Page 115 - You're Hired! Interview Answers

thought-BaSed QueStionS examPLe inteRview anSweRS The response also suggests more involvement and drive from the interviewee
than the previous, poorer, answer.

interviewer: tell me about a time when you recognised
that the current strategy was no longer appropriate.

7 Poor answer:

“As an organisation in business for over 20 years, we had developed an

excellent name in the marketplace and frequently our reputation preceded us.
As a result, there was relatively little that we needed to do in the form of sales
and marketing activity. However, the recession of 2008/2009 put a stop to that.
Our order book very quickly began to dry up and there were fewer prospects in
our pipeline. Our reliance on having developed intimate relationships with our
clients and keeping close to them was, on its own, not going to see us through
this difficult period. We needed to become more proactive and we needed
to grow a stronger market awareness beyond those clients that we regularly
worked with. Fundamentally, we needed a change in strategy. So I suggested
to my fellow directors that we needed to re-examine the strategy, as I felt it was

no longer effective in the prevailing economic climate.”

The example is not very strong, it is a little reactive – strategy was changed
in response to a drying-up pipeline. At this level, a good candidate needs
to be off the mark more quickly and recognise, for example, at the onset of
the economic downturn, that current strategy would not be sufficient. Whilst
responding differently to the question and indicating that the actions were
spontaneous might improve the answer, it is likely that an interviewer would
discover this through their probing. A better response would be one that
demonstrated proactively addressing a strategic issue.

The interviewer will also be looking for more detail as to exactly how the
respondent became aware of the situation, for example, what key indicators
they were looking at, and how this compared not just to the previous year, but
to other times of economic downturn.

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