Tell us about one of your proudest achievements.
By learning more about one of your most recent accomplishments, they'll gain a clearer sense of your drive, motivation, and experience level. How you answer will also offer them a stronger sense of your work ethic. One of the categories Aon's Natural Language Psychometric Talent Assessment scores on is Achievement Style, which they break up into two categories. This first category is Ambition, where they rate a candidate's answer on a scale of 1 to five, with one being contented (cruising along with the status quo), and five being Striving (to overachieve). The second category is Power, which scales you between being a contributor (finding power in helping the team) versus being a controller (claiming power for yourself). So, to help you navigate how to phrase your answer, you'll want to go in with a clear sense of UBS's culture, pillars, and principles so you can more effectively align yourself with the positive language they used to describe their approach, their people, and who they are as a company.
UBS offers a PDF which they call their "Recruitment Readiness Worksheet"," which they designed to help you prepare for your interview process. Regarding your proudest achievements, they recommend keeping them within the last five years. "Remember to include: Your wow! What makes them special? Impact and scope? Challenges overcome? Key learnings from these factor experiences: Things you would do differently with hindsight."
There is a lot of additional advice they offer worth considering, most of which we've pulled from the videos on their careers site. Such as, "Turn your experiences into takeaways. Convey what's most important. Think about who you are and what you want us to know about you. What should we remember about you after the interview is over? Write these things down and tie your answers back to them."
"I work out of a small office in our town, and we primarily serve one high-profile client and their industry. About six months ago, we ran into something of a predicament when the systems in our department went down. We had several important reports we were generating and compiling at the time of the server failure. Also, our manager was going through something of a personal crisis, and was keeping to themself in their office with the blinds closed. While they are normally capable, on this occasion, they weren't. So, I asserted myself and stepped into their office, and I ended up serving as their liaison through this minor crisis. Then, I was on the phone with our IT staff and delegated further coordination with them to a member of our team. Then I was on the phone with our client, explaining our situation and that this would only be a minor delay of a few hours. I delegated further communications with them to another member of our team. Next, I drove to our storage space, picked up several laptops, and set up a new Wi-Fi system that used our phones as hotspots. I tried to reschedule our Fed-Ex pickup for the reports, but they couldn't accommodate our request, so I canceled. Once we completed and compiled the reports, we printed them out via Bluetooth, and I raced across town and hand-delivered them to our client's desk. That was my first taste of being in a position of real leadership. It was quite rewarding, and I can't wait for the next opportunity to make such an impact. The best part was how high morale was at the end of the day. Everyone felt a sense of accomplishment. Even our manager came out of their shell."
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