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When you’re in the hot seat at a job interview, thinking of the best answers can be challenging. In this post, we’ll share our #1 secret for answering hard interview questions. Think of it as an interview hack…
Document Everything!
It’s important to bring up relevant and clear examples that prove you’re a fit for that job. But if you struggle to remember specific examples during interviews, you should create a running document of accomplishments. This document will help you prepare for interviews more effectively because all of those examples will be fresh in your mind. Basically, it allows you to review your accomplishments before you go into an interview rather than sitting there trying to think of relevant examples to showcase.
So, what kinds of things should you be putting on this document? Here are a few suggestions:
1. Relevant Quantifiable Accomplishments
Quantifiable accomplishments tie your professional accomplishments to numbers. Remember: numbers = results = value. During the hiring process, your job is to prove that you’ll be a value-add to that company. Quantifiable accomplishments allow you to showcase your value. So, think of all of your previous professional accomplishments and write them down.
2. Challenges You’ve Overcome
Think about all of the challenges you’ve overcome in your career in order to snag that promotion, work with that difficult co-worker, or get that client. Employers want to know these kinds of stories. They want to know you can adapt to situations and overcome difficulties. So, think about all of those challenges you’ve been up against and how you were able to push through successfully. Tip: use the Experience + Learn = Grow model, especially while answering behavioral interview questions.
3. Stories That Reinforce Your Enthusiasm For The Industry/Company
What is it that makes you so enthusiastic about your work? What’s the root of your motivation for working in this particular field, doing this particular job, for this particular company? Write these things down. Employers want to know that you’re passionate about what you do. They want to know you’re in it for more than just the money.
Don’t let your fear of answering hard interview questions stall your job search! Keep a document with all of these items in it. To make this easy, make it a habit to document these things as they happen. Keep everything in the document, pull relevant examples, and review before you head into an interview.
Need More Help Answering Difficult Interview Questions?
We hope you found this hack to be helpful in answering tough questions in your next interview. If you need more help preparing for a job interview, landing a job, or changing careers, we’re here for you. 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.
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!
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
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
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
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. Itâs 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.
With workers in a position of power, our workplaces are changing. These changes impact the employed and the unemployed. This gives each […]
There are many types of disasters including threats to health, critical infrastructure, power outages, and weather-related (which vary by region, season, etc.). It seems like disasters are continually dominating the nightly news headlines.
According to Statista Research Department the:
- Costliest wildfire â November 8-25, 2018, the Camp Fire in CA caused insured losses of ~$10.38 billion;
- Costliest earthquake â January 17, 1994, in Los Angeles, CA caused ~$30 billion of damages;
- Costliest hurricane â August 29, 2005, Hurricane Katrina resulted in ~$125 billion of damages;
- August 25, 2017 â Hurricane Harvey caused substantial electrical outages along Texasâ Gulf Coast when power plants and transmission infrastructure knocked out 10,000+ megawatts of electricity generating capacity;
- And last but not least, as of August 12, 2022, the CDC reported that there were over 1 million coronavirus (COVID-19) deaths.
And did you know that the Red Cross responds to more than 60,000 disasters every year? How can your entire organization be better prepared for the next disaster?
Create Monthly Campaigns
One thing you can do is create a different monthly campaign on the organizationâs intranet. Be sure to keep the content fresh and interesting. Not sure what to promote each month to keep the employees engaged? March could be Red Cross Month wherein you offer CPR or other lifesaving skill classes to the employees or host a blood drive or find the nearest mobile bloodmobile bus.
Other well-established campaign weeks/months are:
- May â National Hurricane Preparedness Week
- September â National Preparedness Month
- The 2022 theme is âA Lasting Legacy.â The life youâve built is worth protecting. Prepare for disasters to create a lasting legacy for you and your family.
- The 2021 theme was âPrepare to Protect.â Making a plan to prepare for disasters is the best way to protect your family.
- October â Cybersecurity Awareness Month
- December â National Influenza Vaccination Week
There are several campaigns listed on the Ready.gov Preparedness Calendar and the NWS Awareness and Preparedness Calendar by state.
This will allow you to increase awareness of what to do before, during, and after various disasters.
Also, try to practice whenever practicable. This means taking time to perform exercises and drills such as evacuating your building and safely assembling in the designated area(s). Providing this type of information will make both the organization and the employees more prepared for the next disaster.
3 Main Components Of Disaster Preparedness
Although the topic of disaster preparedness may seem overwhelming, think of it as three main components (including other related articles Iâve written):
1. Having a documented and tested IT Disaster Recovery (DR) plan â technology is typically at the core of the business and touches every department.
2. Having a comprehensive and tested business continuity planning (BCP) plan â each department will identify the unique needs/requirements based on their business impact analysis (BIA).
3. Employee Emergency Preparedness â because employees will want to ensure their own families are safe before coming into the office.
For more information on disaster preparedness, follow me on LinkedIn!