably account for a huge chunk of each paycheck. Its also important to note that buying power depends largely on the city you live in. If you earn $30k in Cincinnati, youd need to make more than twice that salary to maintain your lifestyle in New York City. If you have job offers in different cities, you can compare their values with a cost-of-living calculator. Both Homefair and Datamasters (datamasters offer them on their web sites. Can we talk? If this is your first time out in the job market, you?ll probably have little to bring to the bargaining table - unless you have programming or engineering training. Youll have more negotiating power if you have internship or co-op experience. Some employers expect you to bargain, while others have strict pay guidelines, based on salaries across the industry. The companies that are firm on salary often also have set schedules for pay increases. Beyond cash Are you willing to compromise cash for benefits? Quality of life may mean more to you than money. One hiring manager at a Silicon Alley startup advises job seekers to evaluate the non-financial aspects of your package. This is especially pertinent when youre looking at cash-poor startups, or industries (like publishing or fashion) where entry-level salaries are traditionally low. Consider things like the size of the company, work environment, dress code, and the experience you stand to gain. Would you give up a little money if you could wear jeans to work and start your days at 10am? Airline stewards may only make around $20,000 per year, but they travel for free. When you sit down at the bargaining table, find out what your employer has to offer. Some employers pay average salaries, but enrich the overall package with extras like bonuses, full health coverage, family leave and tuition reimbursement. If youre a night owl or there are family issues, ask about things like flextime and telecommuting options. Once you have an offer in hand, your bargaining power is heightened. You may think that financial reward is the most important factor to consider while accepting a job offer however for many professionals; money is not always a first priority. Many choose to settle for a lower monetary package in favor of non-financial rewards. We give you a list of options that you must consider apart from the salary when considering a job offer. 14. Increased responsibilities & Strategic assignments: Fine, you did not get the 35% hike that you demanded but maybe your span of control is increasing. Its worth it if you are getting to manage a bigger team or becoming responsible for a larger sales territory. For an ambitious employee responsibility and recognition of their talent is an enormous reward. If taken advantage of, it can mean a quick promotion or further compensation down the road. If you always wanted to work on a high impact project, well its worth it to compromise on the monetary front to earn a seat on that coveted task force. If you develop new business for the company as a result, the ultimate reward down the road could include a promotion and more money. 15. Employee stock options (ESOPs: The stock market most believe is a risky proposition however they can be a great replacement for monetary benefits. If your company does well, you will benefit from the rewards. This is a great option especially if you are joining a company thats on the rise. 16. 5 day week and flexi time: We all want more time to spend with our family and more leisure time to pursue our other interests. So it could be the company policy of 5 day weeks or work from home system, it’s a good trade off to consider instead of money. So do make sure that you reach out to your prospective employer and ask for more of flexible time. 17. Education Aid: The company may be willing to pay the tuition fee for that MBA degree that you always wanted to pursue or send you on an all expense paid Management development or leadership program offered by several business schools. You may even be able to put your new degree to work for a promotion or a bigger responsibility in the future. 18. Props & freebies: Maybe the company is offering you a brand new laptop or the latest mobile device that you have been eyeing for some time. The company could also be willing to provide you a company owned vehicle and house. These are potentially heavy duty expenses and make for a great replacement for an outright cash component in the salary. 19. Medical re-imbursement A practical option to consider if your parents and spouse are dependent. Hospital and medical bills can burn a hole in your pocket so if a drop in the total salary package buys you free medical cover for self and family, its an option worth its weight.