Whether it’s interviewing after having kids, losing a loved one or overcoming a serious medical condition, any major life event creates changes in your personality which can make basic interview questions challenging. You’ll have a better chance of scoring a successful interview if you become aware of the changes in your personality. Understanding the answers to a few basic questions can help you prepare for an interview while appreciating the new you.
How Have Your Greatest Strengths Changed?
Prior to a life changing event your greatest strength may be relatively “common” such as being able to multitask effectively or honesty. However after a major event in your life, your greatest strength is often reflected either by how you managed the situation or in the acceptance of its occurrence. After losing a loved one, people often express that their greatest strength is the memory of the person they lost. These internal strengths often become the resource pool that you tap into when you’re faced with a difficult situation at work.
Development Crossroads, from Shana Montesol Johnson has 5 ways to identify your strengths to get you started. Make sure to check them out.
What About Your Weaknesses – How Have They Changed?
This is a question which may seem easy but it’s dauntingly difficult to lay out your greatest weakness to an interviewer. Your strengths and weaknesses often complement each other and you have to know both to understand yourself. For example, a serious medical condition often causes people to become paranoid about the littlest of illnesses – possibly causing “unnecessary” sick leaves.
Forbes provides 6 great tips for talking about your weaknesses – definitely important to review before your next interview.
Do You Handle Anger and Stress Differently Now?
How we manage anger and stress varies throughout life. Your reaction to these two important feelings depends on age and experiences you have gained. The answer to this question changes dramatically when children enter your life – regardless of whether you’re a man or woman. Your experiences with managing anger and stress with a child will most likely affect how you handle these two elements in your workplace as well.
Mindtools has a host of different stress management tools, techniques and tips to help you deal with stress.
How Has the Greatest Regret in Your Life Changed?
This one’s a doozy. Whether it’s a car accident, a medical situation, failing an important exam – human nature causes you to constantly wonder what you could have done differently. And this often creates your greatest regret. The need for identifying your greatest regret is important because it creates differences in how you handle daily situations. A person may drive more carefully, be more alert to the medical conditions of others or become obsessive about preparing for something important. All of these may eventually effect your professional life.
The thing about regret is there’s no tool in the world that can help you resolve them. Self- awareness and understanding will be your greatest assets here.
There probably will be a professional and personal angle for all the questions above during an interview. It would be a good idea to look at both of them separately to be ready with context specific answers. I really look forward to hearing about any experiences you have had with a post major life-event interview.
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