Talk about a time you had to engage a colleague or a customer outside of your normal interactions to solve a problem. What was your approach to building a quick rapport and solving the issue as a team?
Medtronic promotes a culture of partnering with and involving others in their work, and your interviewer will be looking to gain insight into how you partner with others effectively in your work during this question. Think of a time you had to work closely with someone outside of your normal duties and explain the steps you took to gain their trust and respect to get the job done. Express to your interviewer that you are always willing to engage with others in your work to accomplish the task at hand.
"Being a successful Administrative Assistant requires reaching out and collaborating with new people frequently, and a great example of this happened a few years ago in my current role. My CEO asked that I help coordinate a retreat for the executive leadership team at my organization that involved outdoor activities and team-building practices. I partnered with a local corporate training firm and took the lead in working with a trainer from there to set up a program that would meet our needs. I took the initiative to set up a face-to-face meeting with the trainer, researched our needs, and laid them out for the trainer. Being highly organized got our first meeting off to a great start. I kept an open mind to the trainer's ideas and held tight to the things we felt were high needs for our group In the end, the training was a huge success, and my CEO commended me for getting everything set up with the trainer."
"Quality improvement requires collaboration every day, and I always look forward to working closely with healthcare leaders and front-line workers on improving quality care for patients. Last year, I led an improvement effort on patient waiting times in the clinic setting. For this project, I worked very closely with a Clinic Administrator who was very skeptical at first about what I could offer. Knowing this going into our first meeting, I told her what my role would be in the project, and I also pointed out some recent successes I had with her colleagues. After hearing about my role and seeing the successes of others, she was very willing to collaborate on the project that ended up being a huge success!"
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'd found an issue in our requirements documents that, if not resolved, would slow down the testing progress and the ultimate delivery of the submarine. After a meeting with the owners of the documents, the discrepancy had been found to be unsolvable within my department alone. I reached out to the department who were the experts on the topic to ask them to review the requirements in question for accuracy. I expressed the importance of the situation and the department was more than willing to oblige.
Amanda's Feedback
This is a strong example that illustrates your ability to collaborate cross-functionally. Further improve your response by sharing what you did to build rapport such as identifying common ground, actively listening to others' concerns, avoiding placing blame, etc. You can also share what the outcome was after you reached out for help from another department.
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