TOPIC OPENER
- Tell me about your current job.
- Tell me about your first job in this field.
- Tell me about your career aspirations.
- Tell me about your (college years) (graduate work).
- Tell me about your leisure-time activities.
SELF-APPRAISAL
Preface with statements like the following:
- You mentioned that...That's very impressive.
- I see from your resume that...You must be very proud of that accomplishment.
- What was it about you that enabled you to...?
- How were you able to (achieve) (accomplish)...?
- If I were to call up a former (boss) (professor) and ask what kind of ( ) you were, what do you suppose he/she would say?
- What would you say is it about you that makes you successful at what you now do?
SITUATION-BASED
PROBLEM SITUATION
- What if you were in a situation where you had several important tasks to do and too little time to handle them all? How would you select which task(s) to do?
- Have you ever had a situation where you had to resolve a conflict with a (client) (co-worker) (supervisor)? How did you resolve it?
- Imagine a situation where you find yourself without the specific technical knowledge to perform a task essential to a project. What would you do?
- Were you ever in a situation where you had to meet two different deadlines given to you by two different people and there wasn't time to do both? How did you handle the situation?
- (Imagine you were) (Have you ever been) asked to set up a project for which there was no organizational precedent to follow(.) (?) How (would) (did) you develop your plans?
CONTINUUM
- Where would you place yourself on a continuum from being a conceptual thinker to being an analytical thinker?
- Where would you place yourself o a continuum from strategic planner at one end to pragmatic tactician at the other?
- As you consider your most effective management style, place yourself on a continuum with managing ideas and concepts at one end and managing other people and their ideas at the other. Where would you place yourself?
- How would you describe the energy you have as a point on a continuum: would it be marshaled intensively for specific projects or applied evenly across everything you do?
- We all have our own way of getting things done - particularly when managing people. Someone once said that it all comes down to two basic styles: telling or selling. On a continuum, with telling at one end and selling at the other; how would you say out work with others to get results?
COMPARISON
- Would you prefer to work for a boss whose strength is technical skills or one whose strength is managing and delegating?
- If you had your choice, which would you prefer: a job with a few big, solid long-term projects to concentrate on or one with many projects and shifting priorities?
- Would you prefer to be in a situation where you were creating new markets or one where you were developing old ones?
- When taking on a new project or task, do you generally like to have a great deal of feedback and supervision at the outset or do you like to figure it out for yourself and try your own approach?
- When working with others on a project, do you generally prefer to communicate results and needs informally - phone calls or dropping by someone's office - or do you prefer to send memos?
FUTURE ASSESSMENT
- Let's imagine we've hired you and you are having your (sixth-month) (one-year) performance review. What might (your boss) (I) say about your work during that review?
- It's a year from now, and you've been with our organization long enough to know your job, and the culture. You're asked to do a self-assessment describing how you "fit in" here, and how well you're doing. What do you think you might say?
- If I met you three years from now and you were disappointed in your progress in this organization, what might the reasons be?
