After advice from other members around the business, I have decided to apply for the manager position of my current team. I have informally led the team since our old manager left the team around 1 year ago and it has been vacant due to a hiring freeze. During this time, I've led most of our day-to-day activities and delivered at least 1 incredible project. The hiring manager even complimented me, saying I overachieved and that it would not have been possible without me.

When I told him I was applying, he said the team needed to be autonomous and better at innovating. However, I feel at this stage, I was not given the authority or budget to implement changes that a manager would. Instead, I've been focusing on small, subtle changes that improve our capabilities and team as a whole. This ranges from allowing team members to be more independent, reviewing our tooling and many other examples. I've always had a vision of where I would take the team but I've never had the chance to address it. He mentioned he thought that it would be too soon based on a lot of these things; however, he did agree to give me an interview.

If anyone has advice on how to navigate this in the interview or things to do, it would be greatly appreciated. For reference, I am currently considered a professional and was previously suggested for a promotion around a year ago to a senior position, but this has yet to happen.

Being a non native English speaker and born outside the UK with good experience, skills and education I found it challenging to interact during interviews, that's when I followed Richard.

It wasn't easy at first but now I mastered everything. My introduction on 'tell me about yourself' has been always my greatest achievement as I use this opportunity to cause the hiring manager ask the questions I want them to using the SEAT approach which aligns me to the job description, my skillset and the company.

Richard is the best!

I have an interview for a Packaging Technologist Position on Wednesday the 1st of July

I would appreciate your help with tips for preparing for this interview.

Regards

I have an interview coming up for an IT Infrastructure Engineer role. It is an in person interview and the first stage will be competency based questions. Do you have any suggestions on what I can expect and what to focus on?

Thanks,

JB

Below, I have provided my own answers to interview questions. When you have the time can you please have a read and offer any suggestions to make the answers more stronger?

Thank you for your help and support, 

Sabrina

Tell me about a time you worked well as part of a team?

As a cooking volunteer at Food Cycle, I get random ingredients before each session, which means I get to be creative in the kitchen. One time I could not decide on what to make for our three-course vegetarian meal. As a team we all communicated and listened to each other’s ideas.

After several suggestions, I made the final decision on what the three-course meal would be and started to delegate tasks to each member of the team, based on skills, strengths and what each person enjoyed doing.

As a result, we had performed well with the tasks that we were each given. I also had enough time to help others finish their tasks to ensure the meals were ready on time before guests had arrived.

This collaborative approach of listening to people and using my time management skills had helped everyone to reach their end goal.  

Demonstrable ability to work effectively on own initiative

In my last job, I used my initiative to help improve training courses and customer service.

When I first joined the company paper feedback forms were ineffective so there was no way to gather feedback from customers.

I suggested to my manager that we create an online training form and send it out to all customers after attending a course.

The information gathered from customers would help us to improve services and identify areas for improvement.

I went on Google to research different online training surveys and decided to choose Microsoft Forms, a free tool to create online surveys. I had mentioned this idea to my manager who agreed with my decision.

Once implemented, new feedback system helped increase staff responses by 12%. It was also cost-effective because I saved money on paper and ink, and reduced workload.

Describe a time when you had to work under pressure

In my previous job, I was tasked with setting up a meeting at a local hotel for my manager.

The day before the meeting, the hotel had called to say that they had a leak in the meeting room and they could no longer accommodate us.

This was challenging because 20 people were due to attend the meeting, and I only had 24 hours to find a new venue.

I immediately started calling hotels and conference centres in the local area and eventually found one to hold a meeting at.

After refreshments and parking arrangements rearranged, I called all 20 attendees with the new venue details, and I followed up by email.

My manager praised me for working well under pressure, and the meeting was a huge success!

Analytical mindset

In my previous role as administrator, bookings for training were low and I needed to find a solution.

To gain more attraction, I advertised training courses on ‘Workplace’ an internal social media platform.

I had regularly checked for progress on bookings on the learning management system to see if there was an increase in numbers.

I had consulted with the external trainer and kept them updated on attendee numbers in case we had to cancel the session.

After checking data and sending reminders about the training, the numbers were sufficient for the training to go ahead.

My approach ensured that the training budget was well utilised by avoiding cancellations when possible.

I hope this message finds you well.

Which of the below questions should I prepare for, or are they all the same? It would be difficult to know which of the questions the hiring manager will ask in a job interview. Thank you for your continued help and support.

• Why Did You Apply for This Role?
• Why Do you Want this job?
• Why Do You Want to Work here?
• Why Should We Hire You?
• What can you bring to the role?
• What makes you stand out from other candidates?

Kind regards

Sabrina

I have been out of work since July 2024. My last role was made redundant due to new systems in place. Below I have a list of things I have been doing whilst looking for work. I need some help on how I could turn this into an structured answer for the question 'Tell Me About Yourself.' 

• Completed online courses and gained qualifications
• Currently doing voluntary work for a leading food charity (completed 504.75 hours of voluntary work to date)
• Learning to drive
• Continuous Personal Development – online videos on Confidence and Solving Problems at Work 
• Taking time out to re-evaluate my career choices 

Kind regards,

Sabrina

What should I say In this question?