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Interview Questions: Your Professional Development

The challenges and expectations in your career will continually change. You must learn and grow to succeed. Interviewers often will question how you approach your career and what you have done to continue learning.

Some of the interview questions about your professional development include:

What continuing education classes have you completed recently?
What new skills have you gained in the last 3 years?
How do you stay current on developments in your industry?

Professional development can come for a variety of sources. Many people stay current through magazines, blogs and books. Others receive excellent continuing education at work. Some individuals take training classes, college courses or pursue industry certifications. All of these activities are good to discuss.

Your answers to professional development interview questions need to be specific. I’ve had candidates give answers like “I keep up on my industry by reading a few trade magazines.” This does not tell the interviewer anything. You could add some detail, for example, discussing specific periodicals and books you have read, but this is still a weak answer.

A better answer would include specific knowledge or skills that were gained. You could discuss a new technology, a tool or a process you learned. Your answer should have a clear, direct benefit to the job you are seeking. You want the interviewer to see that you are committed to your professional growth and are adding skills that will benefit them. Very broad learning unrelated to your field may help you in the long run, but probably will not make a strong memorable impression on the interviewer.

The best answer to a professional development interview question will discuss what you learned, how you learned it, and how you have applied what you learned to deliver results. This last piece makes a huge difference. It’s one thing to say you learned something. It’s another to say your learned something and applied successfully.

Look at the projects you have completed in the last couple years. Which projects required you to apply skills or knowledge that you didn’t possess before the project?

An example of an answer to a professional development interview question is:

“I am committed to continuing to learn in my field. I read several periodicals, and I try to take training courses in my field on a regular basis. Most recently, I attended a seminar on inventory management. I learned a new cycle counting approach that I applied this past year. By implementing new cycle counting procedures, we reduced our inventory levels by 20% and improved our inventory accuracy. All of this was achieved while we reduced our cycle counting hours by 15%”

This example shows a commitment to professional development, and most importantly, a commitment to the continuous improvement of the organization from the lessons learned. The results are likely to be valuable to an employer, making the candidate also valuable.

Interview Questions: Company Mission Statements

Many interviewers ask what a job seeker has learned about the company. This question is designed to uncover two primary pieces of information. First, determine if the job seeker took the time to do some research. Many job seekers skip this step and hurt their chances. Second, learn what is important to the job seeker based on the topics they research.

When you do your research, you should learn about the company’s history, their financial performance, their operations and products/services. Another element to research is the company’s mission statement. A mission statement provides the fundamental basis of the company’s strategy, goals and values. It can give you an idea of the culture of the company and the qualities that will be important in a hiring decision.

Let’s look the mission statements from three vastly different restaurant firms:

Morton’s The Steakhouse – Attract, Value, Retain and Develop the best talent in the industry, serve the best food (anytime, anywhere at any cost) and execute unparalleled hospitality – the best dining experience – 365 days a year.
Starbucks – To inspire and nurture the human spirit— one person, one cup, and one neighborhood at a time.
YUM Brands – At Yum! we’re building a vibrant global business by focusing on four key business strategies:
- Build leading brands across China in every significant category
- Drive aggressive international expansion and build strong brands everywhere
- Dramatically improve U.S. brand positions, consistency and returns
- Drive industry-leading, long-term shareholder and franchisee value

What do these three mission statements say? Morton’s prioritizes exception quality in its employees, food and service.. Starbucks values the impression made on their customers… Yum Brands focuses on growth, brand position and shareholder value. In reality, all of these qualities are important to all three organizations, and to all restaurants. No one wants to have a restaurant with low quality, poor environment, bad service, terrible value, non-growing business or declining shareholder value. The difference is how each organization prioritizes these values.

The three mission statements are excellent goals, but vastly different. A job seeker interviewing at each company will need to emphasize different skills and abilities. Understanding the expectations and goals of the company will help you tailor your presentation. Be prepared to discuss situations from your experience that demonstrate success in meeting the objective of the company.

The mission statement of a company is a starting point. It is not an all inclusive statement of company’s priorities. Different jobs within a company may also have different priorities. The important thing to understand is the individual priorities of each position within the company need to support and promote the overall priorities of the company.

One final aspect of a mission statement to consider is the purpose of the statement and its intended audience. A mission statement should represent the entire company, but each firm will use and market their mission differently. Morton’s placed their mission statement on the Careers page on their website. If they wrote the mission statement with the intention of using it in the hiring process, this may have influenced the content emphasizing employees. The Starbucks mission statement appears in their About Us section of the website. It is much more general, giving a theme for the company and is used in an overall description of the company. Yum! Brands placed their mission statement in their investor section. It appears to be intended as a guide for the direction management is driving the company. Each mission statement has a different goal and the content reflects this.

Bottom line: Learn what you can about the values, goals and expectations of a company and be prepared to discuss these in an interview.

Interview Questions About Former Bosses

One of the types of interview questions that cause job seekers a lot of trouble is about former bosses. Discussing previous supervisors often paints a great picture of the attitude of the job seeker. Unfortunately, this is one area where job seekers tend to lose their professionalism and turn very negative.

A few of the variations of questions about former managers include:

Tell me about the worst boss you have had.
Tell me about a time when you did not work well with a supervisor.
What would you do if you knew that your boss was making a very poor decision?

These questions open the door for you to talk about the aspects of a former boss that you did not like. Usually, this spells disaster.

