If you are enjoying this, you might enjoy our in-depth interview guide too. You can find it here – How to Prepare For An Interview.
The interview is absolutely critical when it comes to highlighting your best and most relevant features. While traditionally, hiring decisions were based solely on qualifications and experience, forward-thinking employers will be asking questions to uncover your values and accountability.
To help you prepare, we have put together some questions that you might get asked during an interview.
Examples of value-based interview questions
Your values should contribute to the company’s vision, mission and long-term objectives. To identify if you are aligned with the company values, you might yourself asked interview questions such as the following:
It’s essential, to be honest, and true to yourself when answering value-based questions. Answering disingenuously will be easily identified. You will be able to respond more authentically when responding with considered answers; this alone will be a positive sign. In doing so, both parties can make an informed decision about whether they are aligned and a good fit.
Accountability, it’s kind of a big deal in the workplace
Being accountable means being responsible for your actions, behaviour, decisions and performance. In the workplace, this means job performance and interactions with colleagues, customers and suppliers. Accountability also means that you are committed to achieving outstanding results and performing at a high level – you take ownership and initiative, demonstrating pro-active, rather than reactive behaviour.
Workplaces that hire accountable employees thrive. That’s because communication is open and collaboration is high; people are following through on their commitments, being resourceful and innovative when making their decisions, taking responsibility for results and actively learning from mistakes.
Accountability in the workplace means taking ownership and not passing the buck. Not all people are accountable and find it challenging to work in such an environment, seeking clarification rather than making decisions. This is often down to feeling uncomfortable about being reprimanded or being unconfident.
Accountability requires a top-down approach too. If employees see leaders admitting fault, recognising great work and following through on commitments, it influences their behaviour also. A lack of accountability leads to toxic work culture, low morale and low productivity.
If accountability is important to you, stress this on your CV and ask the questions during an interview that allow you to determine if responsibility is highly valued in the business.
1 How To Make Accountability A Core Value For Your Team?
As a leader, I want my team to have accountability as their core value. Therefore, what I would do: