The remainder of this chapter contains typical interview questions, both behavioral and traditional, and sample story-based responses to them. The question is in the headline. Note that many of these stories contain emotional content to draw the interviewer in and help him or her identify with the interviewee.
Following standard models for problem-solving and decision-making can be very helpful. Here are the steps and how they helped me solve a problem with a group project:
- Define the problem to be solved and decision to be made. For a project in an introductory management class, the assignment was to report on the corporate structure and financial situation of a couple of companies. The decision to be made was what companies to profile and how to present the information.
- Gather the necessary information. Some group members wanted to report on automakers while others wanted to do electronics firms. We gathered information on both types of company.
- List all possible choices. We made lists of companies in both categories.
- Consider possible outcomes for each choice. We decided that a report about car companies could have a positive outcome, but one about electronics firms might be more futuristic with high-tech products such as HDTV, video-game consoles, and DVD players.
- Check out how you feel about each of the choices. Given that this was a group project, we had to consider the feelings of all group members.
- Relate the choices to your values and priorities. Again, all group members weighed in on their values and priorities.
- From the possible alternatives, choose one. We decided that we’d do electronics companies because we could bring in products from each company and show what lies ahead.
- Commit yourself to your chosen decision and disregard the others. Concentrate your energies in one direction. Once we made our decision, we focused all our work on electronics firms.
- Take steps to turn your decision into positive action. All group members got interested in how the companies were doing.
- Evaluate your progress from time to time. Change your decision if necessary. We were pleased with our progress and didn’t feel a need to change our decision. We got an A on the project.
Tell Me About Yourself: Storytelling that Propels Careers, Quintessential Careers Press, ISBN-10: 1-934689-00-9. Find out the ways you can own the entire book.
