Q: Why would you be particularly good at this business?
A: I was a pastry chef, so I understand dessert products well and can help you with new product development. Recent preservatives have come a long way toward eliminating texture difference in pastry dough. This means we can investigate many more products than before.
A: I pore over the Wall Street Journal, the Times, Institutional Investor, and several mutual fund newsletters. And I have a number of friends who are analysts.
Q: Why do you think this industry would sustain your interest over the long haul?
A: The technology in the industry is changing so rapidly that I see lots of room for job enhancement regardless of promotions. I am particularly interested in the many applications for multimedia as a training tool.
A: Id like to have the opportunity to work in a plant as well as at the home office. I also hope to develop my management skills, perhaps by managing a small staff.
A: I’d like to stay in a field related to training no matter what happens. I was too interested in business to work at a university, but I believe that teaching is somehow in my blood. I’ve been good at sales because I took the time to educate my clients. Now I look forward to training the new hires.
Q: If you had unlimited time and financial resources, how would you spend them?
A: I’d love to be able to take several executive seminars on financial management that are not geared toward financial experts. I’d also love to be able to shut down my department long enough to send everyone through an Outward Bound type program. Finally, I’d probably travel and look at foreign competitors, and enjoy the food along the way. What would you do?
Q: If this were your first annual review with our company, what would I be telling you right now?
A: Youd be thanking me for a job well done and would be explaining how you look forward to continuing to see good work from me. Furthermore, I would anticipate your explaining how you really appreciated my putting in extra time on some key projects and how my creative thinking helped come up with some innovative solutions to existing problems.
Q: Tell me something about yourself that I didn’t know from reading your resume.
A: You wouldn’t know that I have managed my own small portfolio since I was sixteen, but I believe that its important for you to understand my interest in investment sales. I have averaged a 12 percent return over the past eight years.
A: I served as an intern analyst to a restaurant last summer, so I followed all the steakhouse chains closely. What you have done especially well is focus on a limited menu with great consistency among locations; the business traveler trusts your product anywhere in the U. S. I’m particularly interested in your real estate finance group and expansion plans.
Q: What have you learned about our company from customers, employees, or others?
A: I actually called several of the key accounts mentioned in your brochure. Two of the customers I spoke with explained why they continued to buy from you year after year. Your distribution operation is phenomenal. Are there any service improvements you think could still be made?
A: I lost a bid several years ago to your company. I realized then that products in the computer industry are becoming increasingly similar. They’re so similar now, and retail prices are so competitive, that service is the best way for a company to distinguish itself from the competition. This company has the best service record of all its competitors, and I believe it will dominate the business in the long run.
