Tell me about a time at work when your integrity was challenged. How did you handle it?
Jacobs takes great pride in their holistic approach to ethics in business. While you may not be asked this specific question, you can boost your chances of a successful interview by working their language around a href'https://www.jacobs.com/about/ethics-and-conduct'ethics and conduct/a into your responses. You may not have time to read the entire code of conduct document, but taking the time to scan it can pay off.
"Last year our manager went away on vacation for three weeks. Some of my co-workers wanted to falsify our time sheets to reflect overtime hours that we did not work. I disagreed and was able to convince them that it was a bad idea and certainly not worth being fired over.
I scanned the Jacobs Code of Conduct before this interview. I value the detailed approach and the support available to employees. I am confident that I will be able to follow all of the guidelines explicitly."
"I once had a subordinate that would perform work after clocking out. There was a rumor later that I forced my team to work off the clock to save the company money. I did not know it was happening, and I certainly did not ask anyone to work outside of their scheduled shift.
I scheduled a meeting with him immediately to discuss the situation and make it clear that all worked time must be properly accounted for. I asked an HR representative to be present so that he could openly ask questions and discuss why he had failed to log all of his worked time previously.
He stated that he felt he was behind some of his team members in terms of his skill level and he was putting in extra time to improve his skills. Instead of working off the clock, I was able to enroll him in a formal training class that helped him improve. I also met with the rest of my team to review the time logging policy and discuss any additional training needs."
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 believe honesty is the best policy and I have used it during whole my work experience. Like many people, I have been experiencing working from home instead of working in the office due to the COVID-19 pandemic. When the project started, the client was always worried about our performance during a working day. She tested several methods like checking our active hours in MS teams, but after a while, she said "we can not control you by any means". We recommended that she can check the results and deliverables rather than our activity during a working day. Very soon she realized that all allocated tasks performed beyond the project schedule and after 3 months she never talked about our timesheets!
Regarding my colleagues, I move (based on project schedule) in a way that their task duration is as realistic as possible and helps them to finish on time. This strategy is also used when supervising subcontractors at the site. Dividing project risks appropriately and according to subcontractor abilities can pay the road for their smooth progress.
Amanda's Feedback
Good answer!
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