Job interviews are complicated at the best of times, but often employers unconsciously make the interviewer harder due to the way the interview questions are phrased.
The three common mistakes employers make are:
Asking multiple questions embed into one interview question.
Questions that have a hidden meaning – including the ‘tell me about your last job?’ question.
Ambiguous questions.
Job seekers, during the job interview, have their hands tied. It is impossible for an interviewee to explain to the interviewer that they need to improve the way they phrase the interview questions – this would only end with a rejection notice.
Instead, applicants need to understand the common mistakes employers make and how to overcome these tricky interview questions during the recruitment process.
Multiple Questions in One Interview Question
Career professionals have to remember that a high number of interviewers have never been trained in the art of interview communication.
Job interviews are often conducted by either a HR staff member (often trained in the art of interviewing) or a potential line manager (rarely trained in interviewing).
It is these same untrained managers who are responsible for writing the interview questions. Employers, generally speaking, ask 8-10 interview questions, but the essential criteria list can number upto 30 criteria.
Due to needing to check if the applicant possesses all the required skills, interview questions end up being stuffed with additional questions, confusing the candidates.
An example of ‘interview stuffing’ is when an interviewer requires an example of problem-solving. The interview questions would sound like, “Give me an example of when you have overcome a problem?”
Additional questions can be asked that are helpful to the applicants, “State the problem, what actions you took, and the outcome.”
Not so helpful is when the question is filled with additional questions, “Give me an example of when you have overcome a problem? Maybe one when you worked on your own or in a team. And explain if you used or know what a risk register is?”
Often the additional embedded questions aren’t part of a written question. Instead the question is impromptu during the interview itself.
Using the ‘overcome a problem’ question, the applicant initially can state “I have two short examples…” informing the interview panel of the structure of the interview answer.
Next, the two examples need to meet the additional criteria questions, “the first one is overcoming a problem when working as part of a team. While working at….”
Finally, when a summary can be added that covers any additional questions not yet disucssed, “In our line of work we are constantly faced with problems that require solutions. To be more effective I utilse a risk register….”
Hidden Meaning Interview Questions
In the main, interviewers don’t design purposely tricky interview questions, But often, when taken at face value, an applicant can misunderstand the reason why a question was asked.
Understanding the reason for the interview question gives an interviewee an advantage as their answers can be tailored to meet the job criteria, resulting in a high-scoring answer.
An example of the ‘hidden meaning’ question is the, ‘Tell me about your last job?’ interview question.
Many candidates wrongly believe to answer the ‘last job’ question they should talk about the company culture, duration in the role, company successes, and the size of the organisation.
The required answer isn’t that obvious. What employers are really asking when they say “tell me about your last job?” is, ‘how did your last job prepare you for this job?’ This is the hidden meaning behind this question.
Think about it? Why would an employer ask about the company culture or the size of an organisation the applicant worked at?
Remember, the goal of a recruitment process is to predict the job performance of each applicant before offering the perceived best employee the advertised position.
For this question, employers want to know:
What skills did you develop that will be useful in the our company?
What ideas, knowledge and experiences will be useful if you were to be employed?
Do you have a skill or quality that would add value to the business plan?
Were you influential in the completion of a project/outcome?
Has your work ethic or character helped to increase business output?
Do you have experience on a project similar to one we are just about to launch?
Other hidden meaning interview question examples.
What type of working environment suits you? Hidden meaning: Will you work well within our company culture?
Have you ever made a mistake? Hidden meaning: Do you learn from mistakes/what have you learnt from a mistake?
Why do you want to work for this company? Hidden meaning: Are you likely to stay/leave the company within a short timeframe?
What are your strengths? Hidden meaning: Do you possess the essential criteria for the advertised role?
What would you do within the first few weeks of starting the role? Hidden meaning: Do you need hand-holding or can you get on with the required duties?
Ambiguous Interview Questions
One of the biggest barriers for the job applicant is the high number of ambiguous job interview questions.
The real barrier here is that many questions don’t actually sound ambiguous.
An example of this is the stakeholder question, “how would you collaborate with a key stakeholder?” As a stakeholder is any group affected by the company, there are numerous stakeholders which all have varying levels of interest and influence over the company.
Imagine a retail store asking this question. Two key stakeholders are 1) customers, and 2) suppliers. The approach for collaborating with each group of stakeholders would vary.
A second example, is the interview question: “What is your approach to project management?” Approaches vary depending on the project, timeframe, associated risks and the number of stakeholders collaborating on the project.
Similar to the, “What role do you take when working within a team?” The answer can change due to varying factors of the team and project: the size of the team, is the applicant is employed to manage the team/project, if the task is reacting to a situation and therefore urgent, or a proactive team task allowing more time for creativity.
Answering Ambiguous Questions
To answer any ambiguous questions, first ask for specifics.
Gaining the detailed intelligence by asking for specifics, gives an applicant all the required data they need to frame their answer so it is relevant to criteria on the interview scorecard.
Let’s say the employer asks “How would you ensure you meet your targets by the month-end?” The question can be answered by talking about the month as a whole; projecting targets, planning actions, and monitoring results.
Whereas, the employer may have meant if the employee was underperforming (as this is common within their organisation) and is interested to hear how the applicant acts under pressure.
A second example is, “How will you make an impact if you were employed here?” This and most other ambitious interview questions are opened ended. Ask a closed question to get the required detail needed to answer the question as expected by the employer: “Do you want me to talk about how I will have impact on my colleagues to achieve team targets or how I will impact on the positive relationship with stakeholders?”
By asking the “A or B” scenario requires a response from the employer. Employers, now responding in detail, will give the virtual clue to support the interviewee to succeed.
In fact, research shows how 5 % of employers make a hiring decision within a few minutes of meeting a candidate, and 35 % within 5 minutes of the initial introduction.
Therefore, the interviewee’s introduction is key to winning a job offer.
Many career professionals don’t bother to prepare for this initial interaction with the office receptionist.
Why should they, when the all important job interview is minutes away?
According to a recent post on Reddit, an interviewee made the mistake of not being professional during the walk-in introduction.
The applicant walked into reception and was greeted by a friendly receptionist who attempted to create a conversation. The ignorant applicant was dismissive and didn’t even bother to look the receptionist in the eye.
A few moments later, the candidate finds himself in the interview room, and who walks in…the receptionist! Well not quite. In turns out that the receptionist wasn’t the receptionist at all. In fact, she was the hiring manager.
First impressions are visual.
The employer makes a snap decision about the applicant as soon as they see them coming through the door.
It is the applicants outfit, postures and eye contact that creates an positive or negative impression.
How to be seen as positive as you walk into reception.
Wear professional clothes with a style that suits your body type
Smile – smiling is seen as a positive trait
Hold your head high and look directly at the receptionist
Walk with determination
Next, the impression can be alerted by the tonality and communication style of the interviewee.
Well paced and professional communication works best. Prior to the job interview, complete vocal warm ups . Warming up your voice helps to overcome any nervous giveaways by the voice.
Avoid:
Filler words
Whispering/mumbling
Shouting
Coughing
Hand over mouth (which anxious applicants are likely to do)
Short sharp breaths which alters the natural sound of your voice
Before introducing yourself to the receptionist, wait for the receptionist to stop what ever it is they are doing. When asked “How can I help?”, in a clear voice say:
“Good morning/afternoon, my name is X I have an interview appointment with (hiring manager) at (time)”
When speaking, look the receptionist in the eye.
As the receptionist would have been expecting you, they are likely to ask you to take a seat while they ring through to the interview panel.
If the receptionist makes small talk, reply back being friendly and professional.
Interview Introduction.
The introduction to the interviewer(s) happens in two stages.
In most situations, one of the interview panel will collect you from reception.
Often they will ask “Hi, are you (name) for the (time) interview?”
How you respond helps to shape a positive or negative impression.
Again avoid mumbling, looking down or a sweaty handshake. Instead, look the interviewer in the eye and say “Yes, nice to meet you” before offering your hand.
As the employer walks you to the interview room, generate small talk as this 1) warms the voice up prior to the imminent interview and 2) makes you seem more confident.
Meeting the interview panel.
As the employer takes you into the interview room, you will be introduced to the rest of the interview panel.
Commonly, the member of staff who met you at reception will introduce each interview panel member in turn and by name.
Pre-interview research is key here. As you are introduced to some of the interview panel, use your research to generate a conversation. As an example:
Employer: “this is Mrs X, he head of the department.”
Applicant: “Mrs X, didn’t you win an award last year for…..”
This referencing opener generates massive rapport helping to create a successful interview outcome.
3 rules for a successful job interview
Rule 1 – identify the job criteria
Rule 2 – be a self-promoter
Rule 3 – communicate with confidence
The power of the three rules is down to how, when combined, they help to sculpture a positive interview identity.
An ‘interview identity’ is one of sixteen interview personality types that are prevalent in the job interview. The identity is how an employer perceives the applicant.
The power of the three rules is down to how, when combined, they help to sculpture a positive interview identity.
An ‘interview identity’ is one of sixteen interview personality types that are prevalent in the job interview. The identity is how an employer perceives the applicant.
How an employer views an applicant, desirable or undesirable, skilled or unskilled, liked or disliked, affects the subconscious scoring allocation of each interview question.
Therefore, the three rules of a successful interview help to reinforce a positive interview identity:
It isn’t only the duration in an industry (job experience) or a degree level qualification (academic ability) that results in high-scoring interview answers, but the applicant’s presence and communication style that creates the employer’s positive perception of a strong candidate.
As an example, some highly experienced interviewees fail, time and time again, to land high salaried job roles because their own self-worth results in a poor communication style.
This article will teach you have to be viewed as highly skilled and confident by any employer.
How to identify the job criteria?
Rule one, the identification of the job criteria, is key to receiving a job offer.
Why? Without possessing a deep understanding of the job criteria – the skill, qualities and experiences an employer requires for the advertised job position, an applicant won’t have the insight to choose job-relevant interview answers and examples.
This lack of insight can lead to candidates going off-topic, giving descriptive answers that have nothing to do with their future job role, and the use of jargon that isn’t understood by an employer (as it has nothing whatsoever to do with their job sector).
Identifying the job criteria allows a skilled career professional to reference 3-5 skills, qualities and experiences, required by the employer, in each job interview answer. Furthermore, the explanation of sector-related models and theories, plus industry jargon, reinforce the positive interview identity the employer is forming.
In short, each answer scores high and employers have a positive feeling that the applicant would work well within their organisation.
Quick ways to identify the job criteria.
Three ways to easily identify the job criteria.
Each essential criterion, in the main, will each be part of a job interview question.
For many job interviews, the employer will follow a structured job interview process, where each answer will be allocated a score. The answers stating the highest number of criteria, generally speaking, will gain the highest score.
This is because the job interview is designed to predict job performance.
The more criterion the applicant confidently shows they possess, the more likely it is that the applicant will be a highly-skilled worker.
Without question, all job hunters should review the job specification for the position they are being interviewed for.
The employer’s job spec list of the required job criteria, specifying which criteria are essential or desirable.
Additionally, a clever applicant can analyse the job spec to search for repeated mentions of certain criteria. If a criteria has been reference several times throughout the job spec (and in the job advert) then this criteria is, more than likely, going to be one of the key job interview questions.
If the job position’s job spec lacks detail, a second way to predict the criteria, and therefore the job interview questions, is to read a ‘job profile’.
A job profile is a tool career advisors use to help understand various job roles. The profile consists of the job duties, required skills, entry routs and salary bands.
For most roles, the skills are required for all employers: communication skills for a sales executive or a creative mind for a problem-solving position. Therefore, the job profiles list of duties and required skills can be used to plan interview answers to predicted questions.
A third way to use predict job interview questions is to use your online network.
Linkedin, as an example, can be used to contact people who work or have worked in the organsiation for the advertised position. Many people who use social media are more than happy to help others, even going as far as providing a list of job interview questions and ideal answers.
WARNING – you need to do your research before reaching out to any old employee. You never know if one of the people you are reaching out to is going to be part of the interview panel.
We recommend having a foot-in-the-door approach:
Make contact with a person who is working for the organisation, stating that you saw they are working for X company and that you are also interested in applying for a job there. Ask for their opinion about the company. Once a response has been received, you can then explain you have an interview and ask for ‘any tips’. This can even lead to asking for potential questions, depending on the replies you are receiving.
Another online tool is a career forum website, such as glassdoors, that encourages interviewees and employees to share their interview questions and opinions about employers.
How to be a self-promoter
The law of a job interview is: an employer can only score an applicant on what they have discussed during the job interview.
It is this rule that is the barrier to internal candidates being interviewed by their line manager.
Many internal candidates will fail to mention business-as-usual tasks because they know that their line manager knows that they are competent with these tasks.
However, if the business-as-usual tasks form part of the scoring criteria on the interview scorecard and an internal job applicant does not reference these, the interview panel will be forced to score them low due to the process of a structured job interview.
What is required is self-promotion.
