Accountable - owns mistakes | Accuracy |
Adaptable | Administration |
Ambitious | Assertive |
Budgets | Business Acumen |
Candid / Direct / Overly Blunt | Closing Sales |
Coding | Committed |
Compassionate | Competitive |
Conflict Resolution | Conscientious |
Cooperative | Credible / Respected by Peers |
Customer Advocacy | Customer Service |
Decisive / Indecisive | Dedicated |
Delivering to Expectations | Design |
Determined | Diligent |
Disciplined | Energetic |
Engaged | Enthusiastic |
Entrepreneurial | Executive Communication |
Experience / Inexperience | Fast Learner |
Financial Management | Flexible |
Friendly / Perceived as Distant | Handling Ambiguity |
Handling Political Pressures | Handling Stress (e.g. difficult customer service interactions) |
Handling Time Pressure | Honesty |
Industry Connections / Lack of Connections | Influencing / Getting to Yes |
Initiative | Insightful |
Knowledge / Knowledge Gaps | Managing Commitments |
Managing Expectations | Mathematics / Statistics |
Meeting Deadlines | Meeting Management |
Negotiation | Organized / Disorganized |
Outgoing / Reserved / Shy | Overthinking |
Patient | People Management |
Perfectionism | Pragmatic / Optimistic / Realistic / Pessimistic |
Presentations | Priority Setting |
Problem Solver | Process Improvement |
Process Management | Public Speaking |
Relationship Building | Reporting |
Resilient | Resourceful |
Responsible | Responsive |
Self-Correcting | Self-Directed |
Self-Starter | Setting Goals / Objectives |
Technical Skills | Testing Ideas / Experiments |
Timely / Reasonable Decisions | Verbal Communication |
Visual Communication | Work Ethic |
Work Quality | Work Throughput / Productivity |
Strengths
A question of strengths allows you to display confidence and demonstrate talents that are application to a role. A typically answer will include a concrete example. If you don't provide an example you can expect a follow up question that requests one.I'm extremely reliable. For example, I worked 5 years in my last job without being late once. I called in sick no more than 2 or 3 times over that entire period.
I have high work throughput. For example, in any project I'm typically given the most complex functions to code because I typically deliver thousands of lines of working code a day.
I'm good with customers, even under stress. This is why I was promoted to front desk manager by my previous employer -- the front desk manager handles customer complaints and solves customer problems. I had demonstrated a knack for turning around situations where customers were unhappy about something to get them smiling again -- so I was promoted.
I have high work throughput. For example, in any project I'm typically given the most complex functions to code because I typically deliver thousands of lines of working code a day.
I'm good with customers, even under stress. This is why I was promoted to front desk manager by my previous employer -- the front desk manager handles customer complaints and solves customer problems. I had demonstrated a knack for turning around situations where customers were unhappy about something to get them smiling again -- so I was promoted.
Weaknesses
Weaknesses are an opportunity to show that you're self-aware and self-correcting. A reasonably good answer is to state some weakness and then describe how you've improve in this area. If there is an elephant in the room -- a skill that you will need for a role that you don't have, this is ideal. The common advice to state a weakness that is actually a strength may be perceived as disingenuous. I see in this role that I will need to know PHP and I am not well versed in this language. This shouldn't be a problem as I know 5 programming languages at present and have always learned new languages within weeks.
As I understand it this job would require public speaking and I don't have much experience with that. However, in my current role I often give presentations at the weekly team meeting and at monthly board meetings. These presentations have always gone well such that I feel I'm up to the challenge.
In the past, my reports and executive summaries included too many details. I tend to be detail oriented and have worked to try to simplify my messaging to get to the high level information that executives need. [expect a follow up -- what information do executives need?]
As I understand it this job would require public speaking and I don't have much experience with that. However, in my current role I often give presentations at the weekly team meeting and at monthly board meetings. These presentations have always gone well such that I feel I'm up to the challenge.
In the past, my reports and executive summaries included too many details. I tend to be detail oriented and have worked to try to simplify my messaging to get to the high level information that executives need. [expect a follow up -- what information do executives need?]
