“Tell me about a time when…”
These types of questions pop up regularly in interviews. These are called behavioral interview questions and are intended to reveal information about how you navigate various scenarios that might occur within the workplace. Employers want to determine whether or not you have the emotional intelligence, self-awareness, and problem solving skills to work on their team. Unfortunately, as employers, we often hear vague and indirect responses to these questions. For example, if I ask you “tell me about a time when you had to make a decision in the absence of a manager.” If your response is “At my last job, the manager often left unannounced, so I had to step up and be the go-to person for the rest of the team” then you have missed a great opportunity to toot your horn! Employers want to hear a specific example when they ask you these kinds of questions.
Next time you are asked a question like this, I want you to filter your response through the CAR method. This stands for: CHALLENGE, ACTION, RESULT.
When our interview responses are filtered through these three layers, we provide the employer with a setup of the situation/challenge, what we did, and what resulted. So, again, if I ask you “tell me about a time when you had to make a decision in the absence of a manager,” your response should go through the CAR response:
Example-
CHALLENGE: My manager was out of the office one day when we had a customer come in who was upset about her experience in our store.
ACTION: In my manager’s absence, I stepped in to help this customer. I apologized for her experience and determined that a best solution would be to provide her with a refund as well as a coupon to cover her next purchase. I let her know that I would take her concerns back to the leadership team and determine how we could improve our response going forward. After meeting with leadership, I personally called the customer to let her know that new steps were implemented to avoid the same situation going forward.
RESULT: After our conversation, the woman expressed her gratitude for my attention to her situation. She did end up returning and has been a loyal customer ever since. I was also commended by our leadership for my response to the situation and received a promotion as a result.
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