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forums that we host to support some of our products as I felt there must be thought-BaSed QueStionS examPLe inteRview anSweRS

more we could do to make them interesting and engaging.”

This response really lacks depth at this level. There is some indication of
change, but it is presented in a way that suggests it happened as an aside.
There is also no real sense of ownership – it’s implied that this actually sits with
another department and that the interviewee has limited exposure as a result.
This may well be the case, but as an interviewee, you need to think about how
to make the best of the limited experience that you may have, whilst obviously
staying truthful.

Let’s look at a better response:

3 Better answer:

“Sure, as an IT and internet business, we need to keep on top of the latest

developments in the marketplace and ensure that our customers are also
kept up to date. As part of our customer service commitment, we run several
discussion forums that allow users of our products to keep in touch with not
just us, but also each other, and thus discuss their experiences. Our support
staff also read these and will from time to time contribute to them. Now,
discussion forums are a bit dry and they’re not really like a proper discussion
at all because everything is completely sequential. Recently, there has been a
new development that combines different web communication methods into
one allowing both chatroom- and forum-style communication. It has made the
process of communicating far more collaborative. Now clearly, this was going
to be an entirely different form of keeping in touch with our customers, and
from a change perspective, we had to plan both internal and external aspects
of this change very carefully. On a broader level, it needed changes in skills
and attitude from both our staff and customers and as such was not without its

problems.”

Again, this response is short, and there is scope for exploring it in much more
detail. However, the outlines of a senior management-level response are there.
It demonstrates proactive introduction of change, based on an awareness of
what is going on outside the business, to drive improvement. The change had
both internal and external impact and required the need to address attitudes
and skills – a complicated change initiative by anyone’s standards.

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