Tell me about an achievement you are proud of. What did you find challenging about it?
Sometimes a great achievement is completing a difficult task and overcoming the obstacles that come up along the way.
When faced with an impossible deadline and regular interruptions that cause you to have to switch gears every thirty minutes, completing a simple project can seem like climbing a mountain!
You have a couple of options for how to approach this: Discuss an example of when you overcame obstacles to achieve something great, or share a significant accomplishment or award you received and talk about what was challenging about it.
Either way, you are showing your determination and focus on reaching your goal. Think of a situation that highlights your strengths and qualities that will be helpful for the job for which you are interviewing. Try to keep it as career relevant as possible.
"My greatest accomplishment was reducing departmental costs by 25% by thoroughly reviewing packing slips and comparing them to invoices and contract terms for accuracy. I then trained my team to do the same so that these savings could become the new status-quo for our department."
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 had an individual transferred to my team who was deemed as a difficult person, who was not making any progress with their work by their previous lead. The challenge for me was to connect with the person and help them be successful in their job. So, I made sure we met weekly initially to discuss their progress and develop a plan to make sure they hit their daily number of cases and were compliant with our rules and regulations. And, after a while, the person was actually one of the top performers in my team and they were helping out other team members. That's an achievement I am still very proud of today. And, I experienced a similar achievement in graduate school, where I was teamed up with individuals that were difficult to work with initially but under my leadership, we were one of the top performers in our class.
Marcie's Feedback
Awesome! It's great that you were able to connect with this person and motivate them to perform at such a high level. Beyond meeting with them weekly and developing an action plan, how did you get through to them? Did you use humor or a specific tone of voice? Did you ask them to share their opinions and outlook on things? A few more details here would round out your answer. Otherwise, nice job!
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