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The interviewer may ask you hypothetical questions
designed to find out how you would handle a work situation. For example:
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"Suppose I asked you to put together a customer
focus group relating to a new fashion item we might be introducing
next fall. How would you go about it?"
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"Suppose I asked you to design a management
information system for our regional sales managers. What would your
approach be?"
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"Suppose you and a coworker had a strong
disagreement about the qualifications of a friend who she had
recommended as a new hire in the department? How would you handle
the situation?"
In a real on-the-job situation, you would obviously
have more information at hand--or you would be asking more questions. In
this situation, you might ask a few questions, then set forth a few
reasonable assumptions, which the interviewer may then tailor to what he
or she had in mind. This way, you won't find yourself in the deep end of
the pool, burdened with a conception that's very different from what the
manager had in mind.
By asking questions and having a dialogue about the
assignment, you are also showing the interviewer that you think before
you jump into an assignment.
Your next task is to describe, step-by-step, what
approach you might take. Then you can add that in a real-life situation
you would, of course, look into previous efforts to deal with the same
issue, consult with others, and consider other approaches, as
appropriate.
One way to prepare for hypothetical questions is to
pretend that you are the interviewer. What hypothetical questions would
you ask? And what would you be looking for in an answer? What the
interviewer is seeking in an answer is usually not the conclusion
someone else might have come to after a month's analysis and
contemplation, but a clear and sensible thought process. |
