Interview_Questions_Answered_p5p6

Part 5 Sample Answer 1: As you can see from my resume, I’ve taken advantage of every opportunity to complete training to develop technical knowledge in this field. Now I’m considered an expert in the technologies that my current company is working on. Last year, when the company decided to expand in this area, the management selected me to head the new project. To head this team effectively, I used my planning skills to make sure that the team was on task and on time, at all times. My management skills came in handy to get the most out of each person on the team. For instance, two of the team members came from competing departments. I work with both of them closely and entrusted them with the most important part of the project. This way, I was able to develop trust between these two team members. This resulted in producing excellent work, while forming one of the most sought-after partnerships in the company. Because this was a new initiative, the nature of the job changed as the project developed. Another one of my strengths is that I’m flexible and I’m able to handle change in the company or in my job responsibilities. When I started on this project, we had four team members. By the end, we had 16. That means that I needed to go from working one-on-one with each team member to having to delegate responsibility as the project grew. This was possible because of the trust I had built up within the team and my ability to shift gears when the project changed over time. Sample Answer 2: One of my biggest strengths is my communication skills. In my current job, I work with people from all over the world and many different backgrounds. I’m able to understand that everyone has different perspectives about projects and work tasks. One of our most recent hires comes from a developing country. It’s very tempting when talking about the latest technological developments to dismiss or at least ignore her perspective. However, as the head of the department, it was clear to me that this new employee brought a fresh perspective on why we needed to consider different options when deciding on the type of technology to adopt. Through hard work and determination, I was able to get the rest of the department to make important changes that moved us in the same direction as the project. I was fortunate that I was able to develop these analytical skills when I was an undergraduate student at McQuillan University. The program I was in used case-based teaching so that we worked on solving real-life problems under real-life conditions. I graduated at the top of my class, and now, I make use of the skills I learned there everyday. Part 6 Sample Answer 1: A weakness that I have is that I don’t like to do public speaking and I get nervous when I have to give a presentation or a speech in front of other people. I realize that I won’t need to do any public speaking in this job right now, but I want to overcome this fear so that when the time comes, I’ll be prepared. It’s important to me to identify any shortcomings that may affect my job performance or career advancement opportunities, and to do something about them. To combat my fear of public speaking, I took a public speaking class at Litton College a few months ago, and after I finished the course, I joined a Toastmaster club. I have been going to the club meetings regularly where I give speeches in front of other members and I get constructive criticism about my performance. I can say that in the past five months, I have become a better and more confident speaker. I think, however, I can be even better, and that’s why I’ve continued to attend meetings and to look for opportunities to put into practice what I’ve learned. I’m confident that in a very short time, I’ll be an even better and more effective speaker and presenter. Sample Answer 2: When I started my first job, I had trouble with procrastination. Even though I never missed a deadline, I found that procrastinating put me under unnecessary stress, and this hurt my enjoyment of the job. Fortunately, I realized the problem fairly quickly and did something about it. The first thing I did was to talk to my colleagues about how they managed their time effectively. I learned that many of them used project management software, which I also began to use. This type of program allowed me to set deadlines and benchmarks for the different tasks I had to do, and gave me reminders about how far along I should be on a given task. This helped with my planning and has made me more organized overall. Now, I use this type of planning for all of my major job tasks, and procrastination is no longer a problem for me.