Tell me about a project you worked on where a conventional approach was not suitable.

"We were assigned a client in our computing and media class in college and asked to develop a plan to help them improve their marketing through social media integration. Our client wanted to automate Twitter posts based on the content they posted on the Facebook page. While that option was available, I convinced them to consider Snapchat as a viable option. The user base for Snapchat was in better alignment with their target market, and I felt the results would be better if we focused our efforts there.

We developed a basic proof of concept during our class, and the company officially invested in this strategy. I was glad to know my research and app knowledge helped them to improve their business using an approach they considered to be unconventional."

"There were a lot of unconventional moments in my company within the last few years due to the pandemic. I managed a customer support team that was suddenly working remotely and was no longer able to walk through our floor to check in with my team. I noticed that incident resolution time increased in certain categories, and I knew I needed to uncover the cause and get us back on track quickly. I held a meeting with my staff to discuss the issues, and we uncovered several opportunities for improvement.

For example, they had to actively switch screens to see our open incident dashboard. Top priority issues that needed senior-level assistance weren't always noticed and took longer than necessary to resolve. I immediately sent additional equipment to my senior incident managers to make sure they had an additional display available in their home offices. This helped replicate the environment they were used to, and our resolution time improved. The solution was unconventional and uncharted for our group, but I did what needed to be done to deliver the service our customers were used to."

While your interviewer does not expect to spend your entire interview discussing the details of your project, you need to provide the details of the situation. Remember to include context information within your response. This will help your interviewer understand the problem or opportunity and the effect you had by taking an unconventional approach.