Consistently good interviewee’s are skilled self-promoters. Each answer given is clear, structured and states what the applicant, themselves, did to achieve a positive outcome.
DO NOT:
Think it is arrogant to talk about your own successes
Believe you have ‘imposture syndrome’ – you were offered a job interview based on your past experience and academic ability
Self-disclose weakness
To be a self-promoter:
Utilise none-verbals; strong eye contact, smile, gesture and positive and powerful body language
Vary language and use positive emotional words and powerful language
Explain in detail what YOU did to overcome problems
Detail how a skill (from an example) can be utilised in the interviewer’s company
Reframe any mistakes or weaknesses as learning points
How to communicate with confidence
Communication is king in the job interview
As mentioned above, failing to mention key criteria can only result in low scoring interview answers.
In addition to discussing essential criteria, the way skills, qualities and experiences are communicated influence how they are received.
An example of this is stating acronyms that aren’t reconisgnise by an employer or mumbling. The use of filler words, a monotone voice, and short snappy answers will also create a negative interview identity.
Employers admire confidence.
A confident team with the required experience are likely to be a high-performing team. In addition, trust is closely linked to confidence.
Employers, therefore, subconsciously score applicants who communicate confidently slightly higher than a weak communicator.
To communicate confidently:
Complete pre-interview voice warm-ups
Make small talk at the interview start to build rapport
Vary tonality, projection, and emotions
Focus on pace; speed up to create excitement and slow down when stating positive outcomes
When feeling nervous (or a dry-mouth) stop and drink water
Be humorous or smile is that comes naturally
Explain answers in detail as a high number of words per answer, research shows, gain higher scores
Be expressive – use gestures and positive body language
Debate ideas, and even challenge an employer opinion (in a professional and friendly way)
Ask the interview panel questions throughout the job interview, to create a conversation not a Q&A process
A successful job interview
Much research shows how the 3 rules; identifying the job criteria, being a self-promoter and communicating with confidence, will be vastly improve a candidate’s chances of winning the job offer.
Career professionals who struggle with gaining career advancement due to a high number of failed job interviews can analyse their interview performance to identify which of the 3 rules they are failing to implement.
With this reflection, and using the advice in this article, once weak interviewees can become strong applicants altering their job interview identity from a weak identity to one of the 4 strongest interview identities.
If an applicant is worried about the ‘unemployment’ question, their nervousness and anxiety will effect the whole job interview process; answers will be short and snappy, lacking detail. Communication will be mumbled and use of filler words will be high. Nervous twitches and lack of eye contact result in broken rapport.
To reduce job interview anxiety, the applicants focus needs to be directed onto their achievements during the unemployment period.
Preparing answers that highlight skills and knowledge gained while being unemployed.
This could be in the form of accredited courses, CPD or volunteering. Many career professionals have side hustle and part time businesses or can show leadership skills from being on the board of their child’s school.
What is important is the direction of the mind. The brain can only consciously focus on one thing at a time, direct this focus strengths as a positive focus is the pathway to confidence.
4 Tips for answering the unemployment question
Tip 1 – give the reason for being unemployed.
Being made redundant isn’t a negative. By stating the reason for the company, you previously worked at, making redundancies gives context. Humans like to have reasons, they find them reassuring. Without a reason, people will guess which is when an unconscious bias can come into play.
The ‘context’ strategy is required for all reasons for being unemployed. If a career professional choose to leave a job, an explanation, stated is a positive, is required. This could include: being a carer for a ill relative, to gain a new industry recognised qualification, or to gain a life skill by (travelling the world)
Tip 2 – share lessons learnt
Time off work has one key advantage, the career professional gets the opportunity to reflect on their career choices. Keeping the positive ‘frame’ going, applicants can state how having time out of work allowed them to reflect on their ideal career and company. During this period the applicant can state how they had time to research organisations to find a company with the right values, and how this is the reason why the applied for this role.
Tip 3 – what can the applicant offer?
All job interviews are designed to predict the interviewee’s potential job performance. It is important, therefore, for the candidate to state clearly what added value they can bring to the organisation. The first of the three rules for a successful job interview is ‘identifying the job criteria’. All answers, promotional points and interview stories must reference the job criteria for the advertised position. In short, applicants need to tell the interview panel that they possess the required knowledge and experience for the role.
Tip 4 – avoid focusing on unemployment
Any interview question can be reframed. If an interviewer asks about a weakness, the applicant can reframe their answer to talk about lessons learned. The ‘reframe’ can be utilised with the ‘unemployment’ question. Instead of focusing on why the applicant is unemployed focus the answer on what the candidate can bring to the team.
Attitude is king in the interview.
Confident and charismatic applicants do better than nervous and unsure interviewees.
Stating how the ‘unemployment’ period was a horrible and troubling time creates a different emotional connection between the applicant and employer than an answer that happily states ‘this was the best thing that could have happened to me’.
However an answer is framed, it is the applicants communication and non-verbal communication, the packaging of the answer, that will increase and decrease the allocated scores to the interview question.
Interviewers warm to applicants that look confident;
positive body language
strong eye contact
warming smiling
confident communicate; long descriptive answers, positive emotional words, strong diction, pace and volume.
Always remember – confidence builds trust.
Will you be asked about being unemployed?
In most structured job interviews there will be a pre-set of interview questions that all applicants are asked.
Generally speaking, there won’t be a ‘unemployment’ question.
Instead, interviewers will ask:
‘Tell me about yourself?’
‘Explain why you are suitable for this role?’
‘Why did you apply for this position?’
All of the above examples can lead to nervous applicants explaining why they are currently unemployed.
Research shows that anxious applicants are more likely to self-disclose weaknesses, including the referencing of being unemployed.
Take the lead from confident candidates who state all answers in the positive and reframe any negative follow-up questions so they are viewed in the best possible light.
Employers, as well as reviewing industry related knowledge and experience, also check applicants temperament and qualities during the interview process.
As well as being asked for high stressed job roles, the stress question is common across most job sectors. Therefore, it is important for all interviewees, no matter their job level, to prepare for the ‘stress’ question.
This article will to teach you how to answer the job interview question: ‘how do you handle stress?’
The ‘stress’ interview question come in different forms:
‘Tell me about a time a project or task made you stressed ?’
‘If X stressful situation happened, what would you do?’
‘How do you plan your workload when you have several high important projects with similar deadlines?’
What is important, when answering an interview question on stress, is to cover three key aspects:
Pre-planning
Organisation
Emotional Intelligence
The mistake, that many applicants make, is to discuss how stressed they become in certain situations:
‘Managing multiple projects at the same time is very stressful’
‘Deadlines make it hard for me to sleep at night’
‘I often worry when I am behind on my targets’
The admission of situational stress can give an employer concerns. ‘Behavioral interview questions‘ which is the format the ‘stress’ question comes in, look at past actions to determine future situations.
If an applicant admits to becoming stressed in an environment that will be required in the new job role, it is unlikely that the recruiting manager will want to offer the job role to the interviewee.
A good way to reframe the stress question is to generalise the reason why career professionals can become stressed.
The interview answer should start with an ambiguous statement to creates the authenticity of a specific answer:
‘Stress comes from a lack of planning. An example of this is when a (job role) doesn’t plan for (situation)…’
This example highlight industry related stressful situations without stating how the applicant themselves have been previously stressed.
The second step to answering the stress question is for the candidate to showcase their proactiveness.
‘…When I know about (a new contract, upcoming deadlines, busy periods of the year, etc) I pro-actively plan to ensure that tasks are achieved without becoming stressed. As an example (discuss a planning or time management model or give a real-life example)..’
Next explain why an organised approach reduces stress. There are many approaches to this section of the answer. The key is to pick an explanation to will resonate with the employer.
Interviewees can embed any of the following suggestions into their reply.
Use of GANNT charts
Delegating tasks
Diary management
Collaboration with stakeholders
Taking the lead of a team/project
‘…this organised approach I take, reduces stress, not just for me but for the whole team. Even when a unknown or unplanned for event happens I am to calmly organise what is needed to overcome any problem, compared to stressfully charging in without any planning which often leads to an increase in stress and errors. The tools I use include (add tool/technique)…’
The final section of the answer is for the candidate to focus on the answer on their emotional intelligence and how they can recognize the signs of stress:
‘…The key to handling stress, apart from being well-organised is to be aware of the signs of stress. Most people ignore these and only react once they are fully stressed. A better solution is to be aware of stress indicators and then do something to relieve stress. for me, my indicators are (headaches, not sleeping, procrastination, etc) when I feel this I (solution – run, mindfulness, meditation).’
Predicting performance related job interview questions is a relatively easy task.
The main duties of any job role require a certain level of industry knowledge and/or experience. For key tasks; completing calculations for a IstructE chartered engineer or serving customer task for a retail role, is classed as ‘essential’.
Each of the essential criteria will be turned into a technical interview question. Technical questions are asked in the form of a ‘behavioral’ or ‘situational’ question as part of the ‘structured’ interview process.
Generally speaking, an applicant who scores high in the ‘interview prediction grid’ test will be offered the job role, as their competencies are expressed confidently throughout the recruitment process.
In addition to being asked technical interview questions, applicants will often be asked question to undercover a candidates personal qualities.
Skills, which can range from ‘communication’ to a driving skill for a FLT driver, can be learnt. On the other hand, a ‘quality’ is something a person is born with.
In the world of work qualities are in demand. Qualities can include:
Determination
Patience
Creativity
Honesty
Problem-solving
Questions like ‘tell me how you handled a difficult situation at work?’ are asked to review an applicants qualities.
The wrong way to answer the ‘difficulty’ interview question
Commonly, interviewees answer ‘behavioral’ interview questions using an interview formula including the STAR technique.
The STAR technique is a structure designed to make the telling of an interview answer direct and specific.
Situation:
Explain the situation, giving enough specifics to allow an employer to understand the difficulty the applicant was facing.
Task:
In the ‘task’ part of the answer, candidates can highlight their competencies by explaining what their responsibility was during the difficulty.
Action:
It is important, no essential, that the interviewee references what actions they personally tool to solve the difficulty.
Result:
Finally the result of the actions should be stated to conclude the interview answer.
What is missing from the STAR formula, or what is misunderstood, is the need to reference personal qualities.
The STAR structure encourages the referencing of ‘actions.’ In most cases, the applicant, when stating passed experiences, fail to reference their thinking process, or their temperament, or their qualities.
How to answer the ‘difficulty’ questions by stating qualities
Another 4 step interview formula can be used which allows a deeper insight into an applicants process to dealing with problems:
PEAL Interview Formula
Problem (or difficulty)
Explain Thinking
Action
Long-term outcome
Problem
Stating a common industry related problem or difficulty makes it story relevant to job role and easy for the interview panel to relate to.
Once a problem has been reference, explain the negative impact this issue would have on business as usual.
Discussing the negative impact of a problem highlights the seriousness of the event.
Explain Thinking
The ‘thinking’ stage is missing stage in most job interview questions.
It is here where an applicant can ‘sell’ their ‘qualities’.
To highlight problem solving skills, a candidate can discuss options. Stating the choices an applicant had shows an deeper understanding and awareness of sector related issues and potential solutions.
When discussing ‘choices’ explain the pro’s and con’s of each choice. End by giving the reason for the choosing the preferred option.
If the difficulty was solved with creative thinking explain the ‘creative’ process. Did you use mind-maps? Lists? Checked lesson learnt logs?
If it came down to hard work or work ethic, describe how this came about. As an example you could state how you knew that the task required X number of working hours to complete and because of (add quality) you decide to (action)
What is important is to clearly explain the qualities the applicant possesses that were key in overcoming a difficulty.
Action
Combined small tasks together to create 3-5 detailed actions.
Explaining the actions is in essence a breakdown of the chosen option. The option, therefore, was the objective and the actions are the required steps taken to achieve the objective.
Stating the information in this way allows the interview panel to process the interview answer in a logical format.
Long-term Outcome
Many job interview questions end weakly.
‘I achieved the goal’ or ‘everyone was happy with the end result.’
Instead, shows a strategic view point. Give a long-term positive outcome. Explain the knock-on affect of overcoming the problem.
This could include:
The project was so successful that is become part of business as usual
This led to the customer increasing orders with our company
We found that this method reduced overhead cost which led it to be the preferred method of operation
Example PEAL Interview Answer
Problem
‘When in my last position (add common industry difficulty) happened. As you know when (common industry difficulty) happens it can (add negative outcome). In this case, the situation worsened because (add situation that would have a negative long-term effect) which would led to (negative long-term effect)….
