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76 Boost Your Hiring IQ

ANSWERS
The Strongest Answer
(B) This is the strongest answer because it provides a specific ex-
ample. It’s a good story full of action that you can see and hear.
This candidate demonstrated not only overcoming obstacles
but also taking a creative approach to a problem and motivat-
ing a team in the process.
The fact that the person does volunteer work with special
children should be an indicator that this person is willing to go
above and beyond what is expected. There is also evidence that
this person has patience and is willing to try new solutions to
get an issue resolved.

The Mediocre Answer
(A) This is an okay answer because it gives an example of an obsta-
cle: a difficult-to-get-along-with coworker. It reveals the result
of the candidate’s handling of the problem, but it doesn’t pro-
vide specific details about how the candidate actually overcame
the obstacle. By probing, you could get more details and find
out if it went as smoothly as stated in this example. Follow-up
questions could be:
• Was there a time when you had to bite your tongue to get
along with this person, or did she just change her behavior be-
cause of the way you treated her?
• What was the reaction of your coworkers when they saw that
you had “special” treatment by this woman?

The Weakest Answer
(C) This is the weakest answer because it tells more about the proj-
ect and the problems than about how the candidate prioritized
to get through his busy schedule. When a candidate rambles
on about insignificant details, you will have to either stop him
and refocus the example or do a good job of probing to follow
up on the actual action taken to solve this problem.

RATE YOURSELF
If you chose answer (B), give yourself 5 points.
If you chose answer (A), give yourself 3 points.

If you chose answer (C), give yourself 0 points. ______