Dealing with difficult situations and how this can help with interview responses
So far in the series we have covered some questions that are commonly covered at interview and here are a sample of those.
How to answer an interview question about communication
How to address more ‘unusual’ interview questions
If you go back to the Advice section you will find more examples.
The range of possible interview questions is many and varied but when planning concentrate on YOU so reflect on your education, your skills, evidence of these, knowledge and experience.
And your motivation for joining the company so knowing what THEY are all about and showing you can see yourself within the company.
We could write lists and lists of interview questions and we wouldn’t succeed in covering them all. So it can be a bit of a gamble in terms of what you get asked and how you will respond. As we have said though make sure you have some good examples of situations.
One tip is to try and always think of events that have caused you major difficulties and you have dealt with them and overcome adverse situations . So showing strength and the ability to cope. Unusual situations also stand out in an interviewer’s mind.
So examples of these might be …
- If you were working in a restaurant on Christmas Eve and 4 members of your 6 person team called in sick what did you do?
- If there was a medical emergency when you were working in any setting what did you do?
- If 3 of your 5 strong group project members suddenly disappeared the day before the deadline and didn’t answer their phones and email messages what did you do?
You get the idea!
Always keep the personal details of anyone you talk about completely confidential but you can certainly talk about the context and it’s what you did that’s the important factor.
So think of the skills gained whist you were dealing with this situation.
Resilience , problem solving and coping calmly are three that spring to mind but think of as many as you can.
Knowing what you have done in the past and how this has helped you gain and develop skills is really important and worth really thinking through before the interview.
For more on interviews go to our website.
Pamela Coppola • 22/05/2019