How would you describe your work ethic?
"While onboarding at my last job, they trained me on the general methods previous employees in my position used to tackle their work. I soaked it up and spent my time evaluating those systems. I changed or reinvented them in ways that made more sense to me. I'm all about increasing productivity if it doesn't sacrifice the quality of my work. Sometimes I hit the mark, and sometimes it's close but not perfect, and when that's the case, I learn what I can. Well, the head of our division visited our department and evaluated our workflow. They challenged us to increase our department's productivity within the next month. At my first opportunity, I showed my team leader the system's approach I used for my work in case they wanted to get ideas for how to meet this challenge. They loved what I'd done so much that they had me form a team to adopt these systems to the rest of the department in a way that fit everyone's unique personality and work style. Once everyone was up to speed, our productivity increased, and we met this challenge. We increased our department's productivity, exceeding our goals. Even better, a few months later, everyone in our department received a bonus. So, I'd call that one of my greatest work-related accomplishments."
This question offers an opportunity to showcase what aspects of professional methodology have benefited you in the past. How you answer will help them assess how well you'll fit into their team and work environment and whether you'll be able to adapt to their way of doing things. Familiarize yourself with the basics of this position. Describe your system approach, as well as your ability to adapt. If there are aspects of your work style that coworkers have adopted, focus on that as well. Highlight your strengths, your flexibility, your ability to hold yourself accountable and learn from your mistakes, and that you are easy to work with. As they say on their website, "Do The Right Thing.
Deal directly with problems. Value everyone equally. Own up to your mistakes and learn from them."
This question assesses your integrity by evaluating how honestly you present your answers, so answer sincerely. Some non-verbal cues the assessment vendor will use to evaluate your honesty are stroking your chin and covering your mouth or your eyes, gaze avoidance, the direction of your eyes, excessive fidgeting such as restless foot and leg movements, frequent body posture changes, and grooming behaviors such as playing with hair or pressing your fingers to lips.
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
I can recall an example from my most recent internship as a Capital Markets Intern. My partner and I were given a project which was intended to take 75% of our time (6 weeks to complete). To make a long story short, we worked non-stop in a fever and finished it in 3 weeks, edited and revised it for a few days, and launched it right after. We worked so fast on every project that they ran out of work to give us. My partner just accepted a job at _________ and we still keep in touch.
Marcie's Feedback
Awesome! This is a strong example to cite here. Can you also include a general description of your work ethic and talk briefly about where you got it from? Also, what kind of project did you work on during your internship? Otherwise, excellent response!