________________________________________ 20. Training & development opportunities: Get some details about the companys approach to training its executives. For a young professional, it pays to join a company that is training intensive and offers learning opportunities to its employees. A compromise on the salary front may land you for a two weeks sales seminar at the company headquarters in the United States. Its not a bad trade off after all. At the start of your career – What you learn is often more important than what you earn. Sense of responsibility Your interviewer is going to be looking for a sense of accountability, a willingness to shoulder the burdens of the job. They will also be especially alert to any signs that you might not stay in the position long enough to make it worth hiring and training you. A corollary to this sense of responsibility is whether or not you can be a self-starter. Employers are looking for self-sufficient workers - people who can produce for them from the word go. In the past, companies were interested in a worker for life. They welcomed people into the fold, trained them, nurtured them, and made lifelong projects out of them. In todays climate of short-term and shifting positions, employees at every level are expected to produce, to think creatively, and to make decisions about the organizations direction. Heres how your interviewer will try to determine if you have the right attitude. 21. Describe some ways in which youve been a leader. 22. What criteria do you use to make important personal decisions? Professional decisions? 23. Under what circumstances have people depended on you? 24. Describe the biggest setback youve dealt with. What was your response? 25. What, so far in your life, has given you the greatest satisfaction? 26. Do you require or prefer to have a lot of supervision or do you work well on your own? Cases While Wall Street may control our purse strings, and Hollywood may control our dreams and imaginations, it is the brand managers whose guiding hands shape everything we eat and wear, and in fact, shape the way we think about these things. The most sought-after brand management positions are with leading consumer products companies such as Procter & Gamble, General Mills, and Coca-Cola. In order to climb to such lofty heights, brand managers (known as marketing managers in some companies) undergo rigorous interviews that often involve case questions. Brand management cases will vary in breadth and specificity - some may be about promotions, some about pricing, others about long-term strategy. This month, Vault Reports takes a look at one type of brand case question: the Brand Launch case, widely used by a leading consumer products company. SAMPLE QUESTION: If our company were looking to introduce a carpet cleaner to our line of products, how would you go about developing a business plan? The Brand Launch is the most common, and most important of brand management case questions. As with consulting case questions, interviewers are interested in what kinds of questions you ask, and your understanding of market forces. Here, the interviewer is looking for an answer that describes the process you would use in developing a business plan, not asking for a business plan itself. The interviewer may be pleasantly surprised if you happen to know the size of the carpet cleaner market, or the characteristics of the key players in the market - but they certainly dont expect it. Heres one approach to attacking this case: STEP 1: ANALYZE THE MARKET: The first thing the marketing manager should do is gather all available information about the market. The logical place to start would be the carpet cleaner market and its future. How large is the carpet cleaner market currently? Is it expected to grow in the next several years? What are the main companies involved? Finally, how often is carpet cleaner sold, and in what channels - in grocery stores, in hardware stores, in convenience stores, as an impulse buy, as an emergency buy, etc? Do you have a case interview? If so, youve probably worried about putting your intellect and interview on the line. Here are a few basis tips to keep in mind when facing one of these thorny business analysis problems. 27. Before jumping into an attempt at answering the question, you need to ask the interviewer a number of questions to gather vital information that youll need to solve it. (You should imagine this is a corporate client presenting this case to you. Certainly, you would ask the client plenty of questions before attempting to provide advice, wouldnt you?). Your interviewer will answer these questions with pieces of information that should help you formulate new questions and, ultimately, your suggestions for the client. 28. Ask lots of questions before beginning to offer recommendations! One recent interviewee correctly cautions: Consulting firms are looking for people who will think carefully before answering; this is very important in the case interview. Dont say the first thing that comes to your mind, even if youre certain about it. If youre trying to choose between appearing to be slow and appearing to be a cocky idiot, choose the former. 29. It is especially useful to ask your interview about best practices in the industry. What are other companies in this industry doing that are facing the same issue? 30. Dont make assumptions without clarifying with the interviewer - or at the very least stating that you are making an assumption. 31. Having gathered all the information you think you need, you can start to formulate your recommendations. It might be helpful to use a framework in your mind (though not necessarily explicitly) in order to ensure that you are not forgetting a vital area of analysis. For instance, the Porter Five forces model might help you to analyze a market situation and identify all of the areas of potential threat in order to come up with recommendations for a companys market strategy. 