Page 129 - You're Hired! Interview Answers

PeoPLe-BaSed QueStionS examPLe inteRview anSweRS 3 Better answer:

“There was a time in the design team when one of the senior designers was

causing a real problem. His style was quite abrasive; he was very critical of the
work of some of the junior designers, to the point that they had started avoiding
him. It was bad for team morale and it meant that they weren’t getting the
benefit of his design expertise. While I wasn’t his manager, I decided to have
a quiet word with him – I wanted to see if he was aware of the impact he was
having on people. It turned out that he was under a lot of pressure himself and
that a lot of his criticism was the result of his not having time to think through
the feedback properly. He really didn’t seem to be aware of just how rude he
sounded when he was under this kind of time pressure. I think making him
aware of it was half the battle, and while he was a bit ‘off’ about my feedback
initially, he agreed that team morale was really important. What he now does is
to set aside review time with the juniors rather than them just firing designs at
him as they are completed. This seems to be working and the team seems a

lot happier.”

Circumstances, action and result are much more clearly explained here.

n Circumstances: a problem individual who was causing friction.
n action: taking the initiative in speaking to the individual.
n Result: the individual changed his behaviour.

As a result, the interviewer will be in a much better position to judge this
person’s people skills. In particular:

n the person recognised that there was a people problem
n they didn’t shy away from a potentially difficult conversation
n the people issue was tackled in a professional way
n the issue was viewed from both sides – the manager’s and the juniors’
n the good of the team was a clear motivation for action
n the result seems to have been good.

People-based questions are often trying to get an assessment of your
emotional intelligence. In other words, how well you understand yourself, how
well you understand other people and how well you can flex your style to have
the impact you want in a particular situation. This answer ticks a lot of these
boxes.

118