What are your strengths?

 

My greatest strengths are my ability to not get overwhelmed and my communication skills. At my current job, I take on a lot of responsibility by helping lead the team I work with. Even though I am the youngest person that currently works there, everyone always approaches me first about questions and when they need help. This partnered with doing my work can make for stressful work, I am able to stay calm and make sure that everything gets handled. I also have strong communication skills. Many of my friends come to me and use me as a therapist in a sense, and when helping them come to conclusions about their issues, I have to be careful to make sure that everything I say is the right thing, so I don't upset anyone. This has really been helping me further develop those skills. 

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What are your weaknesses?

 

My greatest weaknesses are taking on too much responsibility and being a people pleaser. On my equestrian team, I was a co-captain my senior year. Holding this leadership position led me to take on a lot of responsibility, I also had a job that I worked at often, balancing between these things put a lot of pressure and responsibility on my shoulders. I would often wake up early on the weekends to go to the equestrian team, then work an eight-hour shift right after I had finished with the equestrian team. This caused me to be overwhelmed and burn out. From this experience, I have learned how to successfully balance multiple things without feeling overwhelmed or burned out. I am also a people pleaser which has good and bad aspects to it. I have a hard time saying no to others, which then leads to me taking on too much responsibility and getting overwhelmed. Especially at work, I always try to help and make sure my coworkers are not stressed out, which leads to me taking on some of their workloads. I have learned that once I have reached my limit, it is okay to say no so I can finish the task at hand. 

  

 How do you deal with conflict?

 

I take conflict head-on, in my opinion, there is no need to avoid conflict. I first think and strategize how I am to approach the conflict. Once I have a well-thought-out plan, I make sure I have the time to give all my attention to handle the situation, then I fix the issue. I work at a bar and grill, like with any customer service job, I deal with a lot of people with bad attitudes. If someone has an issue, I will ask what the problem at hand is, then I will ask them to take a seat, I will take a second to find a solution or go to another coworker to ask their advice, then I will reproach the customer when I have a good plan on what to say. I also make sure that I am calm and I stand in the shoes of the customer. I am also a consumer as I am a worker in the service industry, so when handling any issues I always approach it as if I am a customer and the issue seems to get resolved in a better and faster way. 

 

What kind of person would you refuse to work with?

 

I believe that I am an easy person to work with and I usually will not have an issue with anyone that I work with. The only people I have a harder time with are people who have no work ethic, rely on others for a lot of their job, and people who are not friendly. I have a very strong work ethic at work and I am super motivated to do my job, it is hard to work with people who don’t match my enthusiasm and work ethic. People with a lower work ethic also usually need help with all their tasks due to the lack of motivation to do work. It is not only a burden to work with these people, they make the whole work environment more stressful and chaotic. I also prefer not to work with people who rely on others for most of their work. Asking for help is never an issue, sometimes to finish a task the use of other people is helpful, but people who are unable to work without the use of others also make the work environment more stressful. At my current job, I am always the person that people consult when they have a question or they need help. If someone needs constant help, it takes me away from what I am supposed to be doing so I can assist them. This leads to a more stressful work environment because I then have to rush to finish my work, and this is where more mistakes occur. I finally have a hard time working with people who are not friendly. This dislike may change in the future, but again, I work in the service industry so people who are not friendly to a customer make working with them a lot harder. If they have a certain tone of voice or attitude the customer will get mad and it leads to more conflict. I also usually end up caring for these situations, and from a conflict standpoint, it is hard to apologize on behalf of a company for someone's bad attitude.

 

What kind of work do you enjoy the most?

