3M Mock Interview
Practice 33 3M interview questions covering innovation, technical problem-solving, and collaboration.
Question 27 of 33
What was the most challenging aspect of your previous job? How did you overcome it?
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Kevin Downey has an extensive background in business management, recruiting, branding and marketing. He's volunteered his career coaching services at job fairs, lecturing on interview techniques and crafting winning resumes and cover letters.
Sometimes the greatest workplace challenge is a difficult task that puts you outside of your comfort zone and yet furthers your own development. Share what made the challenge significant, while highlighting the actions you took to overcome the challenge. Share your approach to the situation and what you learned from that experience. As they say at 3M, "The best time to solve problems is before they start. Solving problems starts with taking a closer look. At 3M, we seek to observe, understand and solve. What we believe is simple: we are people committed to helping other people. Every day we help tackle problems, big and small, in pursuit of our vision to improve every life."
Kevin Downey has an extensive background in business management, recruiting, branding and marketing. He's volunteered his career coaching services at job fairs, lecturing on interview techniques and crafting winning resumes and cover letters.
"The most challenging aspect of my last job was troubleshooting the compatibility of some of the older technology we worked with. It wasn't my position, in fact, there wasn't a title or position for this at all. Often, many of us wore many hats. And performing several different job functions was a challenge. We needed some serious upgrades, but they weren't in the budget. Learning how to work around this problem was quite a challenge, but I learned how to integrate them by referring to old manuals and online forums. But I thrived on challenges such as those, and I ended up becoming the go-to person when anyone had questions about the technology."
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Anonymous Answer
In my current job, the most challenging aspect is mostly the customer who often hast absolutely no knowledge about computers at all. Often they are specialized in dental care and how to bill the patient.
I overcome the challenging questions to take simply my time and to explain everything to them on the level that the customers will understand the problem. However, I am not condescending to them.
Amanda's Feedback
This is an example that shows your ability to provide excellent customer service. Consider enhancing it further by providing a specific example of a time when you helped a very upset customer or a customer with a more difficult problem. This would be a good opportunity to use the STAR method. Describe the specific Task you were supposed to accomplish. Tell about the Action you took to overcome a challenge and complete the task. Finally, share the Result and how you contributed to the successful outcome."
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