Interview Questions Flashcards
-Tell me about a time you made a mistake.
Are Right A Lot
-Tell me about an error in judgment you made in the last year or two. What was it and what was the impact of it?
Are Right A Lot
-Tell me about a time when you made a bad decision and the learning from the experience enabled you to make a good decision later. What did you learn that you were able to apply?
Are Right A Lot
-Give me an example of a significant professional failure. What did you learn from this situation?
Are Right A Lot
-Give me an example of when you had to make an important decision in the absence of good data because there just wasn’t any. What was the situation and how did you arrive at your decision? Did the decision turn out to be the correct one? Why or why not?
Are Right A Lot
-Tell me about a business model decision or key technology decision or other important strategic decision you had to make for which there was not enough data or benchmarks. In the absence of all the data, what guided your choice and how did you make the call? What was the outcome?
Are Right A Lot
-Tell me about a time when you felt your team was not moving to action quickly enough. What was the situation? What did you do? What was the outcome? Would you have done anything differently?
Bias For Action
-Give me an example of a calculated risk that you have taken where speed was critical. What was the situation and how did you handle it? What steps did you take to mitigate the risk? What was the outcome?
Bias For Action
-Tell me about a time you had to make a decision with incomplete information. How did you make it and what was the outcome?
Bias For Action
-Tell me about a time you had to make a quick judgement call without time for deep analysis.
Bias For Action
-Describe a situation where you made an important business decision without consulting your manager. What was the situation and how did it turn out?
Bias For Action
-Tell me about a time when you had to analyze facts quickly, define key issues, and respond immediately to a situation. What was the outcome?
Bias For Action
-Tell me about a time when you have worked against tight deadlines and didn’t have the time to consider all options before making a decision. How much time did you have? What approach did you take?
Bias For Action
-Give an example of when you had to make an important decision and had to decide
between moving forward or gathering more information. What did you do? What information is necessary for you to have before acting?
Bias For Action
-Tell me about a time when you were faced with a challenge where the best way forward or strategy to adopt was not “clear cut” (i.e., there were a number of possible solutions or the situation was ambiguous). How did you decide the best way forward?
Bias For Action
-Tell me about a time you used customer feedback to drive improvement or innovation. What was the situation and what action did you take?
Customer Obsession
-Give me an example of when you did not meet a client’s expectations. What happened, and how did you attempt to rectify the situation?
Customer Obsession
-Describe a dificult interaction you had with a client. What was the situation and what action did you take? What was the outcome?
Customer Obsession
-Tell me about a time you handled a dificult customer. What did you do? How did you manage the customer? What was her/his reaction? What was the outcome?
Customer Obsession
-Tell me about a time you put the customer first, regardless of what peers or higher management directed. What was the outcome? How did this impact day-to-day interaction with your peers and/or management?
Customer Obsession
-Walk me through a time when you helped a customer through a dificult process and what that looked like.
Customer Obsession
-Most of us at one time have felt frustrated or impatient when dealing with customers. Can you tell me about a time when you felt this way and how you dealt with it?
Customer Obsession
-When do you think it’s ok to push back or say no to an unreasonable customer request?
Customer Obsession
-Tell me about a time you had to compromise in order to satisfy a customer.
Customer Obsession
- Tell me about a time a customer wanted one thing, but you felt they needed something else.
Customer Obsession
-When was a time when you had to balance the needs of the customer with the needs of the business?
Customer Obsession
-To try to meet the high expectations of our customers, we sometimes promise more than we can deliver. Tell me about a time when you overcommitted yourself or your company. How did you resolve the issue?
Customer Obsession
-In your opinion, what is the most effective way to evaluate the quality of your product or service to your internal/external customer? Give an example when you used these measures to make a decision. (Manager)
Customer Obsession
-Give me an example of a change you implemented in your current team or organization to meet the needs of your customers. What has been the result? (Manager)
Customer Obsession
-Give me a situation in which it took you asking why five times to get to the root cause.
Dive Deep
-Tell me about a time you were trying to understand a problem on your team and you had to go down several layers to figure it out. Who did you talk with and what info proved most valuable? How did you use that info to help solve the problem?
Dive Deep
-Tell me about a problem you had to solve that required in-depth thought and analysis. How did you know you were focusing on the right things?
Dive Deep
-Walk me through a big problem in your organization that you helped to solve. How did
you become aware of it? What info did you gather, what was missing, and how did you fill the gaps? Did you do a postmortem analysis and what did you learn?
Dive Deep
-Can you tell me about a specific metric you’ve used to identify a need for change in your department? Did you create the metric or was it readily available? How did this and other info influence the change?
Dive Deep
-It can be dificult to set goals for a team that are challenging yet achievable. Tell me about a time when you hit the right balance. How did you approach setting the goals? What was the outcome?
Deliver Results
-Tell me about a time when you were able to remove a serious roadblock preventing your team from making progress.
Deliver Results
-Tell me about a time when you went way beyond the scope of the project and delivered.
Deliver Results
-Describe a time when you had to face a particularly challenging situation while working on a project and what you did to overcome it. (Note: The challenge could be with respect to timeline, scope, people, etc. or a combination thereof.)
Deliver Results
-Tell me about a time where you not only met your goals but exceeded them.
Deliver Results
-Give me an example of a time when you didn’t think you were going to meet the commitments you promised. How did you identify the risk and communicate it to stakeholders? What was the outcome?
Deliver Results
-Tell me about a time when you uncovered a significant problem in your team. What was it and how did you communicate it to your manager and other stakeholders?
Earn Trust
-Describe a time when you significantly contributed to improving morale and productivity on your team. What were the underlying problems and their causes? How did you prevent them from negatively impacting the team in the future?
Earn Trust
-Give an example of a time where you were not able to meet a commitment to a team member. What was the commitment and what prevented you from meeting it? What was the outcome and what did you learn from it?
Earn Trust
-Tell me about a piece of direct feedback you recently gave to a colleague. How did he or she respond?
Earn Trust
-Tell me about a time you had to communicate a big change in direction for which you anticipated people would have a lot of concerns. How did you handle questions and/or resistance? Were you able to get people comfortable with the change?
Earn Trust
-Tell me about a time when you needed the cooperation of a peer who didn’t want to give it. How and did you convince them to support you?
Earn Trust
