Competency/behavioural Flashcards
Tell me about a time when you organised and interpreted QUALITATIVE data, presenting results in a clear and concise way.
Online consultation for WSNF
S: done several times at UKERC but WSNF is probably the best example.
T: fund successful last time but no paper trail so had to start from scratch. Created a survey (online consultation) for the community (i.e. potential applicants) on how best to use the fund.
A: gathered responses into a single document, read/explored the data several times, made notes and highlighted key words/phrases, identified recurring themes/language/opinions/beliefs and categorised them, wrote a report summarising my findings.
R: used findings to inform the WSNF process, e.g. make the grants smaller/more accessible to ECRs, run career development opportunities etc.
Tell me about a time you communicated effectively.
Rosie Foster at ICL
S: Student Financial Support Officer at ICL, one of my responsibilities was managing the hardship fund.
T: a vulnerable student in a dangerous situation needed assistance. However, a) she was very upset when she came to me, b) she was unwell so was struggling to understand me and c) my colleagues were reluctant to help her because she owed us money.
A:
a) to calm her down, I took her to a private room and got her water and tissues when she was upset, used a soft tone of voice and open body language to put her at ease and asked open questions and actively listed to get more information.
b) to help her understand, I calmly explained what needed to happen, got her to write down bullet points (actions) that she needed to do and sent her a follow-up email summarising what we had spoken about.
c) to convince my colleagues, I let them first air their frustrations with me, made my case outlining why our duty of care outweighed the financial cost, leveraged the mutual respect and trust I had with these colleagues to convey the severity of the situation and proposed a compromise (i.e. that my department would pay the costs).
R: a) we got the student out of her dangerous living arrangements and into emergency accomodation and b) she was able to complete her degree.
Tell me about a time you were organised/managed your time effectively.
wc 23 May at UKERC
wc 23 May at UKERC
S: at UKERC, deadlines for the fund I manage and a huge public-facing event coincided with my project management course. I’d been asked to organise the event last minute and none of the deadlines could be moved.
T:
- Process the first round of funding applications, reply to applicants and send successful ones off to their second reviewers
- Run a Zoom webinar with high-level stakeholders including senior speakers from government and the private sector
- Study for two project management exams
- This was all in a four-day week as I was about to go on annual leave
A: put the week’s tasks in a chronological list based on their deadlines, prioritised tasks for the fund, event and PM course and moved less important tasks; protected my time by rescheduling unnecessary meetings and blocking out my calendar; managed expectations by informing my team of my workload and setting an out of office to say my email replies might be slightly longer than usual; only replying to emails that needed actioning immediately and made a list of who to get back to after.
R: I replied to all applicants and sent proposals off for the second round of review by the deadline originally stated on our website, held a successful event attended by 282 people and passed my exams with 74% and 90%.
Tell me about a time you worked effectively and accurately under pressure, whilst still paying attention to detail.
Data collection for MRes
S: had four months to collect data for my MRes thesis, not a lot of time anyway but especially in tropical field conditions when things go wrong.
T: had to collect data from 11 plots. It took hours to get to/from each plot, they were hours away from each other and I had a limited research budget for travel and research assistant time. Plus, extreme weather, dangerous animals and biting invertebrates hindered data collection.
A:
a) to maximise the time available: I planned my research schedule weeks in advance and frequently re-planned in response to setbacks; when I had spare time, I did tasks in advance so I didn’t have to do them last minute; I packed my bags the night before to save time in the morning.
b) to work accurately: I trained my RAs and practiced with them at camp so we were quick and effective at collecting data; I created checklists so we always had the correct equipment; I created simple instructions to take to the field in case we needed reminders.
c) to stay calm under pressure: I learnt not to get emotionally attached to my ideas/a plan because it would probably change; when annoying things happened, I tried to view it as game (real time prpblem solving); I confided in and supported my fellow students, as it helped to relieve stress; I did a lot of yoga.
R: I actually finished data collection a couple of weeks early and was able to return home, allowing more time for analysis which I desperately needed.
Tell me about a time you implemented project management concepts.
Front-End Data Team Lead at PPL PWR
S: during recent volunteering for PPL PWR, I was assigned front-end data team lead on a citizen science air pollution project.
