Daily Archives: July 13, 2022

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How To Answer 7 Of The Most Common Interview Questions



Interview questions are not as straightforward as they seem, and answering just one question incorrectly may put you out of the running for a job.

The takeaway? Be ready to read between the lines.

Here are seven of the most common interview questions, what the hiring manager is really asking, and how you should respond:

1. "Tell Me About Yourself."


What the hiring manager is really asking...

"How does your education, work history, and professional aspirations relate to this position?"

How to respond: Select key work and education information that shows the hiring manager why you are a perfect fit for the job and for the company.

For example, a recent grad might say something like, "I went to X University where I majored in Y and completed an internship at Z Company. During my internship, I did this and that (name achievements that match the job description), which really solidified my passion for this line of work."

2. "Where Do You See Yourself In 5 Years?"


Hiring manager asks the job candidate an interview question

What the hiring manager is really asking...

"Does this position fit into your long-term career goals? Do you even have long-term career goals?"

How to respond: Do NOT say you don't know (even if you don't) and do not focus on your personal life (it's nice that you want to get married, but it's not relevant). Show the employer you've thought about your career path and that your professional goals align with the job.

3. "What's Your Greatest Weakness?"


Man listens to an interview question

What the hiring manager is really asking...

"Are you self-aware? Do you know where you could stand to improve and are you proactive about getting better?"

How to respond: A good way to answer this is with real-life feedback that you received in the past. For instance, maybe a former boss told you that you needed to work on your presentation skills.

Note that fact, then tell the employer how you've been proactively improving. Avoid any deal breakers ("I don't like working with other people.") or cliché answers ("I'm a perfectionist and I work too hard.").

4. "What Motivates You To Perform?"


Woman listens to a question during her job interview

What the hiring manager is really asking...

"Are you a hard worker? Am I going to have to force you to produce quality work?"

How to respond: Ideal employees are intrinsically motivated, so tell the hiring manager that you find motivation when working toward a goal, contributing to a team effort, and/or developing your skills. Provide a specific example that supports your response.

Finally, even if it's true, do not tell an employer that you're motivated by bragging rights, material things, or the fear of being disciplined.

5. "Tell Me About A Time That You Failed."


Woman smiles before answering an interview question

What the hiring manager is really asking...

"How do you respond to failure? Do you learn from your mistakes? Are you resilient?"

How to respond: Similar to the "greatest weakness" question, you need to demonstrate how you've turned a negative experience into a learning experience.

To do this, acknowledge one of your failures, take responsibility for it, and explain how you improved as a result. Don't say you've never failed (Delusional much?), don't play the blame game, and don't bring up something that's a deal-breaker ("I failed a drug test once...").

6. "Why Do You Want To Work Here?"


Woman shakes hands with the hiring manager during a job interview

What the hiring manager is really asking...

"Are you genuinely interested in the job? Are you a good fit for the company?"

How to respond: Your goal for this response is to demonstrate why you and the company are a great match in terms of philosophy and skill. Discuss what you've learned about them, noting how you align with their mission, company culture, and reputation.

Next, highlight how you would benefit professionally from the job and how the company would benefit professionally from you.

7. "How Many Couches Are There In America"


Man answers an interview question

What the hiring manager is really asking...

"Can you think on your feet? Can you handle pressure? Can you think critically?"

How to respond: When faced with a seemingly absurd question like this one, it's important you're not caught off guard.

Resist the urge to tell the interviewer the question is stupid and irrelevant, and instead walk them through your problem-solving thought process. For this particular question, you would talk about how many people are in the U.S., where couches are found (homes, hotels, furniture stores), etc.

As with other parts of the job application process, it's a good idea to solicit feedback from family, friends, and former colleagues. Try out your answers to each of these questions with at least two people, then revise based on their feedback.

The importance of preparation before an interview cannot be stressed enough. The more you practice, the more confident you'll be. If you successfully answer the most common interview questions, you'll be sure to stand out to employers as a great candidate for the position.

Need more help preparing for your next job interview?

We'd love it if you joined our FREE community. It’s a private, online platform where workers, just like you, are coming together to learn and grow into powerful Workplace Renegades. More importantly, we have tons of resources inside our community that can help you prepare for your next job interview.

It's time to find work that makes you feel happy, satisfied, and fulfilled. Join our FREE community today to finally become an empowered business-of-one!

This article was originally published at an earlier date.

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How To Answer 7 Of The Most …

4 Steps To Solving Problems



I used to work with a rapidly expanding start-up.

Rapidly expanding businesses are like bubbles. The only thing that keeps them together is a very thin skin.

As the headcount grew, so did the number of people running into problems and needing answers. They looked to their leaders to answer their questions and solve their problems. Their leaders were overwhelmed with more questions and problems than they could possibly handle.

The answer was to devolve problem-solving and decision-making lower down the chain of command. The staff needed training to think about and solve problems independently. Problem-solving is rarely taught as a skill in itself.

