Practice 30 Department of State interview questions covering diplomacy, security clearances, and foreign policy expertise.
Question 19 of 30
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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.
The interviewer is hoping to learn more about your approach towards your own leadership development. There are many work styles. This question aims to answer whether you have a "can-do" attitude. One's level of ambition can be revealed in how frequently they take advantage of opportunities to step up to a challenge. Whether you're more likely to underperform on many tasks, over-perform on one task, or fall somewhere in between is what they're after here.

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.
Take time to come up with an example of where you volunteered for a job or task that benefited the team. Being chosen, or volunteered, is different from stepping up to the plate. An ideal example is where you identified a growth opportunity for the workplace that required work to get there, and you volunteered for the task, already having a head start.

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.
"Just last month, someone had taken up a project of great importance with a very pressing deadline. They were going to finish, doing everything they could to deliver, and this included staying seven hours after hours. But they weren't allowed to be in the workplace alone, so I volunteered to stay with them. During that shift, I was instructed that I could do anything I wanted. All I had to do was hang out. They said I could watch videos on my phone through the whole shift, or read a book, whatever, and it would be fine. But I kept checking in and doing mindless work anywhere I could. Whether it was saving files to a hard drive or printing them out and making copies. I even made coffee and made us a meal. I helped any way I could. We got out of there in three and a half hours instead of seven. Then we got beers after and had a laugh. It was a good night."

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Written by Kevin Downey
30 Questions & Answers • Department of State

By Kevin

By Kevin