Explain Thinking
‘…I had two choices. the first option was to (add choice 1) the positive of this option was (add pro) but this could also (add con). The second option was (add choice 2) we were concerned about (add con) but this choice could (add con). In the end I choose to (add thinking and reason)…’
Action
‘….Once I had chosen the best way to overcome (problem) I first (add action), then (add second action) and finally (add third action)…’
Long-Term Outcome
‘…We were able to solve the immediate problem but we were able to use this (situation) to make key changes to (specify) which resulted in (long-term outcome)’
Meaning that the ‘management’ job role is one of the most commonly advertised job roles, globally. The ‘manager’ position includes varying levels of leadership roles:
Team leader/supervisor
Team manager
Project manager
Area Manager/head of department
Senior manager
Business owners, Director, CEOs, etc
Even with management positions being in demand, competition for leadership roles is tough.
Some roles may require industry-related experience and knowledge, while other employers focus the job interview criteria entirely on management skills, as the manager skill/experience is transferable across job sectors.
Depending on the advertised position, an employer may require a leadership and management qualification. And some roles require specific training such as a Prince2 for a project management role.
But not always. Having a large number of sector experience is enough to move onto the management career ladder or possessing many years of managerial experience can outweigh a leadership certificate.
What is key, is to be viewed as one of the strong job interview identities. Being perceived as lacking confidence and/or a low level of industry or managerial competencies can only end with a job interview rejection.
Successful interviewees normally have one of the following four interview identities:
As a general rule of thumb, a supervisor or team leader interview will consist of a single panel interview.
Middle management recruitment processes will often have a structured job interview followed by an informal interview.
For senior leadership roles, the employer is willing to spend more time, money and energy into the hiring of a suitable applicant (as the salaries and responsibilities for a high skilled position demand a detailed analysis of all applicants). Human resource departments, therefore, will design a full-day recruitment process:
Interview presentation (the content is often sector-specific rather than managerial, but some presentations who be a talk-through of a proposed operational plan)
In the main, all managerial and leadership interviews, for all levels of job role, will be undertaken by a panel of interviewers.
The panel interview is designed to reduce the effect of an unconscious bias, creating a fair interview process based on managerial competencies alone.
Panel interviews are often made up of:
A member of the HR (human resource) team
A senior staff member – often the managers direct manager (once appointed)
A department team member – to ensure the level of industry knowledge
Increasingly, employers recruiting for managerial and leadership roles will outsource the recruitment of senior managers to an external specialist interviewing company.
The panel interview consists of around 10 managerial job interview questions – see below. And last for around 60 minutes.
This will be in the format of a structured job interview – every applicant will be asked the same job interview questions and answers will be cross-referenced against a job interview scorecard.
Interview presentations, commonly, take 15 minutes including a 5 minute Q&A session. Employers may give advance warning of a presentation, allowing an applicant to prepare their presentation in advance of the job interview. But some employers will state the presentation task on the day of the job interview giving candidates 10 minute notice period to prepare.
Tip – Always prepare for a potential presentation for all managerial job interviews
Group interviews are designed to observe soft skills; communication, teamwork, problem-solving and of course, for managerial roles, leadership skills.
The team task is often observed by several interviewers, all of whom will make notes on each group member. The recruitment team will view applicants’ temperament – who took the lead, did the applicant demonstrate an authoritative management approach or a laissez-faire management style?
The group task section last around 20 minutes, but can be up top 45 minutes in duration.
Roleplay. Increasingly popular, especially when the recruitment process is conducted by an outsourced interview company. The roleplay is seen as a vital step in the recruitment process.
For a management position, the 20 minute role-play is often an actor playing the part of a disgruntled team leader attending an appraisal or meeting. The actor will attempt to disrupt the meeting by stating that they need to get back to work due to an urgent deadline.
Employers observe the applicant’s response to the situation focusing on the candidate’s ability to work under pressure, their communication skills, creating authority, reasoning and remaining professional.
For many managerial candidates, this is the hardest test during the whole recruitment process and requires preparation and practice. Practice can be undertaken with a job interview coach.
Informal job interviews are often the last section of a recruitment process. Unlike the structured job interview where each candidate is asked the same questions, in an informal job interview (sometimes referred to as an unstructured job interview) employers generate questions based on the flow of the conversation that happens in the moment.
The idea here is for the interviewer to get to know the applicant; their personality, values, and leadership style.
This section of the interview is often a 1-2-1 talk with the potential employees future line manager and takes around 45 minutes to complete.
How to pass a managerial level job interview
Each of the various job interview sections for a managerial or leadership recruitment process is designed to check suitability. Employers look for:
How the applicant’s temperament and managerial style fits in with the company culture
The candidates level of managerial competencies – their knowledge and experience for leadership roles
What added value each applicant can bring to the organisation, if recruited
If required, their level of sector knowledge
And, their level of confidence which is vital for any level of managerial job role
The management job interview is split into 3 sections:
About you
Management style and experience
Skills and qualities
About you – interview questions
‘Why did you apply for this role?’
‘Tell me about your experience and how it relates to this position?’
‘What motivates you?’
‘About you’ questions are asked at the interview start, as an ‘ice-breaker’ question to help applicants relax into the job interview.
It is also a way for an employer to better understand the applicant and to assess them against the culture of the company, and their values.
Management style and experience – interview questions
‘How would you describe your management and leadership style?’
‘Give an example of managing a project from the initial conception stages to completion – what barriers did you face and how did you overcome these?’
‘Tell me about a time you have had to motivate an unmotivated team member?’
‘Have you ever had to deal with conflict within a team?’
Under the experience section, for some employers, interviewees will also be asked industry technical questions: ‘how would you (job duty)?’
Skills and qualities – interview questions
‘What management system are you familiar with?’
‘How do you prioritise tasks?’
‘Give an example of collaborating with a influential stakeholder?’
‘Which management tools do you utilise to achieve a project outcome?’
‘What is your approach to a stressful situation?’
Example answers to manager interview questions
In this final section, we have chosen some of the most commonly asked managerial job interview questions, breaking down each question to support applicants to create high scoring answers.
Tip – each employer requires a unique set of criteria. By identifying the job criteria helps in the creation of high scoring answers
Each answer is a guide. The successful interviewee will be able to take each example answer, editing this so it is relevant to their own experience.
Give an overview of your managerial experience?
The ‘overview’ question can be worded as:
‘Tell me how your skills and experience suit this position?’
‘Why have you applied for this role?’
‘Can you introduce yourself, focusing on your key achievements?
Each question, no matter how the employer states the question, is an open question. This allows the applicant a free-range in their approach to the question.
Often asked as the initial interview question, the interviewee doesn’t need to detail specific examples of technical knowledge. Rather this question should be seen as a mood-setter.
A mood-setter is created from the frame of the response. Generally speaking, applicants will be viewed as a person of interest or as a time waste, employable or unsuitable, knowledgable or lacking competencies.
The mood-setter is the filter the employer uses for the remainder of the interview. For a positive ‘interview identity’ employers will isten more intently, whereas for a negative perception, teh employer will be wanting to end the interveiw quickly.
It is therefore important to answer the ‘overview’ question by creating interigue.
Interigue, in a job interview, is created by getting the employer excited about:
Duration in the industry; duration is associated with competencies
Qualification level; high levels of qualification is linked to perceived knowledge
Unique selling point; possessing an industry skill, that others don’t, is viewed as valuable (or profitable)
‘As a highly experienced manager specialising in (add USP) I can utilise my (duration as a manager/working in the industry) to (2nd USP) Qualified in (add highest qual level) I am able to use (knowledge) to (state outcome). In all my previous roles I have been able to (add 3rd USP)’
A unique selling point can relate to:
Change management
Turning around underperforming teams
System changes to reduce on-cost
Increasing profit
Improving staff retention
Decreasing overheads
Breaking into new markets
Taking a business global
Achievement of strategic outcomes
Project management
Operational planning
How would you prioritise tasks?
The common mistake mangers make during a job interview is by answering questions with a signal answer.
Stating various facts, processes, examples highlights a wealth of knowledge required for senior managerial roles.
The ‘priority’ interview question is a good example of this.
‘How would you priorities tasks?’ can be asked in the following ways:
‘What is you approach to time-management?’
‘How do you organise your workload?’
‘Which time-management tools do you utilise?’
In many cases, the interviewee will state a tool or give an example. The answer meets the criteria and receives a medium score. Job offers, though, are offered to high scoring applicants.
Embedded into the answer should be reference to time management models, discussions around the appropriateness of tools and techniques, depending on the task/project and a summary of generic tools that may be required on the interview scorecard.
As an example an applicant may explain the Pareto Principle: 80-20 Rule. Vilfredo Pareto, an Italian economist, observed that 80% of the land in Italy was owned by 20% of the population. Later this same 80/20 rule was applied within the context of the workplace, where it was suggested that only 20% of your time (effort) is used to complete 80% of key task (results). “The Pareto Principle states that for many phenomena 80% of the output or consequences are produced by 20% of the input or causes” (Dunford et al., 2014).
Or an explant ion of the Time Management Matrix can be given to explain how you decide the order of completing tasks.
The time management matrix explains how task can be distributed into 4 quadrants, with each quadrant indicating the importance of the task.
Q1 Urgent/ important – includes upcoming deadlines, firefighting task, unforeseen problems. It is these task that need completing in the current moment as putting these off can result in a negative result IE not achieving a timebound KPI
Q2 Non-Urgent/Important – in this section you would collate long term projects, relationship building and all task that are key to the organisations or projects success but need a period of time to achieve
Q3 Urgent/non-important – includes low level emails (reminders to request a staff member to complete a task they are already aware of) meetings and general communications. These task, if many, can eat into the time need for actions in quadrant 1 & 2 Many of these task should be automated or delegated
Q4 Non-urgent/Non-important – task here are often a reason you give to yourself because you are procrastinating on another task. Many of the task here such as checking social media, should be deleted giving you additional time for other actions
Or an in-depth breakdown of a well sued tool can be explained, such as Diary Management.
The use of diary management can support a leader to manage their time which then improves the ability to undertake their role due to a reduction in stress “time management models and theories should be designed to focus on improving management skills and reducing psychological stress resulting from untimely completion of responsibilities and task” (Jinalee and Singh, 2018)
If a manager has works in an environment where they have to attend various meetings and events, as well as having timeframes for completing various task, using a comprehensive diary management system can assist in the self-management of workloads.
The use of the recurring appointments feature on calendars can save time and proactively manage time, tentative and confirmation of meetings ensures that you aren’t double booked and the use of a colour coding system allows a manger to easily see, when reviewing the month ahead, the types of task and their allocated time for upcoming appointments.
The diary can also need used to collect data, including time spent, to reflect on their self-management and to change processes to reduce time spent on important tasks.
It doesn’t matter which tools and models are stated, what is important is to show understanding of several models.
Example Answer
‘Time management, for me, is more than filling 8hrs of a working day with 8hrs worth of task. Instead managing time is a process of making the most of the time given in a day. If for example I had two completing deadlines I would (add time management model 1). When I review reoccurring business as usual tasks I (add time management model 2). In addition to these I use diary-management, automation, delegation and to-do list which always result in a high standard of work being completed on time.’
Give an example of working with stakeholders?
Stakeholders are groups of people who have a certain stake in the organisation “..stakeholders are those individuals or groups that depend on an organisation to fulfil their own goals and on whom, in turn, the organisation depends” (Johnson, Whittington and Scholes, n.d.) and come in various forms from a supplier, partner, customer, shareholder, government, unions, community members and managers, to name a few, and can be an organisation, social group or individual. Stakeholders can be internal or external.
To make an interview relevant, answer the ‘stakeholder’ question by giving an example of working with a stakeholder that the new company would collaborate with on a regular basis.
During the answer a manager needs to explain the complexities of working with stakeholders:
Each stakeholder has their own agenda and their own level of influence. A stakeholder can affect a business, this as an example could be in the form of a protest due to moral rights or a trade union going on strike, or be affected by a business – employees not being paid due to the organization going into liquidation.
In the sense the relationship between a stakeholder(s) and the organisation are intertwined. Managers then have to be aware of all stakeholders not just shareholders that often have a larger influence, and project how their actions could have wider implications on individual stakeholders “they argue that the role of management is to balance these stakeholder needs rather than simply focus on shareholders” (Henry, 2018)
Stakeholder Matrix
Stakeholders all have different impact on an organisation. It is useful to be aware of the influence of each stakeholder. This can be achieved by using a stakeholder power/influence matrix (Mendelow 1991)
Power is the influence in the organisation a stakeholder has. And, interest refers to a stakeholder’s willingness to influence “it is important therefore to understand the power different stakeholders have and their their likely attention to issues” (Johnson, Whittington and Scholes, n.d.)
High Power, Low Interest
High Power, High Interest
Low Power, Low Interest
Low Power, High Interest
Stakeholder Matrix
The influence and interest of each stakeholder can vary depending on the task, project. In this sense, the mapping of stakeholders is always fluid and it should not be presumed that a stakeholder who didn’t act on one point of the organisations business wouldn’t then act on another “even where stakeholders have low interest, they can be moved into a high-interest space by their response to activities the company engages in that are attracting unwanted media attention” (Henry, 2018)
To answer the stakeholders question, split the reply down into three sections:
List relevant stakeholders
Explain the stakeholder matrix theory
Give a real-life example
Example answer:
‘I know that the key stakeholders for this organisation will be (list stakeholders) When working with a stakeholder it is important to understand where they sit on the ‘stakeholder matrix’. For this I review each stakeholders level of power vs interest as this helps to predict their reactions to new projects, changes and communications. Therefore, allowing me to change my approach to create a successful outcome. An example of this was (add 1) situation 2) actions 3) outcome.’
