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Just had the phone interview from hell with a recruiter... It lasted 20 minutes. She asked me questions about my current role such as current salary, roles and reponsibilities and etc. Then we got to the proverbial behavorial questions. Thats where the downfall began. All of the answers I gave were never specific enough. The recruiter would ask about a certain situation and how I would respond...I had an answer for every question, but again...it was never specific enough.....ARGH!!!!!!! Then afterward, I asked some informational questions about the role, and she said that if Im referred to the hiring manager, he or she could tell me more about the role......The interview was awkward at best....ARGH!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Why me!!!!!!
You need to answer with what you have done...not in the abstract.
If you are asked about how you would handle a difficult co-worker you need to talk about what you have actually done in the situation and not what you think you would, should, I'd could do.
Prepare a list of probably fake stories that present you in a favorable light for each of the commonly asked question. There are lists available online. Unfortunately this is the latest in embarassing hiring stupidity produced by the HR unprofession.
Last edited by MSchemist80; 08-27-2013 at 11:33 AM..
Where they the type of questions like "Give me an example of when ***********. How did you handle it?
Here is the method to answer those, remember it as EARL.
E- Example (Just like it says, give an example)
A-Action (Walk the interviewer through what happened, what you did, etc)
R- Result (This was the out come)
L-Lesson Learned. (What you learned from it)
Let's take a question that comes up a lot... Give us a situation where you and a supervisor/manager disagreed on something. What happened, and, what was the result?
For these types of questions, they are looking at more the behaviors than the example.. Too many people get caught up in the example piece and forget the rest.
A good answer (not the best, just an example).
I typically got along great with all of my managers, so, I don't have a lot of examples. One, in particular though, was a disagreement over my TPS reports. Per department protocol, I was to have them on his desk by 5pm on Friday. On a particular Friday, he was out of the office, and our systems crashed early in the afternoon. My boss usually would have coordinated with IT to come fix the issue, but, because my boss was out of the office, I had to take care of this along with my other duties. Fortunately, working together with my peers, I was able to work with our support group to get the systems up and running before the end of the day. Unfortunately, I was unable to complete the reports by the normal time. My boss came in on Monday, and immediately noticed that these reports were not on his desk, so, he was waiting for me when I came in. He was a bit upset with me, as he felt I had dropped the ball. I explained to him the situation with the systems crash on Friday, and that because I didn't want to interrupt his Vacation time, we had to handle the situation ourselves, which led to the delay on the reports being completed. However, I had taken them home over the weekend to finish them, so, I was able to present them immediately, so that he was able to move forward with his end. Afterwards, we talked about it during our weekly one on one. I apologized for not having them done. He apologized for coming off abrupt, and thanked me for going the extra mile. During our conversation, we discussed that if something like that should happen again, that if I could just leave him a voice mail to give him a heads up whenever something was awry, that way he would not be surprised. I agreed to do that with no problem, as, during the chaos, I did not think of that. We also agreed that the due date for these reports could be pushed to 10am on Monday, giving us a bit more lead time to complete them in the off chance of any more system issues. From this example, I learned that whenever something happens that could lead my manager to be surprised, I should take the initiative and let him or her know via a quick heads up so that they could be aware of any issues or concerns that happened in their absence. Afterwards, whenever an issue presented itself, I made sure to communicate these quickly to avoid a repeat of this situation and to ensure that management was properly notified.
And, if your work experience is so lacking that you need to lie and fake answers to questions about handling difficult coworkers and job responsibilities, the real problem is NOT that you had issues with the questions.
And, if your work experience is so lacking that you need to lie and fake answers to questions about handling difficult coworkers and job responsibilities, the real problem is NOT that you had issues with the questions.
Typical HR logic. Anyone who can't deal with our BS is bad. If I was ever teaching a class on logical fallacies I'd bring an HR textbook on hiring and identifiy all the fallacies. I can't think of a richer and more diverse source of examples.
HR just doesn't have the cerebral processing ability to realize that some people are blessed to never have had conflicts with coworkers, not everyone is a great story teller, that your ability to tell stories has nothing to do with almost any job function I can imagine, and there is no way they can ever verify any of the stories candidates spin together. As a result, you've just selected for Grampa Simpson in your hiring process.
Typical HR logic. Anyone who can't deal with our BS is bad. If I was ever teaching a class on logical fallacies I'd bring an HR textbook on hiring and identifiy all the fallacies. I can't think of a richer and more diverse source of examples.
HR just doesn't have the cerebral processing ability to realize that some people are blessed to never have had conflicts with coworkers, not everyone is a great story teller, that your ability to tell stories has nothing to do with almost any job function I can imagine, and there is no way they can ever verify any of the stories candidates spin together. As a result, you've just selected for Grampa Simpson in your hiring process.
Totally agree.. but that is the system we have to play in to get where we want to go. It's all a game, but, knowing how to play the game helps you win. Sucks royally, for sure
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