T: myself and another volunteer had to develop a website in just one month, when I work full time and he had exams for his masters.
A: I summarised the high-level requirements; as a team, we broke these down into smaller, achievable tasks, prioritised them (MoSCoW) and decided who would do what; as Team Lead, I scheduled sprints (timeboxing) to work on each task/set of tasks; during the sprints, we communicated and shared resources via Slack and arranged meetings if needed; I arranged close-out meetings for each sprint.
R: we built a basic web app in four weeks complete with the copy needed for each webpage.
Tell me about a time you problem solved / thought innovatively.
Developed novel equipment for MRes
S: for my MRes project, I had to collect carbon flux data from trees in a tropical forest during monsoon season. The standard equipment is static and requires a mount to be fixed to all your study to trees: this required time and money I didn’t have, plus it increased the time taken to pack away and the equipment can’t get wet.
T: I decided to make a portable version to save time, money and protect the equipment.
A: searched camp for bits of junk because that’s all we had (five hours away from any town/city); cut up my rubber exercise band to make a flexible, air-tight skirt for the equipment; trialled it on various trees around camp.
R: my portable equipment gave the same readings as the static equipment (same efficacy/no gas leakage), reduced the time and money needed to visit my study plots and allowed me to pack away quicker to prevent rain damage.
Tell me about a time when you organised and interpreted QUANTITATIVE data, presenting results in a clear and concise way.
Python course
S: did a Python programming for data science course in 2020.
T: had to create a machine learning algorithm for cancer detection and pitch it to a mock client (mixed business and technical personal) via a presentation.
A:
a) organised and interpreted the data: data exploration, visualisation (bar graph, histogram, violin plots, correlation matrix), processing (i.e. treat outliers), feature selection (tried random forest classifier, PCA and handpicking), split the data intro training and test data, scaled the features, assessed evaluation metrics (wanted to minimise false negatives and to a lesser extent false positives so needed a high recall and F1 score respectively), trialled four different models (logistic regression, random forest, linear SVM, ensemble of all three) and compared metrics to assess model performance (all good but ensemble was best).
b) presented results clearly and concisely: created a thoroughly annotated Jupyter notebook of all code; included a mix of bullet points, excerpts of code and key figures (e.g. evaluation metrics) on the slides; highlighted how the product would benefit users (patients, staff) and business performance; used enough jargon to seem credible but not enough to alienate.
R: we came second in the competition.
Tell me about a time you worked independently.
WSNF at UKERC
S: £400,000 dedicated to EDI in energy research. Ran once before but my predecessor left no paper trail. However, was a hugely successful initiative.
T: I am solely responsible for the fund, which has included running consultations, writing the project proposal, devising application and assessment processes, assembling working groups, writing call materials, promoting the fund, running events, chairing meetings, communicating decisions to applicants and from Sep onwards I will also provide project management support to projects and run career development opportunities.
A:
a) holding myself accountable: planned the project lifecycle and broke big tasks down into smaller, achievable ones; remained flexible, i.e. re-planned when new info came to light (e.g. need 3 month application window for EDI reasons); did tasks early when I had more time to get ahead of work; generally being organised (to-do list with deadlines in chronological order).
b) checking my work was fit for purpose: meetings with experienced partners to discuss best practice; seeking feedback from colleagues, including senior staff; seeking feedback from users.
R: I met all the deadlines I set for myself, including those made public on the website, and awarded seven projects. Plus, I have received positive feedback from the funders, applicants and reviewers.
Tell me about a time you worked collaboratively.
Engagement/comms strategy at UKERC
S: UKERC didn’t have an engagement strategy and needed to update its comms strategy.
T: myself and the Comms Manager worked closely together to ensure these two closely-related areas were aligned.
A: had a meeting to discuss areas of overlap/things that needed to be included in both (e.g. events, EDI), wrote our documents separately but then reviewed each other’s with tracked changes, met again to discuss feedback, implemented changes/finalised the documents with the same format/wording/branding and put them on the website with both our contact details attached.
R: UKERC now has coherent comms/engagement strategies that are informed by our wider V&M, had praise from the funders about this.
