What’s a new skill you’ve learned recently, and why did you learn it?
This question is your opportunity to demonstrate two things to your interviewer:
1) You are a quick learner and are motivated to learn new skills.
2) You are an interesting human being and a memorable applicant!
Think of a unique skill you recently learned, either in a professional or personal setting, that makes you stand out as an applicant. Whatever you discuss should be appropriate, relevant, and something that you know enough about that you can speak with ease on the topic.
"I recently learned the ins and outs of SEO through an online course sponsored by my previous company. It was a 50-hour course that dove into the key principles of SEO and how we can incorporate its most important tenets into our digital marketing practices. I noticed that our competitors used SEO, so I researched the course and created a proposal for my boss. She accepted my proposal, and my team took the course together. This new skill has deepened our understanding of the industry and made us a better competitor."
"I've spent the last three months learning Portuguese in my spare time. I've always enjoyed learning new languages, and my interest was sparked in particular by one of the client teams that I work with in Brazil. I spend about 5-10 hours a week in my free time listening to Portuguese podcasts and reading articles in Portuguese. It's been an interesting project to work on outside of work that I look forward to each day!"
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 have recently learned to swim. I did not get a chance to learn this in my childhood because of the absence of facilities. Luckily in my childhood, I survived a couple of water accidents. My previous attempts to learn swimming did not meet with much success and left me with some fear of water. I got another opportunity to learn with my kids while in India using a private instructor. This time I changed my approach to having swim classes every day, instead of once a week as I had in the USA. This helped me make significant progress in 3 weeks. Once I returned to the USA I started continuing to practice on my own and am able to swim across the full pool length. I am continuing to improve my technique with more practice.
Amanda's Feedback
This is a great example! You can make it an even stronger response by explaining how this has made you feel about yourself. Are you proud of the progress you've made? Does this build your confidence to continue trying new things - knowing you can be successful if you're willing to learn or try a different approach. Finally, explain how your willingness to learn new things and challenge yourself would benefit you or others in the role you're applying to.
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