Difficult Interview Question: What Would Your Previous Supervisor Say You Need to Work On?

“He would probably tell me to stop checking Facebook and start actually doing my work for once.”

Your supervisor may or may not have liked you. It is not important. When you are asked to put yourself in your supervisor’s shoes and critique your work, you should answer this question in the same manner you would answer a “greatest weakness” question.

How to Answer

“Perfectionist” is not going to work here. Your supervisor will never say you need to work on being too much of a perfectionist. That’s stupid. Instead, pick something extremely minor that doesn’t make you sound like a bad employee. Again, one of the best critiques you can give of yourself is that you “don’t speak up enough in meetings.”

Bad Answer

“My supervisor would say I am too much of a perfectionist. That I work too hard. He would tell me to slow down and not experience so much stress from the project.”

No he wouldn’t.

Good Answer

“My supervisor once told me he’d like me to speak up more often at meetings. I tended to keep my thoughts to myself until prompted, but in the interests of open discussion, he would have liked me to be more open with my ideas, so I have been working sharing more easily.”

You picked something that actually could be seen as a flaw, but unless you are applying for a job as lead meetings manager, you are going to be fine. In fact, this type of answer makes it look like you have good ideas. It’s one of the safest answers you can give.

Take Away Interview Tips

• Give them a real answer.
• Make sure the answer isn’t bad.

Difficult Interview Question: How Did You And Your Last Supervisor Get Along?

Every interview question is an opportunity to sell yourself. Questions as simple as “What do you think of the weather today?” have potential to become bigger questions than they appear at first glance. Part of that is because all questions and answers have subtext. Yet another reason is because you, as the applicant, can make sure that you seize every question as an opportunity to make yourself look great. When the company asks you about your relationships with people in your past, you can give them a simple answer, or you can give them an amazing answer. Go for amazing every time.

How to Answer

Instead of simply saying the two of you got along well, why not use this as an opportunity to discuss things relevant to the job? Discuss how you communicated or how the two of you worked on a project. These are good opportunities to add accomplishments and details to your answer. As always, never complain about the supervisor or your relationship.

Bad Answer

“We got along okay. She and I respected each other and we often made jokes and scheduled useful meetings.”

Good Answer

“We got along quite well. She and I developed several different methods of communication so that we could more easily manage my projects, and we had open communication that allowed us to speak freely about our ideas before we came to an agreed upon conclusion…”

This is an answer that does more than just talk about your personal relationship. In fact, it does more than just talk about your professional relationship. Here, you discuss some of the activities you did that make you a great employee in addition to mentioning how you and your supervisor interacted.

Take Away Interview Tips

• Use every question as an opportunity.
• Never say bad things about your bosses.

Uncommon Interview Question – Have You Ever Had the Experience of Working for More than One Boss (or Manager)?

The organizational hierarchy in some companies requires that you report directly to multiple bosses and managers. For example, if you are the web programmer for the marketing department, you may have to report to both the IT manager and the marketing manager, and both of those supervisors are considered your direct superiors. This can be an odd, frustrating scenario, because one boss may tell you to do one thing, while another boss tells you to do another. Companies that recognize this structure may ask you if you have experienced it before.

How to Answer

If you have not experienced it before, simply answer with “No, I have not. But I feel that as long as there was great communication between myself and the multiple supervisors, I do not expect it to affect productivity or efficiency.”

If you have, then you should describe the experience, and make sure that you remain positive. Ideally, you should describe how you ensured that the work was done completely, and that you communicated well with all of the managers.

Bad Answer

“Yeah, I have.  It was fine.”

Good Answer

“Yes, at my last job at TechCorp I had three separate managers directly above me, due to the overlap in tasks and corporate structure. In order to ensure good communication, I started a task sheet on the server with priority labels, and requested that my supervisors use the task sheet as a basis for both conversing with each other and organizing priority. This way if one supervisor wanted me to work on a project, and they noticed that I had a short deadline for another project during the same timeframe, they would either contact the other supervisor and see if I could shift priority, or see if someone else was available before contacting me and discussing how to move forward with the work needed.”

Your answer does not need to be this long, but you should try your best to communicate what you did to make sure that your work went smoothly, and above all remain positive. It is important that you at least pretend that all of your bosses got along and there were no difficulties with having multiple bosses.

Take Away Interview Tips

• Discuss what you did to organize and prioritize.
• Remain positive.