What is your approach to project management?
Businesses have two ways of working, business as usual (working on current processes to create the businesses output) and via projects (a new change that requires a new set of processes. Projects are temporary but can become business as usual)
When asked about ‘project management’ the employer needs a manger who possess the ability to take on, and achieve, a new challenge.
The same question can be asked in the following forms, often depending on much project management is required for the advertised role:
‘Explain your understanding of project management?’
‘Give an example of managing a success project?’
‘What do you need to consider when starting a new project?’
For a project management interview, all questions will relate to the management of projects. For none-PM job roles there will only one or two questions relating to this topic.
The answer should be a detailed version of the following steps:
Receiving and analysing a project brief
Benefits and risks
Cost of the project (and risk of overspend)
Timescale vs quality of output (including quality check processes0
Project scope
Creating work packages
Communications
Example answer:
‘I have managed many projects. When I receive a project brief from a (stakeholder) I breakdown the desired objectives into the working tasks (give an example relevant to your sector) Prior to taking on a new project I will the benefits vs risk, often utislising lessons learnt from previous projects. I also consider timescales and how quality processes will be implemented. One of the key questions is the scope of the project – if and where there is flexibility. An example of this would be (add example). Once the project has been accepted and then break tasks down into work packages. This includes a communication plan, setting up training if required and a project launch. ‘
How you approach the process of a culture change within an organisation?
The ‘change’ question is very popular as industries, due to globalization and rapid changing technical, including AI, results in operational models’ needing to be adapted to satay competitive.
More information of managing organisational change can be found here: organisational change
Operational management is the planning, organisation, implementation and reviewing of process to support an organisation to achieve its own KPIs. According to Bartol et al (1998), operations management “Is the function, or field of expertise, that is primarily responsible for managing the production and delivery of an organisation’s products and services.”
There are 3 commonly used operational management theories.
BPR – Business Process Redesign.
BPR is the process of redesigning (rather than just tweaking) an organisations processes, designed to reduce overheads and increase profit. In a fast paced world where technology advances at a rapid rate it is easy for a business, without realising, to find themselves pushed out of a competitive market.
For many years, the company yellow pages had a monopoly on the world of small business marketing. Each home in the UK was given a free annual copy of the yellow pages which advertised a wide range of local businesses. By the 90’s most households had access to the internet and search engines such as Google were fast becoming to go to for the general public to search for local businesses and services. Yellow pages were becoming a thing of the past. To stay competitive the yellow pages created yell.com an online version of the yellow pages. This required a complete overall of the business process which lead the company no longer offering a printed directory. Other businesses were slow to react to the massive and often quick changes created by technology and online systems. HMV dominated the high street music business but as more customers moved to the music download system HMV missed out on an opportunity to remain competitive in this new music era. Due to not drastically redesigning their operational process HMV started to have reduced sales, reduced business and reduced profits.
BPR is the overhaul of a business’s current processes, designed to make the business more efficient by reducing cost, automating systems and making staff (or machines) more productive. The redesign of a business’s processes can lead to staff lay-offs, disruption in the current flow of producing outputs and can have an expensive initial outlay. But when successful the BPR system will eventually increase profits.
Six Sigma
Six Sigma is a quality controlled process with a focus on increasing profit by following a 5 step quality control process system.
Six sigma is designed to reduce waste and defects in essence increasing output with a reduction in errors. Six sigma looks to use tools and methods to source dependable and reusable data. It states that a business process that produces less than 3.4 defects per 1 million chances is efficient and therefore anything outside of this is a defect.
To begin six sigma ask for a six sigma champion to lead a team to achieve a specific goal by analyzing the current practices, objectives and by identifying a faulty process. The team then analysis’s the current performance reviewing all inputs. Each input is then isolated and reviewed to see if the specific input is causing an error, thus identifying all input errors. Once an error(s) is identified the team will work to improve the process and adds controls to monitor and review the input and process.
After being introduce in the 1980s six sigma is highly recognized as a quality control methodology to increase output and reduce errors, which has led to an industry received qualifications (similar to how prince2 has become a recognized certificate for project management) Six sigma uses data to recognize the error before a team of practitioners solve the problem and embed a quality assurance process to reduce future errors.
Lean Manufacturing
Lean manufacturing is wide spread across a vast range of industries which shows the diversity and impact of these operational management theory.
Lean can be broken down into 3 stages; deliver values from a customer perspective, eliminate waste and continuous improvement (work, processes, people and purpose).
Lean has continued to evolve and develop overtime resulting in 5 common principles;
Identify value. Customers purchasing a product or service that gives them value, something that allows them to solve a problem. As a business you need to think about your customer – what problem do they have? What solution do they require? What value can you add? By identifying the value you can create processes to achieve the desired customer value.
Value stream mapping. Stage 2 is reflection, here you review current processes to identify what works and what doesn’t add value. At this stage you dig deep reviewing all aspects of the processes from input to output. This reflection stage allows an organization to understand how different teams have different influences in the process. If one team has an abundance of downtime is this due to their work ethic or a hitch in the production line? Process reviews may allow you to understand feedback loops; team A identify and report a gap, but how is this actioned? Who is responsible for checking the gap, who is responsible for the quality check and who is responsible for managing the situation? Any identified steps that don’t bring value can be eliminated from the process.
Stage 3 looks at creating a continuous workflow. Embedding a process takes time but the end results can increase production and profits by having the whole team running a smooth well implement system that adds value at all stages. Each stage can be reviewed, created and implemented which allows organizations to look at specific areas of the process before looking at the whole process (which has too many elements to fully ensure value). Chunking a large process down into smaller chunks allows an origination to check for potential potholes, and to remedy these proactively rather than reactively. With an established workflow system you can now move on to the 4th stage creating pull
Stage 4 creating a pull (or move away from making and storing goods in advance of orders to creating an on demand service). This system requires flexibility but also have cost saving benefits (especially for organizations to create physical products) An on-demand system allows customers to “pull” products on request. An example is on-demand book printing. Stage 4 can allow the organization to be flexible with their inputs.
The final stage, stage 5, creates the everlasting cycle – continuous improvement. In lean you do not simply create a strong process and run it across the organization before sitting back and waiting for the profit sheet, instead you continuous review, amend and improve processes whenever you can. Here you can aim for perfection, and sometimes a small tweak can add tremendous value. Systematically you may review and amend process (using steps 1-4), or use employee and customer feedback to change your way of working, embed new technology and get rid of once good processes that no longer add value.
Example answer:
‘In my previous role the company undertake a change in terms of its (add values, customer market, product, processes) Leading on the change process I followed the (change process model) To begin (add detail) The barrier was (add potential problems) I solved this by (detail) which resulted in (positive outcome).’
How would you create a high-performing team?
For all managerial job interview questions there will be a question(s) around leadership and managerial style. Some will be specific like the ‘creation of a high performing team?’ or a question on ‘recruitment processes’ but may will be generic leadership questions.
‘What is your preferred leadership style?’
‘How do you motivate a team?’
‘Are you a manager or a leader?’
To give a detailed answer it is important to understand leadership theories.
All people, including leaders, have a natural way of working often defined by their temperament. Being motivated or stressed can change the way you manage people (and yourself.)
A natural leadership style will creative a supportive environmental for people who naturally respond well to this leadership style or on task/actions that suit the leadership environment created by the manager.
But due to the difference in team members personality makeup, the various task and actions individuals are required to complete (compared to having one set task) and if there is a set timeframe(s), managers need to adopt a combination of leadership approaches, choosing the correct managerial leadership style to implement for specific projects or vary the way they manage and motivate individual staff members, based on the way that team member needs to be led. Peter G Northhouse (Practice et al., 2019) explains that leadership is a process whereby an individual influences a group of individuals to achieve a common goal.
Hersey and Blanchard (Investopedia, 2019) talk about the leadership curve and how depending readiness of employees, the task and the relationship effects the maturity of those being led. An example of this is a new employee with a lack of experience which effects their confidence. They explain that a leader should mold their managerial style throughout 4 styles; delegating, participating, selling and telling to suit the employee. A staff member who needs managing in one style as a norm, may need a different leadership style depending on the circumstances (staff redundancy effecting moral, as an example)
Some organisations will adopt a top-down environment; the company will be operated my way. The recruitment process and company values will represent the desired environment and employees who work well under this management style will flourish, whereas other employees will often move on effecting staff retention at the initial change process period.
Other organisations will adopt a leadership style that is aimed to be supportive to employees, with a goal to improve staff retention thus improving output. The supportive leadership style is aimed are leading people in the best way that a particular individual can be led. The skills approach model explains that there a distinct skill set; conceptual – the big picture, how task, teams fit into the organisation as a whole, human – cooperative team member and technical – process, method, procedure or technical driven activities (Schedlitzki and Edwards, n.d.)
The model goes on to explain how a senior manager spends more time on strategic activities; planning and organizing (conceptual). Whereas middle managers spend more time supervising (human)
Leadership styles
The first leadership style we will look at is the Autocratic leadership style. This is a “do it my way or the highway” leadership style. It excels in industries that have high output through repetitious actions and falls down in creative industries. As a controlled leadership style it doesn’t allow for innovation from its employees, instead it uses well used practices and instils stick procedures. It is a perfect leadership style for sectors or situations that need immediate actions such as armed forces, environmental disaster response teams and even in high stressed jobs such as financial markets. The autocratic leader is rarely liked but can be respected and/or feared. Fearing a leader can seem a strange want, but fear can be a tool for producing results, as the employee is motivated to achieve a target rather the face the wrath of the autocratic manager. This leadership style in the wrong industry can result in massive staff turnover which has a direct effect on profits.
Going to the other extreme our next leadership style, Laissez-Faire, is a more open, flexible and creative leadership style. This leadership style works well with motivated and experienced teams who can use creativity to achieve results. The lack of structure and day to day leadership can be demoralising for some, but other employees find the freedom liberating and excel using their own skill base, rather than following a set process, to achieve the project objective. Often small teams, family companies will adopt the Laissez-Faire approach as a small team, compared to a multi-layered team, often feel emotional connected to company, as if they are one of the family. When having to react to a problem, the Laissez-Faire leader can fall down, as having to react quickly to a serious situation of requires a strong forceful leader that gets result, and gets results quickly.
Along the same lines, but not as laid-back as Laissez-Faire, is the Paternalistic leadership style. This leadership style recognises that collectively a team has a larger pool of resources, tools and experiences. The Paternalistic sees themselves as a head of a family, but unlike Laissez-Faire, they make the decision as does the Autocratic leader. This leadership style encourages loyalty, trust and obedience. The paternalistic leader communicate in a way to get employees to action willingly.
A democratic leader is a delegating leader. They like staff to take the responsibility and to feel empowered. The democratic manager wants to get task completed, they will communicate the vision, listen to ideas from the team and encourage them (the staff) to take action – they encourage leadership in others. This style works well with staff working in outreach where the employee doesn’t have direct daily contact with a line manager. But for an employee who values constant direction and support this style can be highly demotivating and can lead to costly mistakes as the manger has a hands-off approach. Another downside to this leadership style is the manager can take too much time coming to a decisions, as they take on-board each team members opinion which is some situations, long term projects can be effective, but with short deadline task a quick and decisive decision may be required.
In the job interview, an applicant needs to show an understanding of leadership styles, the impact on employees and how they adopt approaches depending on culture and duties or an organization.
”To be effective, a leader must therefore match his/her behaviour to the situation he/she faces” (Schedlitzki and Edwards, n.d.)
Situational leadership theory contains 4 behavioral styles
Directing – this is a directive approach, where clear detailed communication and processes are used to ensure a key objective. An example of this would be working within the arm forces
Coaching – here the leader gives guidance in a directive way but also has a focused on employees needs and motivation. This style works well on complex task and within a matrix management structure
Supporting – when an employee(s) knowledge and skills are key to achieving goals. The leader will use their people skills to support and motivate the team. This style can be seen in retail or the voluntary sector
Delegating – a hands-off approach where the leader has little involvement in the day to day task. This leadership style only works with highly competent staff. You will see this style in senior managers who have a reasonability to manage managers or project managers who oversee contractors.
Example answer:
‘There isn’t one signal management style that works to create a (add relevance to the interview question IE a high-achieving team). As a strong leader I understand the value of using a top-down process for (add sector related situation) or a coaching approach when (add sector related situation). With new staff it is important to build up their confidence through taking them through the four behavioral styles as stated in ‘situational leadership theory’. With this in mind I vary my management approach depending on the ability of the team, external and internal stresses IE during a change process, and the demand of the project. An example of this is time – the duration to achieve an objective helps me to choose between an autocratic or paternalistic leadership style.’
