At IKEA, 'We Love Challenges' because they push us to achieve more. What challenges or problems have you encountered and solved at work?
Ingvar Kamprad, the founder of IKEA, was famous for taking a "no-nonsense" approach to everyday problem-solving and was quoted as saying, "Most things still remain to be done." He was excited by the knowledge that new challenges were always waiting around the corner. IKEA celebrates challenges as opportunities. Talk to the interviewer about how you react to challenges when they occur. Describe a difficult problem you worked through while on the job and when you pushed yourself beyond the limits of your comfort zone to overachieve.
"Creative problem-solving is one of my natural talents, so I feel energized when I meet a challenge at work. When I worked at a smaller, family-owned retail shop a few years ago, the owners realized that they needed a system to perform a yearly inventory but didn't know where to start. It was a big challenge because we needed to figure out how to use our limited resources and workers to complete an inventory of the entire store before the shop opened for the day. I came up with a plan to split the store into sections, like a grid, and assigned each of my coworkers a 'grid section' to work on. Everyone had to come in early in the morning, but I tried to make it as fun as possible by bringing in coffee and breakfast from a local restaurant."
"I agree with the philosophy that big challenges are opportunities for big ideas -- that's an encouraging perspective, and it makes me excited to think about working for a company that values challenge and creative problem-solving. At my last job, my managers always seemed tense and frustrated when they encountered problems, so it would be refreshing to work at a company like IKEA that has such a positive outlook on challenges."
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Anonymous Answer
I love to be challenged. I love to solve problems. When I was working in a family retail business, I realized that we needed to put our business online or we would lose sales to competitors. I researched, found, and implemented an e-commerce solution. Soon we were selling 5% of our sales online!
Ryan's Feedback
Great answer! Taking a family retail business online is no easy task. I also like how you mentioned the e-commerce store is now accounting for 5% of sales.
Anonymous Answer
At my old place of work, I was the front-end supervisor and I had the challenge to increase credit cards application because we were the worst in the district. I started to do role-playing with the cashiers for them to feel more comfortable offering our services and overcoming "No' for answers. I also made a contest; the cashiers with more credit card applications in a week will win a prize. We increased our credit card application by 30%.
Marcie's Feedback
Awesome! Including a statistic with a number that shows how you helped the company really strengthens your answer. It sounds like you definitely took this challenge on and resolved it. Nice job!
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