32. After you have finished giving recommendations, point out possible flaws and assumptions in your thinking, which should impress your interviewer. 33. You should speak and reason aloud during your case interview. Since your thought process is much more important than your ultimate conclusions, your interviewer must hear your reasoning and the logical steps you are taking to reach your conclusions. 34. Helpful tip: Always, always bring a pad of paper and a reliable pen with you to any consulting interview. You may want to take notes during the case interview (and almost certainly for any guesstimates or quantitative brainteasers your interviewer may throw at you-see below). Asking your interviewer for paper and a pen during the interview will give the impression that you are disorganized and unprepared. 35. No matter what, never show any signs of being flustered in a case interview. High-tech companies, investment banks and consulting firms are famous for their brainteasers. Anyone, after all, can come up with a canned answer to display their leadership and management skills - but fewer people can quickly come up with three solid reasons why a manhole cover is round. Whether youre applying for a technical, corporate finance or marketing position, expect to get a few of these beauties. Creativity and mental flexibility and speed are of paramount importance to high-tech firms, and one surefire way to test these qualities are through these slightly offbeat questions. If you field one of these brainteasers, your interviewer may give you a time limit. Dont become flustered. Simply try to think through the question from every angle you can. Most questions require either logic, that ever-popular out of the box thinking, or both. 1. If you look at a clock and the time is 3:15, what is the angle between the hour and the minute hands? The answer to this is not zero! The hour hand, remember, moves as well. The hour hand moves a quarter of the way between three and four, so it moves a quarter of a twelfth (1/48) of 360 degrees. So the answer is seven and a half degrees, to be exact. 2. A company has ten machines that produce gold coins. One of the machines is producing coins that are a gram light. How do you tell which machine is making the defective coins with only one weighing? Think this through - clearly, every machine will have to produce a sample coin or coins, and you must weigh all these coins together. How can you somehow indicate which coins came from which machine? The best way to do it is to have every machine crank out its number in coins, so that machine 1 will make one coin, machine 2 will make two coins, and so on. Take all the coins, weigh them together, and consider their weight against the total theoretical weight. If youre four grams short, for example, youll know that machine 4 is defective. 3. Four members of U2 (Bono, the Edge, Larry and Adam) need to get across a narrow bridge to play a concert. Since its dark, a flashlight is required to cross, but the band has only one flashlight, and only two people can cross the bridge at a time. (This is not to say, of course, that if one of the members of the band has crossed the bridge, he cant come back by himself with the flashlight). Adam takes only a minute to get across, Larry takes two minutes, the Edge takes five minutes, and slowpoke Bono takes ten minutes. A pair can only go as fast as the slowest member. They have 17 minutes to get across. How should they do it? The key to attacking this question is to understand that Bono and the Edge are major liabilities and must be grouped together. In other words, if you sent them across separately, youd already be using fifteen minutes. What does this mean? That Bono and the Edge must go across together. But they can not be the first pair (or one of them will have to transport the flashlight back). Instead, you send Larry and Adam over first, taking two minutes. Adam comes back, taking another minute, for a total of three minutes. Bono and the Edge then go over, taking ten minutes, and bringing the total to 13. Larry comes back, taking another two minutes, for a total of 15. Adam and Larry go back over, bringing the total time to 17 minutes. 4. What is the sum of the numbers from 1 to 50? This is an relatively easy one: pair up the numbers into groups of 51 (1+50=51; 2+49 = 51; etc.). Twenty-five pairs of 51 equals 1275. Leave last job? This question is among the most basic in interviewing. Its also one of the trickiest, as an interviewee can be eliminated from consideration with a poorly conceived response. The main issue with this question, as with all interview questions, is to maintain a positive stance - even if the reason for leaving that last position was due to job performance, poor fit, career change situations, money, politics, boredom, personality conflict, or any of the usual reasons. Even when the job move is intended to add a credential or challenge, an acceptable reason for changing jobs, its difficult to make yourself look good when youre suggesting that the last position was problematic in any way at all. A great way, then, to remember to keep this issue as positive as possible, is a new commandment: Thou shalt never speak ill of thy former employer! Many clients have interpreted this to mean that an interviewee shouldnt trash that former job because prospective employers might think youd do that with