Job Interview Advice
What personal development opportunities have you undertaken recently?
‘I’ve been reading books’
‘I volunteer’
‘I recently attended an online webinar’
These three common replies to the ‘self-development’ question are low scoring answers.
The employer isn’t look for a list of small actions you have took. Instead, the interviewer is attempting to understand your position of being a life long learner.
As with all managerial questions, it shows a high level of knowledge when you can quote related models and theories.
KOLB LEARNING CYCLE
To learn something new, the learner has to, according to Kolb (1984) go through a 4 stage cycle;
Experience
Reflection
Conceptualisation
Experimentation.
Kolb believes that each stage supports the next “The cycle encourages managers and other learners to perceive a whole process of learning and to identify those parts of the process in which – for whatever reason – individuals are dependant on or stuck in particular parts of experimental awareness” (Vince, 1998)
The experience stage allows the learner to experience something new or experience a new perspective of an existing experience. Reviewing the experience against your current understanding and looking at differences helps the learn to reflect on the learning. Conceptualization helps to build on a current idea or creates a new idea. And finally, experimentation happens as the leaner embeds their idea in business as usual. The learning cycle can be entered at any of the 4 stages, but to be fully effective the learner does need to visit is stage “The approach emphasises the importance of the synthesis between individual’s behaviour and the evaluation of their actions” (Mullins, 2005)
Within this model are 4 learning styles.
Kolb believes that individuals have different ways to learn “The research claim that an understanding of ones learning style will enhance learning effectiveness, whether as a trainee or as a tutor” (Mullins, 2005)
But the cycle doesn’t cover the importance of learning from the experience of others “regardless of how much reasonability we take for learning from our own experience and learning with others, we also still have to rely a great deal on learning from the experience of others” (Vince, 1998)
The cycle doesn’t cover how with an anxious group – fearful of making mistakes, which is common among leaners, they aren’t ready to fit within the cycle as their emotional starting point is different to that of a confident leaner “the emotions at this point can take the learning in two directions – one that promotes learning and the other that discourages it” (Vince, 1998)
Kolb states that continuums; process (approach) and perception (how we think/feel about the task) It is the combination of the two continuums that create the learner styles:
Active Experimentation (Doing)
Reflective Observation (Watching)
Concrete Experience (Feeling)
Accommodating (CE/AE)
Diverging (CE/RO)
Abstract Conceptualization (Thinking)
Converging (AC/AE)
Assimilating (AC/RO)
Each of the 4 learner styles approach learning differently. There isn’t a wrong and right learner style, they just vary due to the learner’s natural preference “An integrated and effective learner will be equipped to manage all four styles, even though the learner may have a preference for one” (Mullins, 2005)
Accommodating learner are the hands-on learners that use intuition and creatively. They move away from chunking down into details and us other people’s statistics before talking a practical approach to a task
Diverging leaners are idea generators. They observe before use creativity to problem solve. They are more of an observer then a doer, but their strength comes from having the ability to use perspective
Converging learner are practical learners who focus on technical task. They like to experiment and prefer processes then people. They can come up with ideas, theories and solutions
Assimilating leaners are logical individuals who require specific details to work well. They work well with abstract formats and learn through reading and seminars. They are more practical focused then people focused
By understanding that individuals learn in different ways and reflecting on yourself and your team, you can redesign activities to have a higher impact on the distance learnt “Exploration of the cycle has helped managers to see that learning can occur either from an individual’s rationality or their emotional reality” (Vince, 1998)
Example answer:
‘I am passionate about my personal and professional development. Through my career I constantly reflect on my areas of development and look to improve my skillset. I use Kolbs learning style theory which is in 4 sections; experience, reflection, conceptualisation, experimentation. An example of this was when I (started a new job/took on new reasonability) As I (name a duty or task that you lacked skill in) I released that my knowledge in this area was lower then I though it was. I reflected on (add specific) and decided to (add learning action) which resulted in (outcome).’
Sources:
Johnson, G., Whittington, R. and Scholes, K. (n.d.). Exploring strategy. 11th ed. Pearson.
Henry, A. (2018). Understanding strategic management. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Mullins, L. and Christy, G. (2016). Management and organisational behaviour. Harlow, England: Pearson.
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Each company has its own personalised company culture, its own personality. The company culture is the attitudes and behaviours of the company and its staff members; how employees interact, make decisions and what they value. The culture of a company directs employees, directly and indirectly, on how they should behave.
Some organisations purposely, through their mission, vison, values and processes, create their desired culture, “mission relates directly to what organisations call ‘strategy’ To fulfil its manifest and latent functions, the organization evolves shared assumptions about its ‘reason to be’ and formulates long-range plans to fulfil those functions. That involves decisions about products and services and reflects what could usefully be called the ‘identity’ of the organisation (Hatch and Schultz 2004)” (Schein, 2010) This ‘visibility’ helps with, as an example, recruitment, as applicants can clearly understand the desired culture the organisation is trying to create or has created.
‘Invisible’ culture also determines how a workplace operates and the attitudes of their employees. The accumulation of business decisions, or what the company prioritise, as an example, shape the culture of the company and how employees themselves make decisions and act.
Employees, knowing how management require them to act, can make better informed choices as the beliefs of the organisation are embedded in the strategic structure of day to day activities. “A culture is not a painted picture; it is a living process, composed of countless social interactions. Like a river whose form and velocity are determined by the balance of those forces that tend to make the water flow faster, and the friction that tends to make the water flow more slowly the cultural pattern of a people at a given time is maintained by a balance of counteracting forces.” (Lewin, 1948)
To contrast two different cultures, a top-down organisation would expect employees to follow instructions and not to question the status quo. Gordan Ramsey, who has an Authoritativemanagement style, employs a top-down approach to ensure consistency in the dishes he produces as required for the Michelins star rating hew receives for his restaurants. His staff must follow his processes and rarely have a say in the creation of new dishes.
In contrast, a widening participation project, often utilising a matrix management model, will have customer and employees at the forefront of the decision-making process. Employees in this example, who interact with customers daily, are viewed more as partners, equals, than as a labour force that creates output.
A top down vs bottom up culture has a direct effect on employees’ motivation, stress, and what behaviours the employees can show within the workplace. Two top down companies may on the service have similar cultures but when scrutinised, differences in culture can be viewed. The fire service require staff to wear a uniform, accept risk, dress appropriately and have a certain level of fitness, compared to a bank who require honesty, profit making and professionalism.
The culture, created from the vison, values and expectations, can create differences on a smaller scale. Workplace language, as an example, can vary with ‘humour’ being allowed in the fire service as one way to release the stress of being in life threatening tasks but not seen as appropriate in the financial sector where logical and professionalism is seen as a required skill.
The traits of power culture, role culture, task culture and person culture
Handys model of organisation culture states there are 4 types of culture: power, task, person and role. The model explains the various ways a business expects the employees to make a decision.
Power culture
As an example, the power culture has a small number of ‘powerful’ (often senior leaders) making all the decisions before delegating tasks, without the opinion of employees, to teams or individuals. An army operates using this style of culture making quick rapid decisions in times of need.
Power cultures attract power hungry career professional, individuals who will take high risks – at worst people with psychopathic traits, and often an authoritative management style is part of the culture. But on the other side of the coin, an entrepreneur just starting out, having limited resources, may adopt a power culture to ensure their business is a success by following their prepared business plan.
The power culture results in quick decisive action, compared to the slower more open or shared process of a ‘task’ culture. On the opposite hand, the power culture doesn’t gain the combined knowledge, experience and input from their workforce, due to their top-down culture.
Previous examples of power cultured organisations in the financial sector has seen a lack of scrutiny in these top-down companies, as senior leadership decisions aren’t allowed to be challenged, as an example the collapse of Enron, Lehman Brothers and RBS is often said to have been affected by an embedded power culture.
Role culture
Whereas the ‘role’ culture allows individuals, who have specialised skills, creating person accountability, to make decisions based on their experience and knowledgebase.
In the construction industry, where many specialised workers are required when building a new housing estate, the role culture works well as individual skilled workers make decisions for the objectives they are set. In this way, the role culture could be seen as a mini-power culture, but the actions from decisions, in terms of workload, end with the specialised worker, compared to the power culture model where decision effect, depending on the size of the organisation, a large number of employees.
In the main, the role culture has a focus on the ‘role’ not an individual. The specialist roles are required for a successful business, with leadership given from a small leadership team. The specialist then makes the decisions by following set processes attributed to their roles; a cog in the system. 3rd sector organisations often adopt a role culture which is often successful in a steady market or when future problems/challenges can be predicted. But if a crisis was to happen, the lack of direction, leadership, and authoritative managers, as the culture attracts a more laissez-faire manager, can result in disaster. A small organisation, with a role culture, would struggle if one or mor experts left or became sick, as specialist from other roles wouldn’t have the required knowledge or experience to be of assistance in the missing ‘role’.
Due to a lack of leadership, even when a project manager is in place, a role culture can create problems as individuals feel they need to answer to anyone but themselves. Returning to the construction example, if, for example, the electrician hasn’t accurately planned their time, or foreseen problems that delay for the duration of their task, a costly knock on effect could happen as the plasterers, painter and decorators and carpet fitters are all delayed.
Another barrier is the change process required by organisations. In a power-culture change can be rapid but in a role culture, due to the individual specialist the implementation of company change can take a longer duration and maybe challenged.
Task culture
‘Task’ culture is the formation of teams created to achieve a KPI or project objective. As a collaborative culture, specialised staff join up creating a team that contribute to the overall objective “Decision acceptance refers to the motivation and commitment of group members in implementing the decision” (Mullins, 2005) Project management often adapts this style of culture, as do matrix style management systems.
Within a project team the specialist, unlike the experts working in a role culture, come together to discuss their collaborative objective. The task or ‘team’ approaches allow shared experiences and knowledge to shape the required tasks and resources. As an example, the recent government funded NCOP programme required different stakeholders to collaborate to produce a programme of higher educational aspirational activities that would impact on the progression of high school and college pupils.
Each stakeholder had a different responsibility and ‘task’, and individually couldn’t meet the project objectives. By working together, embedding a communication plan, being clear and honest, and following a strategic plan (where tasks can be reformed, abandoned, or agreed upon), key performance indicators could be achieved. If one stakeholder failed to action their required steps to achieve their own KPI, the project could stall or even fail. Therefore, each stakeholder or team had their own expertise, operational plan, and reward system.
NASA is another example of a task culture. In the 1960s NASA, working collaboratively with several agencies who all had individual objectives to achieve, were able to put a man on the moon.
Without direct leadership, as seen in a power culture, unless an assertive manager has been appointed, arguments, creating loss time, can breakout about the most effective way forward or from differences of opinions. Resources, as an example, when in demand can create a competitive edge between the different working groups dissolving the feeling a ‘team’ approach.
Person culture
The rise in take away delivery firms such a Deliveroo employ people on a self-employed basis, or in years gone by factor workers paid piecemeal, has seen an increase in ‘person’ cultures. In a person cultured organisation, the employee is loyal to their self rather than a company.
In a task culture, the team long for success as this may increase company income securing their position. Some organisations, like Apple, have built a culture where employees feel proud to be an Apple worker.
With a person culture, the company is second to the values of the employee. Uber driver, as an example, will finish work when they want to, even if there is a number of pick-up requests in their area without thinking about the impact of the waiting time of a customer on the company brand.
These examples show how different culture are required for the different job sectors or business models. What is important is that the culture and processes supporting the culture, is clear to employees, helping to create confidence in their actions.
Internal and external factors that can influence organisational culture
Employees
Employees being one, if not the most, asset is an internal factor that influences the culture of an organisation.
A security company hiring ex-military personnel is likely to have a culture shaped by the attitudes of their staff, which for service people is likely to be one of following rules, processes, and orders. It is unlikely, therefore, that employees in this example would be late for work.
Whereas an organisation hiring graduates will create a culture of competition as a potentially younger workforce is wanting to impress managers and enhance their career opportunities.
New challenges to cope with potential future problems can result in a cultural change. Employees, going through a change process, can’t be expected to adapt naturally to a new culture. This same barrier is prevalent when a new management team is brought in to make rapid changes for organisations who are in financial trouble.
If, in the main, employees are unhappy with the change they can disrupt production. Even without a new organisational change, if the percentage of employees take a disliking to the company culture they can rebel or make their grievances known. During 1980s many trade unions strikes cost businesses a high percentage of their profits.
It’s during a change period where managers need to adapt their managerial and leadership styles as they take employees through Lewin’s 3 phase process model; unfreeze, movement, refreeze, due to the resistance of change. A change model helps the process, as research suggest that there is a resistance to change from both the organisation and employees.
Processes, procedures, company values and the company mission, supported by training, help to shape the organisations culture. Without these, or if the guidelines fail to be effective the personalities, and the behaviour of employees can shape the culture of the company through stories, mentoring and what is viewed as ‘normal’ day-to-day activities taken on by new employees through observational learning.
