Page 105 - You're Hired! Interview Answers

thought-BaSed QueStionS examPLe inteRview anSweRS Middle management level

For a middle management role, the interviewer will be seeking more
complexity in the issues that you talk about. Either your examples will need
to have a higher level of focus or the issues will need to be more complex
and more interrelated, requiring more careful consideration and balancing of
implications.

interviewer: tell me about a time where you had to
anticipate potential problems and how you went about
developing contingencies.

7 Poor answer:

“Well, that’s part of a manager’s job really. It’s important that I keep on top

of what is going on in our market place. I do this by regularly speaking to my
contacts and reading the trade press. I have also instigated regular weekly
meetings with the team, where we all report back what is happening in the
market and this allows us to take corrective action at an early stage. For
example, I recently completely restructured my sales team as our competitors
were beginning to catch up with us and I needed to take corrective action
quickly. The restructure made us more nimble and better placed to beat the

competition.”

Why is this a poor answer?

The answer starts at a general level. When eventually an example is cited, it is
not very detailed or specific. Remember, this is for a middle management role,
so an interviewer would be expecting more depth to the response. Had the
interviewee followed the CAR principles more closely, we would have a more in
depth and detailed response.

3 Better answer:

“Yes, as manager of a sales team of ten people, I was becoming increasingly

aware of a competitor that was beginning to encroach on our territory. To
date, we had not lost sales – our clients were buying both products – but we

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