McKee - How To Answer Interview Questions

Copyright Peggy McKee, 2014
All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without written permission of the author.

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About the Author

Peggy McKee is an expert resource and dedicated advocate for job seekers. As CEO of Career Confidential, her experience as a nationally-known recruiter for sales and marketing jobs gives her a unique perspective and advantage in developing tools and strategies to help you stand head and shoulders above the competition.

Peggy has been named #1 on the list of the Top 25 Most Influential Online Recruiters by HR Examiner , and has been quoted in articles from CNN , CAP TODAY , and more. She is the official SelfGrowth.com Guide to Interviewing Skills .

Originally from Oklahoma, Peggy grew up on a 1000-acre ranch. She earned a B.S. in Chemistry and an M.B.A. in Marketing from the University of Oklahoma, and went on to great achievements in medical sales. She lives in Texas with her husband and two children and loves ranch work, trail riding, and her favorite horse, Lucky.

In 1999, Peggy began PHC Consulting, a medical sales recruiting firm. When she consistently found herself advising jobseekers who werent her candidates, she developed a new business model to offer personalized career coaching as well as tools to help you thrive and succeed in the job searchand Career Confidential was born.

Career Confidential offers more than 100 products, tools, and webinars for job seekers. Peggy receives positive feedback every day from candidates who have used her tools to land the job of their dreams, and loves that she has contributed to their success.

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www.CareerConfidential.com

Table of Contents

Job Interview Question 1

Are you a leader or a follower?

This is an important interview question meant to measure your personality, and how your personality will fit with this particular job.

To answer this question well, its important to think about what role you are interviewing for. If you are interviewing for a leadership role and you say that you are a follower, you probably wont get that job. If you are interviewing for a role where you would be part of a team (not the leader) and you say that you are always the leader, you wont be a good fit for the team because you cant work collaboratively.

You might be tempted to knee-jerk reply to this one: Im a leader! In our society, we tend to revere the ideal of the decisive, powerful leader. However, the truth is that most jobs require you to be a little of both . We are (as a society) moving more and more toward collaborative efforts with more fluid lines of leadership. You might easily at various times be part of a team, reporting to a higher-up, leading a team, or heading a project. That doesnt mean that your best answer is always a safe Im both.Think about THIS particular job and what it requires to function and be successful.

Whatever your answer, be prepared to give them an example of how you have done that.

STAR Format

The STAR format is a great way to help you structure your answers to interview questions when you need to give an example. It helps you include everything you need to in your answer:

S ituation or T ask

This is whatever was going on at the time. What were you faced with? What was going on? Set the scene.

A ction you took

What did YOU do to affect this situation?

R esults

Always, always finish the story by telling them what happened as a result of your actions. This is the most important part!

If you are a leader , tell them about a time when you exercised leadership, including the actions you took and what the results were. This could be an example of

• Spearheading a multi-piece project that would demonstrate your project management skills
• How you motivated a group of people to achieve a goal
• How you had to make a hard decision (telling what the circumstances were and what the results were)

Just like in your resume, you want to quantify what you are describing wherever possible:

I led a group of 12 people in a 6-department project where our job was to streamline processes between departments to save time and money. We decided to (X, Y, and Z) and as a result, cut an average of 2 weeks out of each process and saved each of the 6 departments an average of $100,000 a year.

If you are a follower , help them see how you contributed to the team and benefited the team.Employers need followers in many roles, but they like to see followers who can take initiative. Talk about a successful project and what your role in that wassomething you did that had a significant impact on the outcome. If you can quantify that impact , thats even better:

My action resulted in a time savings for us, so we got it done 8 days faster.

Or talk about your overall responsibilities and how your contributions ensured consistently successful outcomes.

Job Interview Question 2

Are you better at "managing up" or "managing down"?

Are you better at managing up or managing down? Your answer always needs to be, "I'm good at both."

Managing up or down is all about extreme communication skills.

Heres how this works:

If I manage up well, then:

• I spend time with and talk with my manager
• I understand what their goals and objectives are and make those mine, as well
• I keep my manager informed of my progress on any given project so that they have confidence that things are moving forward toward success
• I know what their expectations are and make it my job to exceed them
• I am proactive and try to come up with ideas and solutions to help the organization succeed. I cant do those things if I dont communicate well with my manager.

If I manage down well, then:

• I am a good team leader and a fantastic communicator
• I understand what our goals are and how the team works within the framework to achieve those goals