Recruitment
Organisation control who they hire. The recruitment of one unsuitable individual, in terms of company culture, can have a negative effect on the whole team and the behaviours of other staff members, and therefore output.
Recruitment is controlled by the organisation, as long as the hiring manager follows employment law they can, essentially, hire who they believe are the most suitable candidate for the advertised role. “The business of replacing or recruiting someone is an opportunity to rethink what we want the content of the job to be” (Weightman, 1999)
Strength-based interviewing, as an example, matches the applicant’s preference and preferred style of working to culture of the organisation, compared to situational and behaviour job interviewing which focuses, mainly, of competencies for the job role.
High skilled and suitable (new) employees, can also impact the company culture due to the culture of the country they grew up in. Hofstede’s cultural dimension theory, explains how one member of staff is more likely, due to the country culture, generically speaking, perform well or poorly within a particular organisation, depending on that organisations culture.
China, as an example, is what Hofstede would define as a ‘high power’ – an authoritative leadership style, where citizens, or employees, accept the hierarchal order. This temperament would do well within a ‘power’ culture.
If a number of employees are strong in one of the 6 dimensions the culture of the organisation will change. As an example, during a large recruitment process a high percentage of employees were hired from a country that scored low on the time orientation dimension, and therefore preference time served processes and dislike change. If the hiring company was an ‘innovative’ organisation, the culture of wanting to avoid changes would have a direct effect on the values of the company which could change their decision making processes, due to the behaviours of the majority of the workforce.
Resources
Herzberg’s motivation theory model states that there are 2 types of factors that an organisation can adjust to influence employee motivation: motivators and hygiene factors.
Without the hygiene factors, staff members will become demotivated, affecting the company culture. The lack of essential equipment, as an example, that is fit for purpose, changes the productivity levels of an employee. If feeling unworthy, a team member will lack the motivation to stay enthusiastic. The, now negative, attitude can have a disruptive effect on other team members.
Having the required resources can be seen by an employee and being valued. Not only does fit for purpose resources help complete job-related task and therefore meet project deadlines, it creates the culture of satisfied employees.
Another example of employee dissatisfaction is from the employee’s salary. If a salary is perceived to be ‘low’ the employee can become dissatisfied. The UK governments 2020 mean gender pay gap analyst shown how there is a 6.5% gap between male and female salaries.
Organisations, who by law, have to send gender pay gap details to the government, if they employ over 250 employees can reduce dissatisfaction from female employees by simply matching their pay to that of males. Companies, now more then ever before, are reviewing their salaries and comparing them to the average sector salary for that position and/or have a salary scale that increases year on year allowing loyal employees to receive a guaranteed increase in pay.
Politics
Politics, in a number of ways, impacts culture, from the direct influence of policy and law to economical factors. The recent covid-19 pandemic has resulted in advice and guidance, as well as laws that have directed how certain organisations can operate during ‘lockdown’ periods.
These directions or legislation create the boundaries that a company can move, with examples of restaurants offering a home-delivery service or bars hoping to get around rules selling scotch eggs (as government stated that a scotch egg was sufficient enough for a bar to be seen as selling drinks with a meal)
Another recent example is schools, due to Covid, teaching pupils virtually. Schools to continue to meet government benchmarks were required to quickly adapt to the pandemic to continue the education of the pupils. Some schools acted pro-actively creating a risk assessment, identifying, as an example that some pupils, who were part of a large family unit, lived in a one computer home reducing the access they would have to the required technology. Other schools, acting re-actively (maybe due to working within a power culture) were late to identify such issues, delaying the access to the resources their pupils required.
Policy, therefore, affects the behaviour of an organisation. Politics is also designed to be ‘fair’ ensuring that one organisation doesn’t have an monopoly on an industry niche, or, as we are currently seeing, we review policies when weaknesses in the system are found such as global organisations paying tax in countries that they are ‘based’ in but don’t sell products or services in.
Competition
A new entry to an established market can change the culture of an organisation as they will be highly motivated adapt to stay competitive. Amazon, as an example, change the retail market as they successfully turn an online bookstore into the number 1 online retailer.
High street retailers were slow to move online, even with positive projections for foreseeable online shopping trends, with many large retails closing down – most recently Debenhams.
Competition is also positive as one brand can ‘test’ a new marketing idea or product, and if purchased by the public, the second brand can imitate this product. Pepsi and Coke Cola are known for following each other successes, with an example of this is Pepsi bringing out 2lt cola bottles in 70s only to be followed by Coke Cola.
Competition is a driver for change, and therefore a driver for company culture change. Yellow pages, prior to access of internet access on mobile phones, had the monopoly on small business advertisements.
As the internet grew in popularity, the yellow pages didn’t make the move to fully incorporate the online market within their business model. As different online websites, often specialising in job sectors (ratemybuilder.com etc) helped customers find the services they required, Yellow Pages saw a drop in demand, resulting in a drop in share prices. Later, after making massive changes internally, the yellow pages were rebranded as yell.com.
Technology
Many organisational cultures are changing as machinery, technology or artificial intelligence enters the workplace. Companies that once valued hard work, reliability and accuracy can now focus on other values, as machinery produces consistent result, working from home and flexi-hours doesn’t require reliability and ‘hard work’ which originally was physical is more mental; creative, innovative and problem solving.
As low skilled jobs are becoming automated, high skilled roles, requiring degree level candidates and a new set of skills, change the culture of the workplace.
If machinery, as an example, doesn’t required the number of workers of years gone by, the workplace and therefore the company culture will naturally evolve due new environment created from the number of required humans.
This is being seen in the retail sector as decisions to increase self-service checkouts rather then employing humans to work tills increases. This decision could be viewed as a cost saving process but depending on the retail outlet the decision may have been taken to improve customer service with self-checkouts being a quicker alternative to human intervention.
Big data is a driver of culture change, as employers with access to large amounts of data are finding new ways of working, new ways of engaging customers and thinking new opportunities created through the data sets. For some businesses, big data has opened up new business opportunities that weren’t previously thought off.
Values and cultures that encourage behaviours consistent with organisational strategy
Several different approaches help an organisation achieve its operational strategy.
An example would be creating a culture of self-reflection. One company may complete annual appraisals, a discussion with a senior employee; supervisor, manager, senior manager whereas another organisation may utilise a 360-degree review to help generate reflection from different viewpoints.
The varying times of reflection activities allow an employee or team to stop thinking about the ‘now,’ the current stresses or any projects and objectives, and instead review their strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. The ability to reflect allows lessons learnt to be utilised in new and future projects decreasing risk.
To create change, one company may create policy whereas another will use nudge theory techniques. Each approach is designed to help employees to take on the new changes but approaches this from a different motivational standpoint. Nudge theory encourages change subconsciously, bypassing residence, and policy directs change, forcing a new way of operating, which can increase resistance as studies show that humans feel comfortable with routine.
A more direct route to encourage behaviour is encouraging the embedding of values into employees’ day-to-day tasks. Many educational organisations do this successfully through the communication of their values in everything that they do. Operational plans, when communicated will be explained under each of the company’s values. Appraisals are also designed to incorporate questions to ask how an employee meets or uses the company values in business as usual task. Award systems are also set up, allowing colleagues and managers to reward employees who ‘live’ the company values.
Values don’t only inform staff members what the company stands for, they encourage decision making, especially when embedded into rewards, appraisals, and operational plans, that is inline the company mission and vision.
An employee retention focus, from an organisation perspective, creates a culture of ‘caring’. Creating an opportunity for employees to voice their ideas, problems or suggestions allows team members to feel listened to. In addition, hearing the employees voice, on, as an example, an unknown issue, raises that issue to the senior management team helping the company to quickly resolve something that if left could have resulted in a large-scale issue.
The communication of information, good or bad, fosters different behaviours. Having a comms plan that keeps all employees well informed, with an opportunity for the employee’s voice to be heard is, research shows, highly motivational. A lack of communication, half-stories or one employee learning of a change from another, can be frustrating affecting employees work performance.
Company communication process help create a culture on how communications are descended. For big events, one company use a mass email to communicate the update and another in a team meeting. The email is a quicker way to send information, but if the communication is ambiguous or doesn’t state enough information employees will spend time trying to understand the meaning of the email. A team meeting is more costly, as employees aren’t completing business as usual, but the live events allows confirmation of the communication through employee questions.
A culture of honesty and transparency allows all employees to feel in the ‘loop’. Attempting to ‘dodge’ employee questions or trick staff into thinking everything is OK when it is not, has a direct hit on motivation once the truth comes out. Distrust impacts production and staff retention. Stress can increase, adding to the number of sick days taken by team members.
Consistency is key here. Employers can’t be honest one moment and lack transparency the next.
Personal managerial behaviours and organisational values and cultures
To create a productive team, it is important for leaders to be aware of organisational culture forces that operate outside of employee’s awareness.
Leaders need to understand cultural forces to help understand people and how to manage them. These can include group norms, the language, customs, and traditions employees use/follow. How departments interact, unwritten rules employees have and the organisations principles. Additional items could be added to the list, but what is important, for leaders to understand, is that organizational cultures can be visible or invisible.
A visible example is the organizations principles can also be seen in their vision and mission statements, or a company process can reiterate what is seen as right or wrong.
Unconscious cultural norms can be invisible, these can include basic assumptions that guide behavior. Assumptions change the way an employee(s) think. It is easy for the brain to filter the world around us through these assumptions and beliefs, the mind will delete, distort, and generalize the world to fit the belief system.
If the culture in one organization was to stop, think and reflect to be creative, and a manager observed an employee staring into space, the manager would encourage this behavior. Whereas in an organisation with the opposite culture; work hard for every minute of every day, the employee will be viewed as lazy. Culture can create the filter – the bias used before an assumption is made, for decision making.
To motivate and inspire a team, different approaches are required for various situations. When leading a team, a consideration for the individual team member is required, their maturity (competence and confidence) and the task. It is also important to realize that an employee’s maturity can change overtime or can vary, depending on the environment/task.
Situational leadership theory contains 4 behavioral styles
Directing – this is a directive approach, where clear detailed communication and processes are used to ensure a key objective. An example of this would be working within the arm forces
Coaching – here the leader gives guidance in a directive way but also has a focused-on employees needs and motivation. This style works well on complex task and within a matrix management structure
Supporting – when an employee(s) knowledge and skills are key to achieving goals. The leader will use their people skills to support and motivate the team. This style can be seen in retail or the voluntary sector
Delegating – a hands-off approach where the leader has little involvement in the day to day task. This leadership style only works with highly competent staff. You will see this style in senior managers who have a reasonability to manage managers or project managers who oversee contractors.
A new team member will initially require a directive leader who will explain what they do to do, how they will do it and will deliver supportive observations. As the employee becomes more confident and competent, they will require a different leadership style, from directive to coaching, from coaching to supportive, from supportive to, once fully competent and confident, delegation. But this constant change of management styles, and therefore what is expected of the employee, can be confusing and disruptive.
The leader should continue to observe employees and change their leadership style if the employee goes from a delegation support need to another of the 3 leadership styles. Using this theory, a manager can support and motivate a team to achieve their KPIs. The natural tendency of a situational leader Is to focus short-term; observing employees and changing leadership approaches, but a short-term focused removes the focus away from the long-term objectives, which can result in irrelevant short-term goals.
Situational leader theory allows to managers to delegate more effectively, by knowing with employees can be given a task with no additional support or those who can be given task but will need the mangers time and knowledge to complete the task. In this sense a manager is delegating task based on the employee’s ability, confidence, and competencies. For repetitive tasks, this a situational leader wouldn’t be required. Also, to make judgements based an employee’s confidence and competencies, managers need to possess the skill of judging employees’ maturity, something many leaders can’t do.
To improve performance a leader can create an effective group by having beliefs in shared aims and objectives, commitment to the group and being able to openly express themselves.
How to communicate organisational values to the organisational
A newly recruited manager, coming into an established team can set tasks, deadlines or deliver communications that don’t have the desired result they want due to the culture in that particular organization.
Because cultures come from the beliefs, values and assumptions of the organizations,a leader should spend time understanding the complexity of a team and company.
With this knowledge a leader can change their communication to filter their goals effectively or reflect on their own values and change these to fit the culture of the organization – this is often a positive approach if the current team are achieving KPIs. If a new leader has been brought into due to, let’s say, low performance, the leader may first need to focus on a cultural change process.
To change a culture, a leader will need to change employee’s filters. To do this (Schein and Schein, 2017) states 6 embedding mechanisms; what the leader pays attention to – the repetition of this subconsciously teaches people the value of a new hierarchy. Reactions to critical incidents – crisis increase anxiety and how a leader responds teaches new values. The organization learns from this experience and repeats its new behavior.