The 4-Step Coaching/Thinking Approach


Coworkers in meeting work to solve a problem

The basic principle of coaching is helping people solve their own problems by asking questions. I revisited my coaching training and identified four basic questions that could be a simple problem-solving framework.

I trained the lowest level of team leaders to ask their staff these questions when they encountered problems so that later, team members would ask themselves the same questions and work independently and effectively. Here are the questions.

1. What are you trying to do?

This is better than “What’s the problem?” because it focuses on the goal. When asking someone, “What’s the problem?” you often find that you have to ask more questions to get the full picture. This tells you where they want to go. You can follow up with other questions:

  • What makes this so important? The initial or “surface” problem often hides something a lot more important. Sometimes an individual may confuse the method of achieving the goal with the goal itself.
  • What will success look like? / How will you know if you have succeeded? When doing something for the first time, people do not always consider what the final result will look like. As a result, they may over-complicate their solution.

2. What’s stopping you?

This is what most people think is the “problem.” Sometimes it helps to be like Columbo, the TV detective, and play “dumb.” This gets the other person to explain the challenge in more detail, and as she explains it, she starts to understand it better by thinking aloud.

Here are some follow-up questions:

  • What’s the situation now? You can use this where someone tells you about a series of events. It helps them concentrate on the current situation instead of “historic” causes that are no longer relevant.
  • What makes this a problem? Frustrated people don’t always think clearly. Asking this helps them to put things in perspective. They may either realize that the obstacle isn’t so massive, or they may stop, think, and understand what makes the problem such a massive obstacle. This may lead to a solution.
  • What do you need? The obstacle may be lack of time, effort, or resources. When they answer, follow up with “How will this help?” This makes them validate their answer and reduce/remove wishful thinking.

3. What are your options?

This gets us into brainstorming mode. Brainstorming comes in two stages: idea generation, where there is no such thing as a stupid idea, and idea filtration where we filter the ideas to find what is practical.

  • What other options do you have? Tell me more! Assume you need at least five ideas to get one feasible idea. Inject some urgency to get ideas flowing. Activate your colleague’s unconscious creativity.
  • Now rank these options in order of practicality. Ask this to sort the ideas you can use from the ones you can’t.
  • Why did you reject this one? Most people think conventionally and may reject good ideas because they seem too strange. Take a look at a suitcase from the 1960s. Why did it take someone so long to put wheels on luggage?

4. What’s your plan?

Ideas are worth nothing unless they are translated into a concrete plan. Good plans have a start and end date, a concrete objective, and some sort of contingency in case things go wrong. Follow-up questions here include:

  • When are you going to start?
  • When are you going to finish?
  • What are the deliverables?
  • What could go wrong?
  • How are you going to take this into account?

Ask these, and you will get your plan.

How Can You Use These Questions?


Problem, solution

​Here are three ways to use these questions. I recommend using them in the order presented to introduce these questions as a framework for thinking.

1. Coaching-based leadership

Ask your team members these questions to lead them through the thought process. At first, you may need to tell them answers in the “options” and “plan” phases. Later, they will answer themselves.

2. Peer coaching

When your team gets comfortable with these questions, get them to ask each other. At first, you should make it a structured activity. Later, they will start doing it with your prompting them.

3. Self-coaching

Encourage your staff to ask themselves these questions when they hit a problem. You can put the questions on the wall as a reminder. When they come to you with a problem, ask them, “Have you asked yourself these questions?”

If you have the budget, why not put these four questions on posters, mouse pads, coffee mugs, or T-shirts?

Does this work for you?

Are you trying to empower your team to work more independently? Try using this method! Let me know how you get on! I’d love to hear about it!

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4 Steps To Solving Problems

Is Your Organization Prepared For The Next Disaster?



Bad news is seemingly dominating the nightly news headlines. Disasters appear to be everywhere we turn. When a disaster such as a data breach occurs, it’s incredibly stressful and chaotic. Things need to be decided and done quickly or all of the organization’s data could be permanently lost. Note: It’s not IF a disaster will occur, but WHEN a disaster will occur. Does your organization have a written business continuity planning (BCP) plan defining how to handle the disruption?

Creating a documented, comprehensive, and tested business continuity plan and IT disaster recovery plan before the next disaster occurs is crucial. Otherwise, employees are forced to muscle through the best they can, and there is a good chance that critical tasks will inadvertently not get done or be much harder than normal.

If your organization doesn’t have a written BCP plan, here is a framework you can use to create a basic BCP plan, and then continue to enhance it.

How To Create A Business Continuity Plan (BCP)


Natural disasters

1. Identify the key risks – incident (i.e. cyberattack, pandemic, active shooter), outage (such as a power failure), and natural disasters (i.e. tornado, wildfire, earthquake). Do a risk assessment to determine the probability of occurrence (high, medium, low) and impact (enterprise-wide, regional, department-specific, etc.)

2. Take the risk assessment and do a business impact analysis (BIA) to determine how the organization would be impacted. Create a BIA questionnaire for each department to identify things such as potential lost income, outsourcing expenses, regulatory penalties, etc. Additional information can be found here.

