Story
How to answer "Tell me a Situation" question?
The interviewer is interested to know if you are the right candidate. Do you have the right experiences, skills, strengths, attitude and abilities? What you claim on your resume, does it meet the job requirements. Will you be the right fit for the job?
To discover answers to above questions, the interviewer will ask you
• Tell me a situation and how did you handle
• Tell me an important contribution you made in job.
• Tell a situation where you could have done better.
• Describe me a time when your work was criticized
If you have not prepared for these type of questions or don't know how to answer, you will face difficulties and you may not be able to perform the best. It is better to understand how to answer these type of questions and then prepare with right stories and examples.
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The Situation
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You need to think quickly a situation which has particular type of experience.The interviewer needs to understand how you dealt with the situation. Describe the situation.
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Actions
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What did you do in the situation? You need to show your skills e.g. communication, problem solving, leadership, conflict resolution etc.) to mitigate the problem and improve the situation. Tell about the actions you initiated.
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Results
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After you took the said actions. What happened? What were the results? Did the situation improve? You need to share the outcome, savings and results in objectively.
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Learning
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What did you learn from the incident? How did you improve? How did you transfer the learning to the organization?
SARL helps you to tackle these questions in objective way. SARL summary herewith.
a) Situation(S) - Describe the challenge
b) Actions (A) - Tell the actions taken and how progress was monitored
c) Results (R) - Share the outcome and impact ($$)
d) Learning(L) - What did you learn?
You will need to think on your feet and summarize the SARL in a short story form briefly and succinctly. Ensure the examples pertain to you and are also relevant to the new job.
To ace the interview, you need to think through such situations and keep your script ready.
Photo Adaptation / Pixabay / moteoo-466065
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Demonstrate the soft skills in your resume
It is important that while you write the resume, your soft skills stand out in your resume. Read through the job description carefully and cull out the skills which the employer is looking for. Ensure to demonstrate these skills in your resume through your work and projects. At times we have the skills but fail to bring it out in our resume. That is a mistake, we should avoid.
Hard skills are important for the job. But we are surprised that soft skills are equally and more important than hard skills. The key soft skills provide us an advantage over other candidates.
To succeed in any profession, it is necessary to have important soft skills. A doctor needs to have empathy and listening skills to deal with a patient. A manager needs to have people skills to manage and lead his or her team. A supply chain manager needs to be good at negotiations. Every role needs key soft skills, for a person to succeed in their profession.
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