INTERVIEW ZING WITH KNOWLEDGE ADDA: Frequently asked questions Part 3

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS:

1) What qualities do you see in an ideal boss?

2)Give us a profile of an ideal organization.

Discussion:

• These questions have the potential to bring out the negativity of the candidate and tendency to set the standards for the employer / boss / job. Such an attitude will not help the candidate.
• These questions also show whether you think from your own perspective or can think from other's perspective too.

Suggested Guidelines:

• Boss giving me an opportunity to stretch my professional performance under his guidance relevant to the organizational objective and a fair reward of my efforts.
• An organization where i consistently align my personal objectives with the organizational objectives on a long term basis and contribute significantly to the organizational objective on a consistent basis.

Success is not a destination but a journey.

3) You have a serious disagreement the the boss what will you do?

Objective:

This question can be asked to check your interpersonal relations and assertiveness.

Discussion:

This question has multiple dimensions. how do you resolve differences with others, especially those in authority.

• What do you do in such situations?
• Is the boss always right?
• How quickly do you succumb to pressure?
• Are you submissive, assertive to pressure?
• When do you admit that you cannot handle the situation on your on?
• Do you have the confidence to deal with difficult people and difficult situations?
• Do you hold some ethics and moral principles?

Suggested Guidelines:

• Listen to boss and find out the reason for his position.
• State your position clearly with enough justifications.
• Explore common grounds.
• Show your confidence that you can convince your boss on strength of your home work and logic.
• Repeat your confidence that you can convince your boss by showing the long Term impact on the organization.
• If you fail in your efforts and the issue at hand has serious long term impact on the organization, you will involve seniors even if you have to pay a personal price.

4) What value addition have you made during the last one year?

Objective:

To check your result orientation, learning attitude and futuristic outlook.

Suggested Guidelines:

State just one skill relevant to the job in IT, life skills, people skills, technical skill or soft skill while you improves in the last year. you should be able to give specific actions which you took to improve the same. the value added should have relevance to the job.

Interviewer may ask you as to what value you propose adding this year. And you should have a ready program for the value you propose adding this year. And you should have a ready program for the value addition for this year and the coming years. this shows your proactive approach.

5) What value will you bring to our organization? What is your USP?

Objective:

To find out how precisely you consider yourself to be different from others.

Suggested Guidelines:

This question is aimed to know What makes you unique and different from others? USP is unique selling proposition.

Briefly state Only One given below:

• My commitment to deliver results.
• My resource consciousness especially for time.
• my ability to form terms.
• My balance in stressful conditions.
• My result orientation.
• My ability to articulate complex issues.
• My out of box thinking.

Be prepared to justify your statement with suitable incident from the past.

You should have a realistic assessment of your skill set / competencies. One single point which you mention should be tangible, visible and credible. It should match well with your appearance and personality. try to be as brief as you can, this will enhance your credibility.

6) What are you weaknesses and what are you doing on them?

Objective:

They want to find out whether you are aware of your weaknesses, are you doing something to get rid of them and do you have the courage to admit them?

Suggested Guidelines:

Some Donts

• I have no weaknesses
• I have but I will not tell you.
• Once you select me you will come to know.
• Sermonize on weaknesses and evade the direct answer.
• telling any strength in the cover of weakness.

Now some dos:

• State the weakness, which is obviously visible in you and you cannot hide it like proficiency in English or communication skills.
• Talk of an IT skill which is likely to be important in future but will not call for your rejection now in the interview.
• Talk of some skill which is actually a positive , say for instance you habit of working with perfection, or your habit of working too hard, something like this.
• Weakness should not be very negative like short temper, irregular etc, as they leave a bad impression.

The interviewer may not be satisfied with your answer as he is interested to know some of your weaknesses, which is related to your temperament.

If insisted, you may mention that 'some of your strength in some situations' becomes your weakness and you are aware of the same and you are making sincere to get rid of the same.

Examples:

• I am fairly time conscious but sometimes I become impatient.
• I trust people but sometimes I trust them too quickly.
• Sometimes I feel little impatient or nervous while closer to deadlines.
• I go deep in to an issue but sometimes I go for over details.
• I tend to neglect my health and family during days of over work.
• I am a team person but sometimes when time is short, I tend to become little aggressive and get things done myself.
• Sometimes I over analyze the issues.
• For high stake decisions, sometimes I tend to take a little more time to decide.
• I am not very logical in food preferences.

Choose any of the above options, but emphasize more on the positive portion of the option, and rehearse your answer so that you do not make it look like a grave negative point. 

Good Luck!