I’ve interviewed a number of job seekers that interpret these questions as a green light to badmouth a boss. In the worst cases, years of pent up frustrations and resentments boil out.

The problem with answering a question like this is the interviewer may interpret your attitude towards a former boss as the attitude you will have with your future boss. One of the key goals a hiring manager has is to select a candidate that will not be a problem. If you send signals that you had an attitude problem in the past, your chance of getting hired goes way down. This is the pitfall many fall into.

You don’t have the option of avoiding this question. You have to give an answer. The best approach is to honestly assess the strengths and weaknesses of your previous supervisors.

Let’s look at two examples of how to answer the “worst boss” question. We’ll start with a poor answer:

There’s no contest when it comes to the worst boss. I worked for a guy that was abusive and offensive. This manager routine screamed obscenities at all of his subordinates. One of the games he would play was to find the nickname that would make each person the maddest. He was absolutely terrible and got sued a few times by employees for harassment. The verbal harassment was bad, but his guy didn’t stop there. He routinely brought handguns into his office and would show them off to threaten employees.

Now this answer could be interpreted in one of two ways. It could generate sympathy from the interviewer. This may help build rapport but will do little to get you hired. The second effect it could have is to cause the interviewer to question the credibility of the job seeker. The accusations in the answer are pretty severe and many people may not believe them. If this is the case, the interviewer will conclude that they cannot trust the statements of the job seeker. Even worse, the interviewer may believe that the job seeker is prone to telling lies about their boss.

This story is completely true and the reality is actually worse than described. Despite being true, this would be a terrible answer in an interview. The following example would do much better:

I’ve worked for a variety of bosses with a mix of strengths and weaknesses. One in particular comes to mind. This individual managed the facility where I worked. As a manager, he was very good bringing the team together and motivated cooperation to get things done. The one weakness this individual had was in creating sustainability. He was very good at creating rapid change but rarely implemented performance metrics and follow up procedures that would sustain the change. In working for this manager, I learned how important it is to build systems that will sustain and continue to build on improvements.

This example details a very specific weakness of a former manager, along with the manager’s strengths. It is a much more balanced approach. The most important part of this answer was the lesson learned – the importance of building systems to sustain change. An even better answer would incorporate an example of how the job seeker implemented a system that helped maintain performance improvements.

Hopefully, you have assessed the managers you have work for and understand their strengths and weaknesses. If you have done this, developing a strong answer about a former boss should be easy.

Interview Questions About Deadlines

One of the interview questions that is very common relates to working under tight deadlines. It is important to be able to meet deadlines in many careers. There are very few companies where the speed and urgency are not important.
Over the years, I’ve asked about deadlines in interviews very frequently. This is one of the questions where job seekers usually react exactly the same way.

Over the years, I’ve asked about deadlines in interviews very frequently. This is one of the questions where job seekers usually react exactly the same way. It doesn’t matter what type of personality the job seeker has, their job type or the industry. The answer that almost everyone gives is a variation of this:

Question: Tell me about a time when you worked under a tight deadline.

Answer: All the time. Everything we do has a tight deadline. Meeting customer needs requires responding quickly. We never have much warning when we get a special project and have to get the project done quickly.

This answer is very general. Job seekers usually include specific industry terms in their answer, but the overall message is the same. Everything the job seeker does has a deadline.

I’m sure you can see that this answer tells the interviewer nothing. The goal of a question about deadlines is to understand the sense of urgency of the job seeker and to get an idea of how the individual will perform. Generalizing the answer provides nothing noteworthy.

To effectively answer a question about deadlines, you need to give an example. Starting out with a statement that deadlines are common in your field is ok. The interviewer probably hears this every time they ask the question, so you’re not going to make a bad impression with it.

The key to making a good impression is what you do next. Give an example of a specific deadline and how you were able to meet it. This will demonstrate the value you provided in the past and help create an impression of success.

This is an example of a better answer to this question:

We work under tight deadlines all the time. For example, we recently had a customer place an order for one of our products with several custom modifications. The customer needed the product in a week, and our typical lead time with the modifications was 10 days. I was able to cut a couple of days off the production schedule by coordinating with the manufacturing department to run the product on a different line than normal and then cut another day by working with quality so that they would inspect the product as it was produced. We shipped the product on time. These type of deadlines are commonplace and I work very well with other department to ensure that we meet every schedule no matter how tight.

This is very basic example of expediting production of a product. Despite this, it shows the type of deadlines the job seeker encounters, how they approach the deadline and gives an example of a success. Even though this is a basic example, it is a much better answer than the original general answer.

One reason this example is effective is the emphasis on working with other departments. The anser address the sense of urgency of the job seeker but also uses the example to demonstrate how effective they are at influencing others in their company.

Look for ways to give examples of what you have done. Examples create a picture in the mind of the interviewer and make a much stronger impression.

Military Officer Interview: Professional Development Question

I have one final interview answer from a transitioning military officer. Each week for the last four weeks, I’ve shared one question from this interview. Next week, I’ll have a recording from a different interview.

The answer in the recording below is to this questions:

What are you better at now than a year ago?

Most interviews will have a question regarding your ongoing professional development. Asking how you have improved is one style of these questions.

Listen to the Answer (Time 1:18)

Tomorrow, I’ll post my assessment and recommendations for this answer. I welcome any comments you may have regarding this answer.

Note: I only record and post interviews when I have the permission of the job seeker prior to conducting the the interview.