How to Answer: Talk about a time where you had to deal with a big change within your workplace. How did you handle that situation and what did you learn from it?
Advice and answer examples written specifically for a Health Educator job interview.
2. Talk about a time where you had to deal with a big change within your workplace. How did you handle that situation and what did you learn from it?
How to Answer
In any career, employees need to have the ability to adapt to changes within their workplace that fall outside of their control. In no field is this more evident than in the healthcare and public health sectors. Changing laws, organizational buyouts, and evolving techniques in healthcare are just a few of the reasons that the workplace can change rapidly for a Health Educator. On this question, your interviewer will be looking for you to remain flexible when things change on the job and for you to be a leader among your peers in accepting the change. Talk about a time where you were open to changes and talk about how it made your day-to-day life on the job different while being able to adapt quickly and effectively to the change.
Written by Ryan Brunner
Entry Level
"During my college years, I worked as a waiter for four years to support myself through school without taking out loans. Working at a busy restaurant in a small college town, our staff turned over almost twice a year as the semesters changed and summers came and went. This revolving door of cooks, dishwashers, wait staff, and bartenders kept me on my toes in working with new personalities. I'm a firm believer that a person has to love what they do for a job, and I did this by getting to know my coworkers with each new round of employees that joined us. The number of friendships that I developed during my time there goes a long way to show that I was able to adapt and relate to many different personalities and cultures."
Written by Ryan Brunner
Answer Example
"A couple of years ago, the organization that I was working for went through a merger with a much larger organization. Our daily lives were rocked by changes in leadership structure, new policies, and new job descriptions during the change. Keeping my eye on the end of the tunnel rather than on the bricks in the path that lay ahead of me, I knew that the new organization would be full of resources and people to help me do my job better. Many of my colleagues were scared about the change and their jobs, but I tried to remain positive and remind them to keep their end goals in mind. While adapting to small policy changes and reporting structures was difficult at times, in the end, my job ended up even better."
Written by Ryan Brunner
Experienced
"In my current position, I started in the role as a department of one person as a Health Educator that reported directly to our hospital's vice president of operations. As we worked together over time, our relationship grew, and we developed a great rapport in developing new projects that helped many people in our community. Three years ago, the decision was made for me to report to our clinical director to give me a more direct path to our patient side of our operation. At first, I was sad to be parting ways with my boss of many years. But knowing that working closely with clinical staff and supporting their patient's needs was a top priority made this an easy step to change with ease. Besides, I was still working closely with my former boss and just not reporting directly to him anymore."
Written by Ryan Brunner