Interviewers ask the question what are your major strengths in many ways. Bottom line, they want to know WHY they should hire you over another candidate - i.e. what BENEFIT will this employer gain by having you on their team.
The typical job seeker will respond from an accomplishment or a task perspective. In other words, they will either talk about achievements/awards OR they will respond with previous job responsibilities. The way to develop the most impactful response to this question is to think about your skills and compentencies and how they are leveraged to bring results for your employer. For example, if you have expert presentation skills, proven contract negotiation skills, and solid technical expertise. You would communicate these skills and then create a picture in the mind of the prospective employer around how these skills will bring additional revenues to their organization. Therefore, the benefit to the future employer is that you generate revenues!
All positions make significant impact within an organization. If you are an administrative assistant, then being accurate, timely, and communicative all impact the image and ease with corporate work flow. If you are the CEO, building trust, solving problems, opening doors of communication, and paying attention to results drive corporate revenues.
We may think that these answers are obvious. However, it is the "obvious" that must be communicated effectively. Don't make a mistake by assuming that your interviewer knows the "obvious" about how you specifically contributed to your previous organizations and how those same skills may be leveraged in their company.
Xodus Advantage serves as expert partners to individuals from the time they contemplate a potential career/job change, through the planning and transition phases. We specialize in making the change process positive and practical by empowering the individual to excel in their job campaign strategies. We are committed to seeing a successful career transition.
Our job campaign services include:
Assessing the individual and their career desires
Personal/Professional Branding Strategies
Job Campaign Initiatives
Resume/Cover letter Enhancements
Strategic Interview Prep/Coaching
Honing verbal, non-verbal and written communication skills
Business letter writing and follow-up strategies
Interpersonal effectiveness
Networking contacts – recruiters, companies, etc.
Offer negotiation skills
When individuals find themselves on the job market or interested in a career transition, they are typically very uncertain. It is always nice to offer them the “voice of calm” plus real-world practical strategies to accelerate their down time during the transition.
Thank you for putting Xodus Advantage on your job search team!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
A good way to prepare for this question prior to the interview is to thoroughly review the job description of the position prior to your interview.
ReplyDeleteThe job description will typically state the education, level of experience and key competencies required to be successful in the position. When you are preparing to share your strengths for the position make sure you are drawing a clear correlation between your strengths and the competencies, education and experience they have already stated they are looking for, in the job description.
Obviously you don't need to say, in the job description you mentioned that you are looking for someone that is a good communicator and I am a good communicator. Rather you would say, one of the things that has helped propel me to success within my current organization is my ability to communicate. Now you need to follow that up with an example of how your communication skills have benefited you in your current or past positions.