INTERVIEW FAQS

In light of the difficulty of interviewing people during the Coronavirus pandemic, I have answered some of the most common interview questions. I hope that these will be a useful starting point.

WHAT ARE YOUR STRENGTHS?

I believe that the life experience that I have accrued through a wide spectrum of education subjects, work experience and travels have made me a RARE asset to any company:
- Resilient - tested both mentally and physically on multiple occasions including academically, through independent travel and also when recovering from a broken neck.

- Adaptable - developed from a young age through the nomadic military lifestyle, and later demonstrated in both my travels and in my work at Riviera Travel (e.g. being asked to Cruise Direct for 1 week with no prior experience and achieving a 96% approval rating).

- Responsible - from a young age my greatest strength has been my ability to listen, take feedback on board and respond accordingly in education, work and life.

- Empathetic - without understanding the feelings and emotions of the people around me or a target audience, regardless of background or circumstance, I would never have been able to fit into the many cultures and environments that I have experienced over the years.

WHAT IS YOUR GREATEST ACHIEVEMENT?

My greatest achievement, and thing that I am most proud of, would have to be my 14 months of solo travelling and working around New Zealand and then South East Asia. After suffering a potentially life changing injury 2 years prior, I was driven enough to bounce back, achieve my 1st class degree and quickly obtain a job in order to fund my ambitions independently.

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It was a part of the world in which I had no family, friends or connections and was therefore totally isolated and solely responsible for the success of my trip. Travelling restored my confidence in my mind and body's resilience following my injury and the enforced dependence on my family which had been necessary through that challenging period. I went out to New Zealand following a major earthquake but did not let this deter me from my goal, and I am proud to have gone above and beyond it through travelling solo across Vietnam, Cambodia and finally, Thailand, where I also achieved two PADI diving qualifications.

WHAT MOTIVATES YOU?

My greatest ambition is to have a definable and useful trade that suits my character and that I can use to improve the environment and lives around me.

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I take great pleasure in identifying and overcoming problems to achieve specific targets or to improve and streamline the existing systems that I encounter. In my most recent job as a River Cruise Operations Administrator I found myself naturally drawn by a desire to evolve the systems we used in order to make them more efficient and futureproof; something that I often found myself devoting my personal time to improve too. Whilst on furlough, my desire to develop these skills and keep challenging myself has motivated me to engage with Udemy and TeamTreehouse Online coding school.

WHAT CHALLENGES ARE YOU LOOKING FOR IN A POSITION?

I am looking to join a company where I have room to grow and can build my career.  I look forward to being challenged regularly so that I can progress in my role.  

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I enjoy challenging myself to learn new skills and undertake additional training and qualifications where possible in order to enhance my personal value to an organisation. As with any good test driven development strategy, I regularly consider my own performance for strengths and areas where I can challenge myself to improve.

WHAT CAN YOU DO FOR US THAT OTHER CANDIDATES CAN’T?

I cannot testify to the skills or abilities of other candidates, however, I bring to any company a wealth of agile qualities gained from a variety of educational pursuits, jobs and life experiences. I have demonstrated the value that I place on individuals and personal interactions between people through my numerous customer-facing roles. I have consistently demonstrated a desire to always deliver high quality in both my studies and employment, as testified by my grades and workplace achievements. External feedback has helped to define my development, and allowed me to appreciate the importance of effective collaboration with all vested parties in order to achieve ultimate success in any endeavour.

With these qualities I aspire to help a business to achieve its short, medium and long term business goals through thoughtful, relevant, data-driven initiatives and campaigns. Finally, my nomadic life has made me exceptionally adaptable. If the recent Coronavirus pandemic has taught businesses one thing, it is that those that respond the most rapidly and effectively to change are the ones that ultimately survive and this begins with an adaptable workforce.

WHAT’S YOUR DREAM JOB?

My time in furlough has given my a rare opportunity to assess what I truly value in life and what I want out of it. I dream of having a definable and useful trade that not only sustains me financially but also that gives me enjoyment and a clear identity. I aspire to have a job where I can build my reputation and personal value through the quality of my work and people's personal experience of collaborating with me. Most importantly, I want this trade to be constantly evolving and flexible enough to naturally court a range of other industries so as to continue to be engaging in the years to come.

WHAT KIND OF ENVIRONMENT DO YOU LIKE BEST?

I work consistently hard and seek to develop and grow in every role I hold. I value the importance of specific positive feedback alongside areas for improvement when working for a company. Other team members will always have different strengths and weaknesses and I am an advocate of utilising virtues where they are found and learning from them where possible.

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Having worked in a variety of workplaces and roles, a positive company culture is a key thing that I am looking for in any future employment. A valued and happy workforce is a motivated workforce and my broad experience has taught me the value of these words firsthand.

WHAT ARE YOUR WEAKNESSES?

In order to achieve my ambition of building a career in digital marketing or software development, my current greatest weakness would perhaps be my lack of extensive experience in the field. While work experience during lockdown is difficult to attain, I have sought to address this in part through online learning.

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Previously, the military mantra of 'do a job well once' has meant that my great attention to detail has resulted in me taking longer on tasks than others. Whilst this has always led to higher quality work, I have developed strategies to ensure that I am able to adhere to key deadlines without compromising the standard of the content produced. These strategies include breaking a task down into manageable components and visualising them on a personal Kanban priority list for work.