Category | Example Questions |
Adapting | - Describe a time you were working on an important task or project, but were then unexpectedly required to complete another important task or project as soon as possible. What did you do?
- Describe a time you had to adapt to an unfamiliar or ambiguous situation. What was the situation and what did you do?
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Business acumen | - Describe a time when you identified a business opportunity that would not eventuate until much later. How did you plan for this future business opportunity?
- Please discuss an example of how you were able to link a business decision or proposal with a demonstrated or projected financial outcome.
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Calculated-risk taker | - Imagine that you had to make a high-risk decision at work. How would you consider whether the risks were worth it?
- Imagine you had to take a calculated risk at work. What would you do to ensure that you mitigated the risk?
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Change management | - Describe a time when you were involved with implementing a change in your workplace. What was the change and how did you ensure that it was successful?
- Describe a time you had to communicate a change initiative at work. How did you maximize the effectiveness of your message? What did you find challenging?
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Checking and monitoring | - Please describe a time where you have overlooked a minor detail in your work and it had unintended consequences. What would you do differently next time?
- Tell me about a time when you needed to inspect the quality of a product, process, or service at work. How did you ensure this was done accurately?
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Client and customer service | - Imagine you are helping a customer and they react in a way different to what you expect. What would you do next?
- Please provide an example of when you delivered excellent customer service.
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Compliance | - Discuss a time at work when you were told to follow a rule or policy that you disagreed with. How did you respond?
- In what situations is it best to favor established ways of working as opposed to trying new approaches? Please explain your reasoning.
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Consulting and advising | - Imagine you are involved in a large project which impacts a large number of people. How would you go about identifying all of the relevant stakeholder groups, both internal and external?
- Describe a time when you had to explain a complex idea to a stakeholder who had little knowledge in the area. How did you approach this? How do you know you succeeded?
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Cooperation and collaboration | - Describe a time where you had to work with others on a project that required many different roles. How were these roles determined amongst the team? What was the outcome?
- How do you earn the trust of your coworkers?
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Coping with pressure | - Describe a time when you felt like you had been pushed into a high-stakes situation at work with insufficient preparation. How did you react?
- If you find yourself under a stressful situation which requires you to act quickly what would you do?
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Creativity and innovation | - Imagine you had to come up with a creative idea at work but you were struggling to think of anything. What strategies would you use to aid in your thinking?
- Tell me about a time when you came up with a new idea or concept that had a positive impact on your workplace. What was the idea? What impact did it have?
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Decisive | - Describe a time when you made an important decision that led to a successful outcome. Why do you think your decision had this impact?
- Talk about a decision you needed to make at work for which there was no clear best option. How did you decide what to do?
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Delivering and persevering | - How do you deal with new challenges at work?
- If you find yourself stuck doing repetitive work, how do you motivate yourself to continue and complete it?
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Developing and coaching | - How would you handle a member of your team who is not performing well?
- Suppose you need to teach a skill to a coworker or subordinate who is not skilled in that area. How would you approach this situation to maximize your colleague's learning?
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Directing and coordinating | - Describe a time you successfully delegated tasks to your team.
- How do you go about establishing priorities and timeframes for different tasks across a group of people? What do you find most challenging about this process?
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Drive and ambition | - Tell me about a time at work when you went above and beyond what was asked of you. What motivated you to do this?
- Tell me about a time when you doubted your ability to achieve a goal. What was the situation? What was the outcome?
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Effective communication | - How would you explain a complex technical problem to a colleague with less technical understanding?
- Imagine you had to give some disappointing work-related news to a colleague. How would you deliver this news?
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Ethical | - Describe a time when you encountered an ethical dilemma at work. What did you do?
- Imagine that a colleague embarrassed you in front of your manager. What would you do in response to that behavior?
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General Questions | - What motivates you to go to work every day?
- What three things are most important to you in a position?
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Inclusion and diversity | - Can you give us an example of a time when you worked with or helped somebody of a different culture or background to your own?
- Describe your understanding of diversity and inclusion and why it is important.
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Independence and initiative | - Discuss an experience you had at work when the expectations or goals for your performance were unclear. How did you feel and what did you do?
