Give an example of a time when you had to go above and beyond the call of duty when working as part of the team. What was the challenge you faced and how did you handle things with your teammates?
Kaiser Permanente is never satisfied with the status-quo as lived every day in its core value of innovation and using creativity to drive continuous improvement each day. Their work in the heavily populated areas of southern California, northern California, urban Maryland/ Washington D.C., and the Atlanta area has grown significantly due to their ability to meet and exceed the expectations of their members. Your interviewer will expect you to continue helping this trend, so they pose this question to hear you discuss how you were willing to go the extra mile on the job. As you give your example, try to give your best pitch on how you'll continue to go above and beyond in the job you are interviewing for as well.
"From both personal experience with care here and the fact that you've grown to 12.5 million members, it is quite evident that Kaiser Permanente is always willing to do what is necessary to exceed the expectations of those that you are caring for. I want you to know that I'm ready to do that in this role by working diligently in performing and reporting test results in a timely manner so patients and providers can get results faster. This can mean the critical difference between life and death for some patients. I've always been willing to take part in hospital-wide committees and quality improvement initiatives in my work, as evidenced by my current committee seats in my current position. With Kaiser Permanente, I want you to be assured that I'm always willing to go beyond my duties to improve care for individual patients and for the betterment of future care."
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
When I started in Interventional Radiology, I was not trained in IR procedures. There was not a formal method of teaching IR PAs. I discussed with hospital credentialing and became the first PA proctor in our Heath system. I had to submit my previous procedural logs and take a test. New hires were appreciative of learning one on one. The challenges are learning how each new hire learns and the best approach to teaching each new hire.
Amanda's Feedback
With this question it's important to explain a team challenge and how you collaborated with your team members to go above and beyond the call of duty to achieve a goal or overcome an obstacle. Consider strengthening your answer by expanding the example you've chosen to highlight how you worked as part of a team or collaborated with others on the path to becoming the first PA proctor. You can wrap up your response by sharing how many new hires you've trained and the new skills you've gained along the way that make you a stronger team member.
Anonymous Answer
I worked with my team and managers to improve the discharge process at our facility. Making sure case management has the patient's follow-up appointments, the pharmacy should be listed, and any changes in medications on the day of discharge should be taken care of. By engaging other interdisciplinary team members, the discharge process is more organized now.
Jaymie's Feedback
Great start! Can you be more specific as to what your role was in the process and what specific part proved to be a challenge for you?
Anonymous Answer
When working as the Marketing Manager for the high-end fitness facility, we would run fitness challenges to kick start people's fitness journey and convert them to memberships. We coordinated various measurement categories and contests to reward multiple winners. As a team, we were responsible for recruiting and enrolling from 1:1 invites to community and business outreach and partnerships as well as social marketing. We solicited partnerships, planned and coordinated prizes, and the whole end celebration. When it was almost go time, we were below our enrollment numbers so I came up with the idea to reach out to the concierges at the local apartment buildings. I offered them discounted membership in exchange for referring residents to our facility and in a couple of days' time we had 10 enrollments and exceeded our participant enrollment goal.
Jaymie's Feedback
Excellent example! You gave a good overview of the situation, the challenge, how you responded, and the result of your efforts that had a positive impact on the team and business!
Anonymous Answer
This has happened quite often lately because of the understaffing at my current job. I jump in and do pretesting, scanning, and answering phones if needed. I know this is best for the whole office when I provide that extra help.
Jaymie's Feedback
Good job! It sounds like you are not someone who does the bare minimum and checks out but rather is willing to be a team player and provide support to better serve the patients.
Anonymous Answer
During my internship working with foster students. I found that some weren’t showing up to school as it wasn’t important to them. I gathered some of the other interns and delegated research and information to prepare a presentation to present in the students’ STRTP home on their rights as a student, the importance of graduation, and the potential of unlocking their future in a positive way. As a result, it sparked an interest in some students as they came in to inquire more about their rights and current academics.
Jaymie's Feedback
It sounds like you took great initiative on this project and got the buy-in of your peers to work through those challenges to make the project a success.
Anonymous Answer
Back when working in the food industry, the owners of the restaurant asked for ways that the overall experience for customers could be improved. The staff manager, bar manager, and myself cooperated on creating a new way of organizing our food ordering system. This was because a lot of time was being wasted because when servers would put in food orders everything was all over the place, or there were buttons that were lacking so things had to be manually typed out. This was the system we had been using for the past 6 years so reorganizing it in a way that made sense for everyone that was already used to this format was quite the endeavor. My managers knew the system, but they weren’t fully supportive of changing everything up. So the role I took on was creating a new format that they could implement. In the end, they would be the judge of whether or not we should use the format that I created.
It took a week to finish this task and even after it was completed, I made sure to communicate with every other server and get their input on how it could be improved. It’s great looking back on it because it was one of the few times in my career where being really organized and being transparent with my team benefited everyone and now that the system has been updated everything runs a lot smoother over there.
Jaymie's Feedback
What a unique opportunity to make a significant impact in the workplace! It sounds like you took the initiative to organize, plan, and communicate throughout the project and learned a lot from the experience. You answered all parts of the question exceptionally well!
Anonymous Answer
I had an incident when I worked in the food industry during the pandemic where another worker tested positive after coming to work. This prompted my manager to have all people working with that person at the time to stay home and quarantine. A majority of the staff couldn't work and the rest of the employees who were cleared to work needed to be on every shift until everyone else could come back. I organized a list of all tasks that needed to be done before opening and after closing. Everyone chose a task and helped others if they finished early. During business hours, I made sure that we were staying on time with all orders by setting a clock a few minutes ahead of real-time and communicating with everyone on orders. If it wasn't busy I made sure to always be working on something that way I was always productive. It was a challenge to run a restaurant for several days while short-staffed but with an organized plan and good communication skills between each other, we effectively worked as a team.
Jaymie's Feedback
Your response really draws attention to your ability to remain calm in stressful situations, organize and prioritize tasks, communicate effectively, collaborate with others, and motivate the team to complete the goals. Excellent job!
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