 

I enjoy working in a fast-paced team environment. I really enjoy working with and being around people, I see my coworkers as not only people I can rely on to help me and make the job go easier, I also see them as my motivation to do better. I have a competitive personality and I see my coworkers as competition. When I go to work I do my best every single day and I always try to improve when given the opportunity. My coworkers motivate me because I am able to compare how I currently work to someone else so I can further improve. I am able to see a coworker that I would like to have the same level of motivation and skill, and other coworkers that make me work harder so I don’t have the same stigma around myself as they do. I also like working in a fast-paced environment. When I am given a longer deadline on a certain task, I tend to procrastinate, when working in a fast environment I don’t have time to procrastinate and I am able to get more work done than if I was not pressed to get the work done. I believe that fast-paced environments are good for being productive and it shows one’s natural ability to do a job and it tests how one is able to handle pressure. 

 

How do you handle pressure/stress?

 

I handle pressure and stress very well, I am able to stay calm and harness the pressure to do my work better and more accurately. I am able to create a list in my head of things that need to be done and I start doing the tasks right away. This helps me stay calm and stay on top of all the things that I have to get done. Something I pride myself on is my ability to handle pressure well and not crack under it. When I first started working at my job as a hostess I would train all the servers on how to do their job. When they were trained and able to take tables by themselves they would be stressed and not be able to take more than three or four tables. On my very first day serving, I took over someone’s shift, mid-shift, and took seven tables right away and gave them all really good service. One of my older coworkers pulled me over after my shift and complimented how calm I am able to stay in a high-pressure situation. That conversation I had with my coworker was very meaningful to me and I think about that every time I find myself getting stressed.    

 

What have you learned from your past mistakes?

 

One thing I have really struggled with within the workplace is going too fast. If there is a lot of work to get done, I try to attack the work head-on and get as much of it done as efficiently and as fast as possible. When I go too fast mistakes can happen. For example, as a host, I am also in charge of all the carry-outs. On Fridays and Saturdays they are especially busy, and one time I had forgotten to put one of the entrees in the bag before I sent it out. When the customer realized they, naturally, called in and complained about their missing item. From this, I have learned that when I am going too fast I need to slow down and make sure that the work is getting done right. 

 

What can you offer us that someone else can not?

 

I have a lot of skills that I have learned working throughout the years. I am able to connect with customers quickly and I have a very high work drive. As a server, all the money I make is based on tips, so being able to develop a quick relationship with a group of people helps make the tip better, and the experience for the customer more enjoyable. I also have a very high work drive that is hard to match. Over this past summer, I was working six days a week usually between forty and fifty hours a week. I work more than anyone else there including the managers. I also really enjoy working and I always come to work with a positive attitude. 

 

Tell me how you handled a difficult situation.

 

Working in customer service I have come across many situations that are difficult to manage. One situation, in particular, was difficult to me because I had to choose between being ethical and loyal to a company or keeping a friendship that I valued a lot. At my retail job I made very strong relationships with my coworkers, after shifts, we would always talk and hang out, and we were all really close. I found out that one of my coworkers had stolen merchandise from the store. I knew right as I found that out, that I needed to make a decision. Tell my manager that my coworker had stolen, they would lose their job, and our relationship would be dissolved; or I could not mention anything to my manager and continue the friendship, but if my manager found out both of our jobs would be in jeopardy. I made up my mind and decided to tell my manager what had happened, and the results happened just as I had thought, my coworker had lost their job and we were not friends anymore. I learned from this situation that making the ethical decision was the right choice to make.    

 

Tell me about a time when you disagreed with your boss/supervisor.

 

I am, for the most part, a person who does what they are told by a supervisor with no complaints. But, I have disagreed with my supervisor in some situations. I worked a retail job at the mall with competitive hours, I ended up getting the most hours out of anyone else holding the same position as me. My supervisor had me scheduled at forty hours a week, even though I was still enrolled in school. I would give my extra shifts to my co-workers who wanted them because I couldn’t work that much. I ended up getting in trouble with my manager because I was giving up half my shifts. I explained to them that I couldn’t work that much and I did not need the money as much as everyone else because all my other co-workers had families they needed to support, and I was working this job for extra spending money. They then said that they did not care and they were going to continue to schedule me forty hours a week. This dispute led me to quit my job because of the lack of good management and how little my manager cared about his team.