- How do you measure your own job performance?
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Interpersonal acumen | - Describe a time where you had to hide how you were feeling due to the situation. What was the situation? How do you know you were successful?
- Talk about a time when you tailored your approach with a colleague based on how they seemed to be responding. How do you know you were effective?
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Investigating, analyzing, and evaluating | - Describe a time when you had to investigate a complex problem. What steps did you take? What information did you gather?
- Discuss a time where you had conflicting information on an issue. What was your process in determining which information was reliable?
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Learning and self-development | - Describe a time when you have sought feedback to help you improve your work. How did you feel when you received the feedback? How did you implement the feedback?
- Describe your approach to professional development. How do you ensure you are staying up to date with advancements and new developments in your field?
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Managing complexity and ambiguity | - Imagine you are in a situation where there is little clarity or certainty. How would you make yourself feel better in this situation?
- Tell me about a time when you needed to adjust your approach according to a complex or uncertain environment. How did you identify and then implement those adjustments?
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Managing conflict | - Suppose you were in a situation where there was lots of conflict between two people. What steps would you take to identify the reasons for the conflict?
- Tell me about a time when you experienced a disagreement when interacting with a difficult coworker. How did you resolve this situation?
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Manual and mechanical proficiency | - Describe a time when you have been able to successfully utilize your mechanical skills. What was the situation? What was the outcome?
- Tell me about a time when you were faced with a task that involved a lot of manual aspects you found uninteresting. How did you go about getting it started?
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Motivating and inspiring | - Imagine you were working on a group project with two team members who had both become demotivated with the task. What steps would you take to ensure each individually felt inspired to complete the project?
- Describe a time when you needed to motivate someone to achieve their best. What did you do and what was the outcome?
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Networking and building relationships | - What strategies do you employ to build rapport with others when attending networking events, or events in which you don’t know people?
- When starting a new job, how do you go about building relationships with your new coworkers or supervisors?
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Numerical and statistical proficiency | - Some jobs require the accurate use of numerical or statistical information. Please tell me about a task where using numerical or statistical information was important to yoursuccess.
- Describe a time you used numerical or statistical information to solve a problem. How did using numerical information help you? What was the outcome?
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Organizing and planning | - How do you handle your daily workload?
- In what situations is it best to follow a thorough schedule as opposed to being more unplanned in your approach? Please explain your answer.
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Persuading and influencing | - Imagine that you had to encourage and motivate someone to change their behavior. What strategies would you use?
- Tell me about a time when you needed to guide a customer, client, or colleague to make a certain choice. What did you do?
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Resilience and self-confidence | - Imagine that you received some negative feedback on one of your work projects, but you had already been allocated to a similar project due to start soon. How would you feel about this? What would you do?
- How do you deal with setbacks or disappointment?
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Safety and risk management | - Describe a time where you identified a risk or hazard in your work environment. What steps did you take to mitigate that risk?
- Imagine if a safety or risk policy or instruction made it more difficult to do your job. How would you decide when it's ok to bend the rules?
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Selling | - Imagine you had to change someone's mind in order to sell them a particular product or service. How would you go about this?
- Often in sales-oriented roles there are high sales targets. Can you please describe what motivates you to reach high targets?
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Solving and improving | - Describe a time where you went out of your way to improve a process, product, or service to make it more efficient or productive. What did you do?
- Tell me about a time when you came up with a new approach to solve a problem.
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Strategic mindset | - Describe your approach to strategic planning. How would you incorporate commercial aspects or market factors when developing your strategy?
- How do you ensure that your strategic plans or goals are likely to be effective? What aspects would be most important to this process?
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Technological and scientific proficiency | - Describe a time when you have successfully completed a task that involved utilizing your scientific or technical knowledge and skills. What did you do? What was the outcome?
- Tell me about a time you learned a new technological skill. What caused you to learn this skill? How did learning this skill help you to do your work?
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Writing and reporting | - Imagine you had to write a detailed report at work. What steps would you take to ensure every detail is accounted for?
- Provide an example of a task you have worked on, where success relied on communicating information to others in a written format and to a high quality. What did you do?
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Updated
by
Amy Thomas