3. Use the BIA information to create the business continuity planning (BCP) plan. There is specific software you can purchase, but if you’re just starting out, I’ve created BCP plans using Microsoft Word. Additional information can be found here.

  1. Create a separate “chapter” for each department, and have IT create a disaster recovery plan.
  2. Identify technology systems/applications and classify them based on quickly they need to be up and running (mission-critical, essential, non-essential).
  3. Identify employees who are critical and non-essential as well as have skills that can be used in other departments and speak different languages.
  4. Identify if there are any critical vendors or VIP customers that need to be notified.
  5. Other resources (e.g. hard copy plan, desktops/laptops, other equipment, forms, supplies, etc.) that will be needed especially if you’re resuming operations at an alternate location.
  6. Don’t forget to create a communication plan.
    • Who can declare a disaster? Talk with the press?
    • Make sure employees know what to do.
    • Have a special phone number employees can call to hear instructions (to report or not); have call info on a business card and distribute to employees; and/or purchase a system (such as Everbridge) to make outgoing calls/texts (will need up-to-date contact info).

4. The BCP plan should be reviewed at least annually. Departments should update their section of the BCP plan whenever the business changes (a new process or service), there is a new regulation, etc.

5. Test the plan at least annually and minimally via a tabletop exercise. This gives departments the opportunity to gather lessons learned and update their plan for things they didn’t account for or forgot to update. For example, you didn’t update the team directory and as result had incorrect phone numbers or didn’t realize that one of your critical employees had resigned and wasn’t replaced.

Additional Resources


BCP plan, business continuity plan

Another resource is the Association of Contingency Planners. There is a BCP intro and industry resources.

Once you create a basic BCP plan, then you can continually enhance it. So, when the next disaster occurs, your organization is better prepared and effective. Employees will benefit from all of that planning and know what to do.

For more information on having a comprehensive business continuity planning (BCP) plan, follow me on LinkedIn!

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Is Your Organization Prepared For The Next …

4 Qualities All Great Managers Have



Owners of successful business enterprises will be the first ones to tell you that you need to invest in your people. When you are running a business, you need to rely on the efficiency of each person involved in the organization, whether that person is a front liner or is working in the back office.

Being an owner of a huge corporation entails a lot of responsibilities and that includes hiring and retaining the best people to run your company. You need to look for the best managers who can effectively handle a team of employees.

If you are in the engineering industry, you probably know by now that completing a certain building project will involve hundreds of people divided into different teams. Having the best managers to handle each team is the best way to ensure the success of your project.

Here are some qualities all great managers have:

1. Managers Should Have Strong Interpersonal Skills


The best engineering managers have a way of dealing with people and making sure that each person in the team feels valued. Look for a manager who knows how to handle the different needs and concerns of their team members. It is the responsibility of the manager to keep their people motivated to come to work every day and to be highly productive.

Apart from that, a great manager should ensure that the relationship among their team members is harmonious. Should there be any conflict among the members, they have to be able to iron them out effectively without sacrificing the productivity of the entire team.

2. Managers Should Be Effective In Doing Goal-Setting Activities With Their Team


Happy team members

Each member of the team should feel like they are a valued member of the company. This is why great managers should be able to effectively carry out goal-setting activities with their team. They can conduct strategic planning activities and team-building activities to ensure that each member's goals are streamlined with the entire company's goals.

Apart from goal setting in terms of the company's needs, great managers should also be able to sit down and talk with each team member. Their personal life goals are equally important to the goals that they have for their career. Do they aim to get married in the next few years? Do they aim to migrate with their entire family in the near future? These are things that managers should be aware of. This way, they can prepare ahead of time for sudden changes in the organization and they can ensure proper turnover of responsibilities from one employee to another.

3. Managers Should Be Able To Properly Assess The Skills Of Each Team Member


Manager talks to her colleague at work

Employees have different core competencies, skills, and talents that they can contribute to the company. A great manager will be able to pinpoint these skills so that they can help the employee further harness their potential.

Managers should be aware of any workshops and seminars that they could send their employees to. Allowing them to have trainings will further enhance their skills and help them to contribute more to the company as a whole. Understanding the skills and goals of each team member will be highly beneficial to the company because each member will feel more valued and more motivated to work even harder.

4. Managers Should Be Able To Live By Example


Manager talks to an employee at work

The best managers always make sure that they are the perfect role models for their team members. They live by the company's rules and code of conduct. They ensure that they are the perfect shining example of what a model employee is because this is the only way that they can make the rest of the team follow.

A great leader should start by being a good follower. Excellent managers are those who follow the company's standards and bend the rules only if it is for the greater good.

Want to grow your career and become a better manager?

We'd love it if you joined our FREE community. It’s a private, online platform where workers, just like you, are coming together to learn and grow into powerful Workplace Renegades. More importantly, we have tons of resources inside our community that can help you become a better manager.

Join our FREE community today to finally become an empowered business-of-one!

This article was originally published at an earlier date.

Acquiring Job Advance Your Career Career Changing Careers and Employment Education Internship

4 Qualities All Great Managers Have