The allocation of resources or where the money is being spent – indirectly, the priority of resources and funds embeds organizational values. A newly started company that valued profit would make decisions based on lowering overhead cost and increasing profit. Managers here, are likely to decline costly CPD request for team members. In fact, staff might not even request CPD knowing the likely outcome.
As the company grows and becomes financially successful, the company values may evolve with the company’s current situation. The development of staff skills (for long term success) is shown in the company’s new values for professional development, being a leader in the field, etc. Mangers now, are more likely to allocate parts of their budget to staff development and may even be encouraged to this by the senior team.
Another example is a small company who value quality over one who values a quick turnaround. The ‘quality’ company may be willing to extend project deadlines to ensure quality (and their reputation for quality) – a solicitors as an example, will delay the completion of a mortgage due to the checking of the details. A ‘quick turnaround’ company could make decisions based on the need to start the next job – a plumber may used an inadequate product, hoping ‘it will do the job’ to be able to finish the job and start the next one.
The allocation of resources creates a belief system “that won’t get accepted because of X” this soon evolves into how an employee act.
Deliberate Role Modeling – the way a manger acts has a direct impact on employees.
At a basic level values can be communicated by written values, forming a value statement, meetings and through verbal communication. An indirect method is through observational learning.
Staff members, through observational learning, will mimic managers. This has a big effect on the output. Imagine a manager who likes to start lots of new tasks compared to a manager who prefers to start and finish one task before moving on to the next one. Depending on the organization depends of which culture would work best, but employees observing, as an example, that a task must be fully completed before another project is started will mimic this behavior, even when deadlines are looming.
Rewards and status create motivation. Values are often taught through appraisals as they often state the values, and through seeing rewards being given and what the organization punishes. Awarding what you prioritize gets the message home quickly to all staff members.
How leaders select, promote and excommunicate – when working with a current team, the recruitment process, designed to hire staff with (new values), shows the current team, in a subtle way, what is to be expected of them.
This is reinforced when a promotion happens. A previous competent member of staff may miss a promotion over a new employee because the new employee, recruited due to having the new values, act in a way that suites the new organizational culture that is being created.
These can again be reinforced by the allocation of task. Task come with a varying level of responsibility, an experienced staff member being given low level task will (they and colleagues) know something is wrong.
To lead people, leader needs to understand their employees, what motivates them, their levels of competencies and the culture and values of the organization. Business as usual may be enough to keep the business productive and profitable or new changes may be required.
New changes can create stress which often requires more leadership from managers and big cultural changes can take time to be embedded. The actions of the leaders along with clear communication can explain what is required of a workforce and the direction the organization is taking. By leading a team, these changes can be motivational rather than stressful.
The tools available to an organisation to identify and develop its culture
Recruitment strategy
Job adverts and the job spec allow an employee to match the job role to their temperament, helping to assist the development of a culture, once employed. The organisations vision plays a role here. Being innovative, fast-paced and a leader in technology will encourage applicants with a certain mindset compared to a company who state that they are professional, well-established and process driven.
Research has shown that the number of criteria explicit on the job advert affects the employer’s ability to predict job performance. Job adverts, therefore, need to show enough of the company culture and job role to entice suitable applicants but not give too much away as unsuitable candidates may prepare high scoring interview answers in advance of the job interview.
With the company culture clear, employers can set interview questions that are designed to elicit the personal values, attitudes, and behaviours of a candidate. Interview questions can be phrased in a way that help to best understand the applicant’s skill set to the company culture. As an example, if the fast paced IT company need employees to always be working in new sectors or with unknown technology, situational – asking questions about future scenarios may be better than a asking behavioural interview questions – relating to past behaviours, which might not be suitable to their future job duties.
An equal opportunities employer may adopt a panel interview over a 1-2-1 interview are panel interviews decrease unconscious bias through collective hiring decisions. Some organisations, being aware of prejudice in the job interview, use ‘blind’ application removing an applicant’s name, DOB, ethnicity, and gender.
Additional training is carried out throughout the year for all staff teaching new knowledge, behaviours, and attitudes, all designed at one level or another to create a desired culture. Even resources embed culture. Amazon warehouse staff, as an example, have to wear an electronic tag that trigger when a staff member is ‘slacking’.
Training and development
Once employed, new staff often attend mandatory induction sessions to learn about the company culture and processes and procedures. Embedded throughout the training and induction process will be the required behaviour, tasks and the company vision and mission, highlighting what the organisation values.
Training can be framed as ‘giving information’ that needs acting on, or ‘teaching’ to better improve knowledge or new ways of working. The latter option often includes employees bringing forward and sharing their own viewpoints from their learned experiences. Again, the culture or management style (top-down or down-up) affects how training is delivered.
Reward and punishment systems
Some organisations utilise an award system; payment per product made, bonuses, additional leave days for suggested ideas that are taken onboard. The reward system, in whatever format, is a reenforcing of culture. We value you output, so the more products you make the higher an income you will gain. We value employees’ input, if an employee has an innovative idea, we will reward that employee.
Bonuses even though are common, research suggest, are not a powerful motivator to increase output. Whereas laws against misbehaviour are.
Laws, processes, and procedures shape culture. Laws set my government, and any get-arounds, change the decision making of an organisation. It is well documented that many global companies used a clause in tax laws to pay taxes in a country with a low tax band even of the company doesn’t sell products there. Instead they are based there, on paper at least. As countries are currently working together on this issue, it is likely that a new set of regulations will come into play changing how a business will operate in terms of paying its taxes.
In-company, laws or processes have the same affect. An example of this is when Tom Coughlin became the head coach for the New York Giants. At the time the giants were in a bad place, with players being complacent. Coughlin introduce a new law: ‘if you are on time you are late!’
Coughlin would start his meetings 5 minutes early and any player that was late (not 5 minutes early) would receive a $1000 fine. Initially players complained and even lost their first game of the session, but Coughlin stuck to his new law.
Coughlin wasn’t worried about time keeping particularly, instead he saw timekeeping as one element of a determined mindset. It was about respect for other players, and above all about discipline. His law created the values required for a winning culture.
Methods of dealing with messages and behaviours which are in conflict with organisational values
Conflict can easily form due to alternative viewpoints. Conflict isn’t necessary a bad thing, as a new perspective can be a driver for a positive change. But even with this, conflict between employees and managers who have different objectives and contrasting individual goals can be easily created.
One cause of conflict can be as simple as language. Often ‘groups’ are created of specialised workers or employees with a workplace ‘identity’ created within their department, with each having their own ‘language’ and subculture. Conflict can be difficult to identify as it can hidden by a person’s personality – we believe there is no conflict, but we have people who don’t get on with each other.
One way to overcome the communication is barrier is via familiarity. Companies who promote cross-culture working, have department lead meetings, whole company updates increase face time between different groups of employees. The more time people share together the mor they understand each other, and the natural language used in sub-groups.
New staff can create the ‘cultural trap’ This is where a new organisation doesn’t recognise that new team members come from various subcultures. Therefore, a new common language is required to assist with interdepartmental communications, as misunderstandings and personality clashes are at the root of most conflicts.
A detailed induction process, that clearly states the culture of the company, embedded by the actions of employees and managers, as well as training new staff on the company values, processes and procedures, often through a combination on documents, workplace training and mentoring, reduces the chances of a cultural trap.
Consistency and clear language can support leaders to handle conflict by supporting cultural change as inconsistency leads to problems. Leaders not paying attention to an employee, or having multiple distractions, can cause conflict as an employee use other ‘signals,’ often gained from their personal experience, to assume what is important or how to act.
The clarification of goals, having the required resources and embedding HR and organisation policy and procedures is a pro-active way to control conflict. On a personal level embedding regular reviews and catch up meetings assist in the transparency of a company helping employees to make informed choices. Google, as an example, have a culture of transparency with a view to reducing barriers to creativity. Google, therefore, encourage mistakes as this increase’s innovation. ‘Google talks’ was the precursor to ‘Google Meet’ Even though ‘Google talk’ was closed down the learning form this product, and many of the resources were used for ‘Google meet’
Hersey and Blanchard (2019) talk about the leadership curve and how depending readiness of employees, the task and the relationship effects the maturity of those being led; a new employee not knowing the organisations processes will lack confidence. A leader can adopt 1 of 4 managerial styles; delegating, participating, selling, and telling to suit the employee’s maturity. The managerial style is always in flux as an employee who is in the main being “delegated” to may need to come under “telling” depending on changes circumstances; a new project or recent staff redundancies that effects moral. The delivery of the change of management style is important to keep the individual(s) motivated.
Strategies and tactics to influence people in support of organisational values
Having staff onboard with the organisational values improves workplace morale and productivity. Leaders often use a variety of conscious and unconscious influential techniques to align the employees to the organisational values.
According to Bauer and Erdogan (2009), there are nine commonly used influence tactics that can be used within a workplace.
Rational persuasion requires the use of a logical argument. Presenting data, percentages, numbers, facts, and counter arguments and reframes to influence others. Even though commonly used, research suggest that most decisions are influence by emotions not just logic.
Inspirational appeals are an emotional based influencer using values and beliefs to create a pain or pleasure emotional motivation pull. Often delivered with a large objective in mind, as an example a new vision for an organisation.
Consultation relies on one team/person/department to persuade by stating that they are onboard with a change/project. In other scenarios, the team/person/department will communicate the change/project showing a buy-in. This is influential power of social proof.
Ingratiation influences as its aim is to make others feel good about themselves. The task can be related to a personal value, be framed as a good cause and meet a person’s motivational factors to help create action
Personal appeal is a direct request to someone who like you. By asking them for help, personally, the person who is in rapport with the manager is likely to oblige to the request. Used to often, though, can result in resistance.
Exchange works well as a give and take approach shows the employee that tasks or ideas aren’t just being pushed on to them. This approach works with negotiations with union reps, or with an increase in workload ‘do X and we can take Y from you’
Coalition is a group consensus. As an example, a union is a group of employees sharing one voice. The power is in the numbers. A group a senior leader can also use coalition to show unification. There is power in numbers. Examples of this is when business come together to lobby the government on a business legislation that they want changing.
Pressure is a threat. Do this or X will happen. The common example is a potential job loss for not achieving a set target. But pressure can be added at a smaller scale with a manager stating that a sale will be lost if a certain task isn’t completed, or that the team will be let down.
Legitimating is a power position persuasion tactic. Stating the law or industry regulations creates the boundaries – you have to do it this way because the law says so. People respond well to authority as motivation is gained by knowing what is acceptable and that the law or regulation backs up their actions. Discrimination law is an example of this. The Laws stats that recruitment decisions can’t be based on a person’s ethnicity. Companies will have internal processes for checking that, in this example, HR teams and hiring managers, are following government set regulations. If a process hasn’t been adhered to, putting the company at risk, the employee in question could be dismissed or at the very lease receive a warning.
How national differences and cultures can impact on transferability of organisational structure, systems and processes
Hofstede’s 6 cultural dimensions system, created after a decade of research, found commonalities in the dimensions depending on the employee’s country of origin.
Cultural norms shape beliefs and behaviours. Individual actions and motivations, unknowingly for most people, effect how that person acts within the workplace. There are no good or bad cultural norms, as the norms are common in that country.
What was missing from the model was the intricacies of nations; many countries have mixed ethnicities. Britain, as an example has a large Chinese population. And how these mixed ethnicities living in one country also affect culture.
As globalisation and technology has resulted in organisations having employees working across countries, or customers, stakeholders and rivals being on a global scale, cultural differences impact many businesses.
Hofstede’s cultural dimensions allows an organisation, when setting up a new office in a new country or when recruiting globally can be a starting point in terms of creating processes, decision making and strategic planning.
Copying proven processes from one country and embedding it into a new country won’t always work as cultural difference, values and beliefs can be at contrast with the proven process.
An example of this would be with the use of the first cultural dimension – the power index. Hofstede’s refers to the power balance and how some cultures accept a hierarchical distribution of power, where other cultures wouldn’t.
If, for example, a company recruited a member of staff from a high PDI country such as Malaysia and required the employee to be a self-starter, to initiate action and to work on their own initiative, they may find, even with a highly skilled worker, that the cultural norms results in the Malaysia employee waiting for a manager to take chair and direct the required work.
Another example, using Hofstede’s theory, is how staff members act within the organisation; does the employer require team or an individualism culture. Or as Hofstede’s describes it individualism vs collectivism.
Low IDV cultures don’t think about the ‘team’ rather they are self-focused and won’t take action if the ‘team’ are struggling as they naturally focus on their individual task taking joy from the prospect of a challenge a personal challenge. Different organisations, deepening on the job sector, can be successful hiring applicants from certain cultures that their personal values meet the job criteria. On the other hand, if an industry that requires a ‘team’ approach has a group of individualism employees, each employee may be an effective worker but may not work collaboratively enough to meet the core objectives.
Once employed, a multicultural workforce may face communication problems. Ambiguous words can have different meanings, as do gestures and expressions, which can cause confusion and conflict. A mixed workforce: different skills, experiences and perspectives can be viewed as valuable as new ideas, predicted problems or working practices can add value to an organisation.
