Being reliable is an important attribute for every job seeker to demonstrate. For production workers, this is especially important. Manufacturing firms often have complex operations where every worker is fulfilling an essential role. Workers may only be trained on a few pieces of equipment, making it difficult to find backfills. A single worker who fails to come to work can disrupt an entire department.
The complexity of some manufacturing organizations makes it essential to build a reliable workforce. Hiring managers will ask job seekers about their attendance in interviews. They will also ask about attendance in reference checks. This makes it important to be honest. You don’t want to say you had perfect attendance in an interview and then have a former employer say something different.
As important as reliability is, you don’t need a history of perfect attendance to get hired. You need to show that being reliable is important to you. You also need to show a track record where your reliability was good, meeting or exceeding the expectations of your employers.
Some industries have large season fluctuations. In these organizations, having a work force that can adapt their schedules to increasing or decreasing hours can be important. Your reliability will also include your ability to work overtime when needed. A hiring manager will want to know if you can be counted on to show up when they add an extra shift or extend the hours of a shift.
No one is going to get hired because of their reliability. This is a topic designed to weed out unreliable people. Your goal is to show you reliable enough to meet the expectations of the hiring manager.
Interview Questions:
- Describe your attendance at .
- How many times did you call in last year?
- How important is it to you to be on-time?
- In our busy season, will you be able to work weekends?
- Can you work any of our shifts, including either second or third shift?
- During your training, you will need to work on different shifts to get trained. Will this be a problem?
- When was the last time you were late for work?
The questions above are just a sampling of the questions you might see in an interview. There are hundreds or thousands of questions you may see in an interview. To prepare effectively, you can’t memorize answers to each. Be prepared to discuss your reliability and you should be able to adapt to questions in this area.