Tell me about the last time you undertook a project that demanded a lot of initiative.
This interview question allows you to demonstrate your ability to be a self-starter. It will also offer insights into your leadership skills. Offering a detailed example will allow the interviewer to assess your concept of initiative and evaluate your strengths and what motivates you in your work.
"We had a major inventory count requested of us by the corporate head office. Our manager was away on holiday. No one quite knew where to start or who should take the lead. I led my co-workers through the inventory project. I taught myself the tracking software in a short amount of time and created a schedule for the inventory counts so everyone knew what they expected of them. We completed the project three days early! It was a great success."
"They tasked me with changing our health benefits provider. Completing this project successfully was crucial to our employees and our bottom line. I made a lot of calls and RFQs, and spent a lot of time hearing proposals to make the best choice before enrollment time."
Offer the interviewer a detailed example. Include project timelines, who you led, and what you taught yourself to be successful. Complete your answer by telling the interview about the outcome.
The interviewer is asking about the last time, not any other time. Keep your example recent and relevant to where you're at in your career. If there have been many examples, allude to this, and discuss your skills with confidence.
Community answers are written by other candidates practicing this set. Reading how others frame the same question is one of the fastest ways to sharpen your own.
Anonymous Answer
We sell HVAC systems. and when the customer wants to know the supply temperature of certain units we can't provide this data, and ofter have to send it to the factory for each project to get it. I took the initiative to create a simple excel sheet that can calculate this. I did not know how I just believed its possible. I attended many excel courses online and learned to integrate the huge psychometric chart data into an excel function called MajdaPsyc(). I created the sheet successfully and it's used heavily by the employees and the customers.
Cindy's Feedback
Fantastic. You're explaining the problem and your solution very clearly. Good work.
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