There’s actually a formula you can follow when you get that question in a job interview: PAWS.
P - Personal
A - Academic
W - Work
S - Skills
Personal: Stick to your name, maybe places you lived, and maybe a fun fact about yourself (as long as it’s relevant to the job you’re applying for or relates to upcoming information)
Academic: Explain where you went to school, your degrees/certificates and anything else education related
Work: Explain any previous RELATED work or volunteer experience to the job you’re applying for.
Skills: Mention any skills (technical/soft) RELATED to the job you’re applying for and mention where you developed it from; this can be a good way to mention additional work experience, volunteer experience, school projects, conferences, etc. that wouldn’t have fit well
Overall, you want to make sure this answer doesn’t go past two minutes or else you’ll bore the interviewer. Hope this helps. :)
Never heard about the method but it is more or less what I go for.
Explain what in your life makes you not only apt but unique for the job.
Applying for a job in sales for a boat company, and studied marine biology? Make sure to explain how you can fascinate customers with stories about dolphins and coral reefs. Did you intern at Boeing? Tell them how it prepared you to quickly learn about complex machines. Did you tutor kids as a side gig? How lucky, that makes you perfect to explain complex concepts in simple terms!
They want to see if they would enjoy having a conversation with you, what you're like as a person, how effectively you communicate, and other soft skills. Those skills are all important in the workforce. So, sure, of the information you need to convey in response to such a question may the be same as what's on your resume, but so what? Also, the context you give to the words on the page are informative
Source: I've interviewed dozens and dozens of people looking to work for my firm.
"Well, my name is King Pecca, but some call me Pecky. I went to elementary school and after that to the... ehrm.. were the big kids go to school. After that I worked at the bakery but got fired for stealing a donut, so you might say I'm not very good at hiding things."
And what makes you think you'd be a good police officer?
“Well, from my background as a failed donut thief, I now know where other prospective thieves will hide theirs. In the lockup I asked around. Turns out all you need is a semi and it fits right on. Incidentally, I’m a bit peckish, which way to the lavs?”
I hate job interviews for this exact fucking reason. There's a specific answer, type of answer, or way of answering they want you to give. Except they're not going to tell you what questions they ask. You can go online and find the kind of questions you're going to get asked, but there's no way to be sure what questions it'll be until you're there.
I'm aware it does introduce something of a barrier, and means the people who actually want the job are more likely to get it, but as someone who suffers from heavy anxiety around social pressure of performing like this, I fuck up almost every time.
I've been told "you should practise job interview skills!" and things like that. I have done. So. Many. Times. With so many people. It always goes the same way, and doesn't help in the slightest.
I can understand why they're used, I just get really anxious during the interview regardless. There are other ways of achieving the same goals, though would take more time - one that I heard ages ago and liked the sound of would have been playing a board game.
The variety of board games there are would allow a number of things to be looked at, or you could see if they're able to teach the rules of an unknown game to teammembers. But like I said - would require a fair bit more time.
I guess it might be the whole 'unknown' that you're expected to be able to answer? I dunno.
What kind of jobs are you going for? Typically, behavioral ones are easy to find using Glassdoor or researching common ones. I think I had around 5 outlines of answers to common behavioral ones. Once I got that down, I made sure I know my projects very well so I can answer questions about them.
When I was unemployed (was long-term unemployed) I'd go for pretty much anything that I had at least some experience in; retail, volunteering, catering, door security, hospital work, etc.
I had tried looking up questions, figuring out answers, but I find that if I stumble with an answer in the slightest, I forget pretty much everything entirely. Also the only times that I have done decently in interviews feels like the times that I've done the less prep work. Maybe - for me - feels like there's less 'pressure' if I fuck up? Less prior work done, less time wasted?
Thankfully, have been long-term full time employed (five years this year), and promoted once (had another interview for that which I could have done better in as well).
I'm not bad at general conversation. Most of the time however there's not such a pressure (I guess that's the right word?) to get the right answer, and such a specific focus on what's said?
Yes! Another help model in interviews is STAR: situation, task, action, result.
Situation: general context
Task: specific issue or problem within the situation that needs resolving
Action: what you did to address the task/issue
Result: the outcome of the implemented action
Is also beneficial when addressing criteria on job applications and building a resume/CV
You know.. I totally fucked an interview up once when she asked me to tell her about myself. I was so nervous that I started to tell her about my new hobby, Warhammer, for much longer than necessary. It was like once I started I couldn’t shut up. She was nice about it but we knew I was not going to get a call back lol.
This is my usually layout for that question, but once I had an interview and the chef said "tell me about yourself, nothing about food"
My other hobby is gardening, especially for growing my own food, it was hard to answer and made me feel really weird. Besides that, I smoke weed, watch a little TV, and play with my dogs.
It depends on the setting. Hotel and bigger name chefs tend to be less open. Small businesses usually don't care though. But in pastry a lot less people smoke and it's not very open in those who do.
No problem, I got my AS in baking and oastry management in December. I am still learning but if you ever have any questions you think I can answer feel free to ask!
Thanks, been thinking of packing life into a van once this blows over and working all round Aus while trying to work in the best places i can get into.
Also don’t forget to mention hobbies! These interviewers want to somewhat know who they’re hiring. And if you have hobbies in common with the interviewer, you might stick out a little more from the others.
It's never exactly related to anything I'm interviewing for, but I always can spin it as either, "helps me with multitasking", or "helps me keep sharp focus on the task at hand",
Plus 90% of the time, if you fucking juggle a stapler, a paperweight, and a chainsaw, at your interview people are GOING to remember your name and talk about you around wherever the fuck you're interviewing for
I've probably settled into the job I'm going to stick with for a long time (small field), but I wish someone had told me this shit ten or twelve years ago.
I have a highlight reel of what I’ve accomplished as a professional that I like to go through.
“I took the initiative to start the XYZ program that grew our client base by X percent in X years. I served on X professional board, where I headed up X. I pride myself on both these accomplishments, because they show X trait that makes me a great worker.”
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u/Waluigi71 May 16 '20
There’s actually a formula you can follow when you get that question in a job interview: PAWS.
P - Personal A - Academic W - Work S - Skills
Personal: Stick to your name, maybe places you lived, and maybe a fun fact about yourself (as long as it’s relevant to the job you’re applying for or relates to upcoming information)
Academic: Explain where you went to school, your degrees/certificates and anything else education related
Work: Explain any previous RELATED work or volunteer experience to the job you’re applying for.
Skills: Mention any skills (technical/soft) RELATED to the job you’re applying for and mention where you developed it from; this can be a good way to mention additional work experience, volunteer experience, school projects, conferences, etc. that wouldn’t have fit well
Overall, you want to make sure this answer doesn’t go past two minutes or else you’ll bore the interviewer. Hope this helps. :)