As company culture is created through stories, observational learning as well as processes, having a large number of one ‘dimensions’ employee in a company can create a natural company culture shift especially if the team had initial successes – if something works, why change it? Long term, this shift can affect the values of the company.
An example of this could be the uncertainly avoidance index, where people on the low side of the scale don’t have a sense of urgency. If company value being at the head of the curve, and hire a higher number of low UAI, the culture could result being stagnated as they are comfortable with routine and start to move away from being innovative.
These new values and the environment created by the workforce, result in a natural shift in processes and procedures, the values and mission of the company.
It is true that employers can’t stereotype people based on their country of origin, as each person’s own experiences, values, and beliefs shape who they are. What Hofstede’s research shown was that a majority of people, depending on the country, were shown to have similar traits. As discussed, job interview questions, when framed correctly, can help understand a person’s motivational traits allowing employers to match each interviewee to the culture of their company, but in some instances, especially if a company was looking to relocate to a new country, a change in culture maybe required to meet the needs of a predictive workforce.
References
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Bauer, T. and Erdogan, B., 2009. Organizational Behavior. 1st ed. Flat World Knowledge, Inc.
C. Delaney (2020) Interview prediction grid https://www.employmentking.co.uk/interviews/interview-prediction-grid/
Dalton, K. (2010). Leadership and management development. Prentice Hall: Harlow, England.
Gregoire, M. and Arendt, S. (2019). Leadership: Reflections over the past 100 years.
Hofstede, G. (2001). Culture’s Consequences: Comparing Values, Behaviors, Institutions, and Organizations Across Nations. Second Edition, Thousand Oaks CA: Sage Publications.
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You have just started your first week in higher education and you are thinking about how to get a job as a fresher.
As a fresher, there is a high number of job options. One question to ask , before starting the job searching process, is are you looking for a part-time job for extra cash or a job role that will enhance your career options post university studies?
Freshers looking for a Part-Time Job for Extra Cash
There are hundreds of part-time jobs for students which are easily gained as the recruitment process for student vacancies is simple.
In the main, a part-time job interview is informal. Employers look at work ethic and skills and qualities rather than focusing the job interview questions on knowledge and experience as they would for a graduate job position.
Top 10 required employability skills for a fresher
Reliability (due to working hours and a high turnover of staff)
Strong work ethic
Flexibility – working evenings, weekends or on demand for jobs like an Uber delivery driver
Teamwork
Communication skills
Customer service skills
Honesty
ITC skills
Problem-solving
Professionalism
In the job interview, if a fresher can come across as hard working and reliable, they are likely to be offered the job role.
The part-time job interview will be either a 1-2-1 interview or a virtual job interview.
Applicants will be asked around 6 interview questions during a forty minute recruitment process.
We will breakdown how to answer fresher interview questions shortly.
Fresher looking for a career advancement job
Knowing that the graduate job market is highly competitive, even for those students receiving good grades, some freshers look for work that they can complete during their time in higher education that will enhance their career options post university.
In fact, for some careers such a medicine, require graduates to have some relevant experience.
Thinking about the future, freshers can use fresher week to gain skills and experiences relevant to their future career choices.
A student, therefore, can gain career related skills and experiences by joining a suitable club or society.
As an example, a Law student may join the debate team to enhance their communication and persuasion skills – two skills required in the legal profession.
Or a wanna be manager may become the head of the Kayak club to improve leadership skills.
A direct example, would be a student journalist writing for the university newspaper to gain direct journalist experience.
Any skills and experiences gained from a club or society help to give more detailed job interview answers, increasing the chances of gaining a job offer.
During the degree qualification or towards a graduation date, students will ultimately start applying for sector specific job openings or graduate schemes.
In the job interview, graduates will be asked around ten questions during the course of a one hour interview.
Employers, actively recruiting graduates, don’t expect all candidates to be industry experts. Instead, the applicant needs to show a degree level worth of knowledge, their work ethic and any relevant skills or experiences. Which can be gained from part-time work, industry placements or through university societies and clubs.
Below is an explanation of how a fresher can approach the most commonly asked job interview questions:
Why have you applied for this position?
All job interviews will start with one of the following three questions – the same question formatted differently:
‘Why have you applied for this role?’
‘Tell me about your relevant experience?’
‘Give me an overview of why you would be a good fit for this graduate position?’
What is being asked is – do you understand the job criteria and what relevant skills and experiences do you have that will make you a suitable employee?
To answer the question discuss:
The company – what you know about them, and how the culture appeals to you
Any experiences, skills, qualities and unique selling you posses relevant to the job criteria
Knowledge gained from a university course and the qualification grade you received
Example answer
‘I have been following (company) for a number of years now, and I like (add a company culture fact). I recently graduated/or am studying a (add course name) where I have learnt (add knowledge) which would useful for you when (make knowledge relevant to a job criteria). From being a (add a relevant society or work experience) I have gained (skills) which will suit (job criteria). Overall I am passionate about working for (company) and I have a range of skills and experiences that are highly suitable for this role.’
What did your course teach you?
The employer isn’t looking for a an ethical hacker student to state that they learnt ‘hacking’. Instead, the employer is looking for specifics.
What is key to remember, for the applicant, is that other freshers studying the same qualification will have learnt the same level of knowledge. In a job interview, it is the applicants goal to stand out – to be seen as different, better than the competition.
This is where extra curriculum activities help.
An art student may talk about how they had been commissioned to produce a piece of art, or a business management study could have set up a profitable business and won a young business person of the year award.
A student may talk about the managing of a university society evert which helps them stand out for an events organiser job role. Or a fresher could discuss how their debate team won the UK debate finals.
What is required then is an answer that covers industry knowledge gained from a university course and skills gained from additional activities.
Example answer
‘On my (course) I learnt 3 key industry models that I found very useful (discuss three key points). I was able to test these theories when I (give a working example) which resulted (add outcome). In addition, I (add reference to placement, experience or society) where I gained (skills) that will be highly useful in this role.’
Do your grades reflect your potential?
I love these oddball interview questions, but for many applicants the randomness of the question is off putting.
Interviewers ask this question, mainly to applicants who have gained a lower grade then the national average. Here, the employer is offering an olive branch, allowing the applicant to discuss their potential.
The goal here is to keep the answer positive. Don’t blame grades on poor teaching, external distractions or the pressure of an example.
Instead, be positive. Focus the rely on your area of growth, your knowledge level, your passion and commitment. Your work ethic, personal skills and relevant experiences.
Example answer
‘Exam grades are only one part of a persons potential. Experience, temperament, skills and qualities also reflect potential. As an example, I recently (reference an experience – this could include a society or club, or even a volunteering opportunity) which highlighted by ability to (add job criteria). A second example of my potential is my ability to (add employability skills) which will be useful when (add job duty). Overall my potential can be seen by my work ethic and (add skill)’.
What is your understanding of principle one?
In all job interviews you will be asked several technical job related questions.
For graduate job roles you may asked about sector models and theories. As an example, a engineering interviewer may ask ‘what are the sub-grades of steel?’
For a part-time job, lets say in retail the employer may ask ‘how would you deal with a customer compliant?’
For technical job related questions, answers can be either a breakdown of the underpinning sector model or theory or a real-life example.
Interview answer – theory
‘(theory author name) stats that (detail the theory outline) but (theory author name) contradicts this when they talked about (detail theory outline)’
Interview answer – example
‘When working on (project) we faced (barrier/problem) To solve this I (describe actions took) which ended with (outcome).
Previously, office-based copywriters would have collaborated directly with artists, often working in the same office, to create copy in printed newspapers and for advertisement boards.
Before too long, copywriters were being hired to create radio and TV ads. As the internet took the world by storm and a whole new sub-niche of marketing was created; SEO, PPC, and social media ads.
Advertising copywriters these days work remotely on slogans, catchphrases, headlines, as well as short copy for online ads, and long copy for TV commercials, newspaper adverts, press-releases and all kinds of written words copy.
Salary and qualifications
As a general rule of thumb, a skilled copywriter will receive a salary varying between £30-£50k. With some in-demand advertisers earning up to £90k.
From a job interview perspective, an applicant’s perceived level of experience can determine, not only the interview outcome but the salary negotiation outcome as well.
Employers are looking to hire experienced writers who understand the psychology of sales and persuasive writing.
Copywriters are often degree-level qualified but there are no required degree courses that an applicant must have – writing skills and interview techniques are the two essential must have to pass an advertising copywriter job interview.
On the other hand the following degrees are highly relevant for a writing career:
creative advertising
communication studies
English
journalism
public relations
Job interview questions and answers for a copywriter
Interview questions will vary depending on the sub-niche the advertised role sits within, but there are some commonly asked questions that every advertising copywriter needs to prepare for.
The job interview will be book-ended by commonly asked job interview questions; Why did you leave your last job? What motivates you? Why do you want to work here? or Do you have any questions for me?
This article, therefore, will focus on job-specific questions that require high-scoring answers to ensure that the interviewee has any chance of a successful job interview outcome.
What is your process for creating copy?
For ‘process’ or ‘system’ job interview questions, the best bet is to simply list the industry recognised procedure:
Client brief
Idea generation
Sample copy for review
Main copy with updates
Release the copy
To score high, answers need to be more detail – meat on the bone is required. As an example step 1 the client brief can be better worded by breaking down the process of the brief:
‘My first action, when I receive the client brief, is to research the company; their past copy, their values and vision, the target audience and the product the marketing campaign relates to, as this gives me a better understanding of the client.’
You could also discuss looking at the organisations competitors, liaising with the client to check your own interpretation of the brief and to establish a timeline.
By breaking each step down into specifics, the applicant can’t help but meet the criteria on the interview scorecard. Once met, the employer has to allocate the answer a high score.
Detailed answers can be long. What is required for lengthy answers is a slow pace answer, with links between each stage.
At the end of the answer give a quick summary to ensure that the interview panel have heard all 5 stages of the interview answer.
How do you prioritise work when managing multiple client accounts?
Working on multiple projects is the norm in the advertsing world.
Therefore, employers are looking for copywriters who can multitask. What the interviewer is looking for when they ask a time-management, work priority or high workload interview question, is the process you use to ensure quality work is produced in a timely manner.
To answer this question you can either quote time management models: the time management matrix.
Or, to give an example.
The example given should state:
The number of projects you were working on
The competing deadlines
The duration and complexity of different tasks
Your decision making process ie what did you prioritize and delegate
The positive outcome
It is also good to reference the tools you utilise:
Gantt Chart
To-do list
Any automation tools
Reusing/editing old copy
Calendar reminders
The goal here is to show organisation and effective decision making.
Do you have examples of copy from previous projects?
Generally speaking, when asked for an ‘example’ many interviewees will describe a previous successfully experience.
And so they should.
Examples do score high as, if they are done correctly, they will describe a previous situation that had a risk attached to it. This could be an advertisement project with a short deadline , a new market product or a gorilla marketing tactic, previously not used.
The danger, stated in the example, builds suspense.
The interview answer points come from the description of the actions the applicant took (which need to be specific stated) and the outcome of the example.
An additional, underused, trick that can be used to gain additional points is to bring physical evidence.
There is something about seeing and holding a piece of work that brings the quality of the work to life.
Preparing evidence also highlight the candidates organisation and preparation skills.
Evidence can include:
A portfolio of work
Examples of writing
Data from past campaigns
Client feedback
How do you ensure your copy is in another person’s voice?
One of the hardest, and most required, skills is having the ability to write in the clients voice.
Again, evidence sampling different ‘voices’ will show the employer that you possess this skill.
To answer this question, start with a confirmation statement: ‘all my work has a different tone to suit the voice of the client. This is a skill I excel in….’
A confirmation statement reassures the employer.
Next, explain the process you go through with the client to accommodate the tone, perspective, and overall voice of the copy to resonate with the product.
This explanation, along with physical evidence, is enough to help the interviewer see the benefits of hiring the applicant with this skill.
How do you prepare content for SEO or PPC?
Online advertsing is growing year upon year.
Social media ads are short, dynamic and engaging requiring a new style of copy. Some online copy, a press release or a blog post as an example, is written in a similar style as copy for a newspaper.
Clients may want pay-per-click ads or banners. Short marketing videos on YouTube and Instagram are becoming popular. In short, there are various styles of online marketing.
When asked about online marketing list the different styles and a summary of what is required, before delving deeper into your two approaches for SEO and PPC.
Start the interview answer by showing expertise:
‘I have been creating a high click-through copy for online PPC ads on YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, and more recently Linked-in for 8 years now…’
Detail your knowledge:
‘…I specialise in Facebook animation ads for the health sector. An example of this was (discuss best performing ad)...’
Link both SEO and PPC:
‘…I also have worked on a high number of SEO campaigns. You may have heard of (add a well-known campaign you led on) I was responsible for (discuss your part in the project). The campaign was a success (add data and stats). ‘