them, too. That could be true, but the real problem in presenting a negative situation is creating the impression that the applicant is some kind of malcontent. Negatives always have some kind of unwanted effect on interviewers, even if the story is perfectly understandable, even if the interviewer sympathizes with the tragic circumstances. I strongly suggest that the answer to this question should be prepared well in advance of any self-marketing, especially interviewing. Its also advisable to make sure that youre keeping the prospective employers interests ahead of your own in the interview. Saying I left to seek better opportunities - which could sound self-serving - would be stated better as Im looking for a situation which will more completely utilize my skills and experience in..., which offers the opportunity to present those skills and experiences, rather than a defensive, over-explained reaction. With these kinds of questions, its always best to keep it short and simple. When in doubt, try to turn everything around into demonstrating your knowledge and skill bases. Of course, the above presents a generalized stance, and ignores some of the more individual and personal issues in dealing with this difficult interview question. Well take some of those up in future columns, and on the Interviewing bulletin board. Sample hardquestions)?? 36. How can marketing lead the way toward customer centricity? What experience do you have to support your answer? 37. What is a customer-centric marketing organization, and what five processes has your team implemented to make your entire company more customer-centric? 38. If your current company is not yet customer-centric, what skills does your current marketing team require to lead your company through this change? What steps are you taking to close this skill gap? 39. With whom should you partner to help support this shift to customer-centricity? 40. How can you leverage new channels, tactics, and media to drive customer engagement and intimacy? What steps have you taken to link these divers to your teams compensation? 41. How can you effectively integrate traditional, maturing, and new media, channels, and tactics? 42. What technologies should you leverage to best reach your clients and integrate your activities? 43. If your company markets through both B2B and B2C channels, describe any channel differences in approaching customer-centricity. 44. What customer experience strategies are disrupting the status quo in your industry? Are these strategic disruptions customer driven? Or were they driven by your competitors? Why? 45. Which of your competitors offer a superior customer experience? How do they do it? How did they preempt you? Did you see it coming? Name five things you are doing right now to address this problem. 46. How could your firm change its organization, processes, and culture to compete more effectively? 47. How can your company pinpoint weaknesses in your customers experiences and make improvements that lead to increased profits? 48. BONUS: What are your top three predictions about how integrated, multichannel marketing in your industry will evolve in 2007? Why? Companies these days look for more than whether youre a witty or especially cool individual when it comes to personality. Among the characteristics highest on their list are teamwork and innovation. They may not ask whether you are a team player, or creative. That doesnt mean you shouldnt go ahead and tell them. But then again, a lot of interviewers will ask you outright: tell me why your personal traits will work here. 1. Why are you applying for this position? > Probably the most commonly-asked question at job interviews. You need to convince your interviewer that you are enthusiastic about the job. 2. Tell me about a time when you used initiative/Give me an example of when you came up with an innovative solution/Give me an example of a time you exceeded expectations. In this ever-changing world in which we work, employees are supposed to be innovative, to be able to think outside of the box. Questions like these (such as the way the initiative question and exceeded expectations questions are worded) can be used as opportunities to talk about creative faculties - pick an instance when showing initiative meant coming up with an out-of-the-ordinary solution. 3. I see on your resume that you served as chairperson of such-and-such committee. What was that experience like? Along with innovation, employers often look for leadership ability. In general, interviewers are looking for evidence of a willingness to listen, an ability to give feedback, and a firmness when it comes to getting things done. 4. What would members of your basketball team/business school cohort/ butterfly catching expedition say about you? Tell us about a time you had to deal with a difficult team member. Teamwork is another highly valued trait these days, companies are looking for employees who work well in groups. If your interviewer doesnt bring up teamwork, do it yourself. These questions are similar to the leadership questions - interviewers are looking for both an openness to ideas and a willingness to nudge team members toward a goal. 5. Why did you decide to switch careers/Why did you decide to go back to school/Why did you take time off during college?
Posted on: Fri, 05 Sep 2014 14:09:14 +0000