I would like some advice from the community on how to prepare, practice and deliver significant accomplishment answers. I am particularly interested in how you take ~10 well rehearsed accomplishments and apply them to any number of different questions.
I have an interview for an internal position coming up, and I am trying to get as prepared as I can for it. Our interviews are all behavioral and follow the STAR format. I have followed the advice in the Interviewing Series and have my accomplishments prepared, but in the past I have struggled to deliver these answers effectively.
The questions I get are usually fairly specific behavioral questions. One example: "Tell me about a time where you had to repair a damaged relationship". My problem is that I can't prepare for every possible behavioral question. I have my accomplishments organized by "trait", but that only gets me so far in my preparation.
For the example question in the previous paragraph, I would try to find an accomplishment that deals with relationship building. The problem is that I probably haven't written or rehearsed the accomplishment from this point of view before. How do you practice delivering these answers so you can use your accomplishments in a variety of different scenarios? Do you practice against a large bank of behavioral questions? Do you practice delivering each accomplishment multiple times as if you are answering multiple different questions?
-JIB
Any advice on the interviewing series?
(Just giving this thread a bump to try and get some advice - I really am quite keen to be prepared!)
I am either being too impatient for a response, or my question didn't make sense or ring true with anyone else.
How do you practice and prepare your significant accomplishments so you can use them for a variety of different behavioral questions? I have all my accomplishments prepared and organized by behavior, but I know that I am likely to get a question that doesn't really relate to any of them. How do you prepare and practice for those questions?
For example, I may get a question along the lines of "Tell me about a time when you needed to drive a behavioral change in the organization." I may not have any accomplishments around that, and in fact I may not have ever even done something like that in my role. How do you stay prepared to answer any behavioral question you get, given that you have a limited set of prior accomplishments to work from?
-JIB
my own experiences
BLUF: Practice what you feel most closely fits the job and trust yourself for the rest.
The times that I have interviewed since starting to use the interview series, I have found that the preparation works well even for questions that don't fit your practice questions. I am by no means an Interview Series Expert but I have been in this situation before.
I used the Interview Series in preparation for a job change a few years ago. When the actual interview occurred it wasn't a standard Behavioral Interview. The hiring manager favored a "conversational style" interview in which we discussed the state of the industry, current technical standards, and my job history. There weren't any standard questions and not once did I get to use any of my prepared answers. YET, all of the preparation that I did absolutely helped me be ready to talk about my past accomplishments and how they fit into the position. I was regularly able to use concepts or even whole sections from my prepared answers. The real advantage came from the rehearsing that I did. The daily Audio recording worked great in getting me ready to talk comfortably about my self and my history.
I believe that if you prepare well, then you will be able to answer any reasonable question that they will send you.
Canyon R
I could have written this
I could have written this post and I thought I did. I would love to hear more feedback on this. Also I need help with accomplishments. In a secretarial postion I can not say I increased sales, raised profits etc.... I have many compliments from customers to administration about my followthrough, professionalism etc. but how is this an accomplishment and how can I make myself stand out when I do not even know my accomplishments?