Hello, there.
My name is Richard McMunn.
In this video, I'm going to talk to you about how to answer situational
interview questions.
Now, during a conventional job interview, the
questions themselves will normally be split up into two
different types of questions.
The first type of question is what is known as motivational questions.
The second type, which are usually a lot harder to answer are called
situational interview questions.
Now, motivational questions are generally questions such as,
"Welcome to the interview.
Tell us a little bit about yourself.
Why have you applied for this position?
What do you know about the organization that you're applying to join?
Also, why should we give you the specific job over any other
candidate?"
So, I would say that those types of motivational
questions are a lot easier to answer than situational ones.
Now, situational interview questions are derived from usually
the persons pacification and/or the job description for the role
that you are applying for.
Now, when an employer creates a job description, he or she will list the qualities
and attributes that are required for the role.
So when you go along to that interview, they're generally going to assess
you against those qualities and attributes using situational
interview questions.
So let's assume that you're applying for the role of, say a
customer services assistant.
So if you take a second to think about the types of qualities that are required
for that role, we can see that you would need to be good with
customers, you need to be a good communicator, and you would also
need to have the ability to resolve customers complaints as
and when they come up.
So a situational interview question in relation to customer
service roles might be, "Can you give an example of when you
have resolved a customer's complaint effectively?"
Now, when you're responding to situational interview
questions, what I recommend you do is prepare for them using
the following format, and it's called the STAR format.
So if I just write down on the board, S-T-A-R, and this will
allow me to explain in an organized manner how you should get
ready to respond to the question.
So when you are going to respond to that question in relation to, "Can
you give a situation of when you resolved a customer's
complaint effectively," you would start off and explain
the situation that you were involved in.
By doing this, this will make sure that your response is
formatted in a logical sequence.
So if I was responding to that question, I can start off and say to the interviewer,
"Okay, yes.
A situation that I was in was I was working as a customer
service representative for a local shop, when a customer came
into the store to make a complaint in relation to some goods
that he had received which were faulted."
So that's the situation that you're in.
You then go on and explain T for task.
You tell the interviewer what the task was that you had to resolve.
So if you write down there, "T for task".
So I would then go on and say to the interviewer, "It was
my task or my job to listen carefully to the customer and try
and resolve the complaint in a manner which is satisfactory to
him and to the organization."
So that's you're task, okay?
So you start off, explain the situation that you're involved in,
and then move on to the task.
Now the next part is called action.
So you explain to the interview panel the action that
you took and the action that other people took whilst resolving
this issue.
I will state that action will be the main bulk of
your response to the interview question.
So in relation to action, I would say, "I started off by
listening to the customer's complaint and demonstrated effective
listening skills by nodding my head and showing appreciation and
empathy for his situation.
Once I listened to what he had to say, I then took the time to come up with
a plan to resolve the situation for him."
So you tell the interview panel, then, exactly what your actions
were, and that might be in relation to providing the replacement
goods and coming up with some kind of compensation of sort, to
make sure that the customer is happy with the situation.
You would also apologize to the customer, if the
organization had carried out any wrong doing.
Finally, you would check with the customer that he or she were happy with the
resolution that you came up with.
So once you explained the action that you took in that
situation, you would then go on and explain the result.
It's important to make sure that the result is
positive following your actions.
So I would finish off by saying, "Following my
actions, the customer was really happy with the service that he
had received, and I feel sure that we managed to keep a valued
customer, and he would come back to the store again."
So you can see that if you follow the STAR technique; situation,
task, action, and result - when creating your responses to these
kind of interview questions, then not only will your responses
be formatted in a logical manner.
But you will also score higher marks for situational interview questions.
A lot of people fall down during situational interview questions
by telling the interview panel what they would do in that kind
of situation.
That's no good.
What you have to do is tell them what you have done in a specific situation
you've been in relation to the question.
If you follow that advice, then you will score very highly when responding to
situational interview questions.