How do I answer these interview questions?

Question

I am a Administrative Assistant and I am a real good one at that!! But when it comes to answering the questions below on an interview I freeze!! Help!

1)What is your strongest natural talent?



2)What is the biggest impact you will make in our organization in the 1st 90 days?

Answer 1

for the first one, I'd say something like "I'm self motivated and a natural problem solver. When I set my mind to doing something, I wont stop until I get the results I'm after"
for the second one, i'd say something like

"I am an expert in (fill in the type of job you're applying for). I have been working as (fill in the type of job you're applying for) for years. I have the right mix of interpersonal and work related skills, to be a successful administrative assistant for your company"

Answer 2

A natural talent is (surprise!) something that you are naturally good at, rather than something you've learned. Try these on for size:

-organizational skills
-multitasking/prioritizing
-communication skills
-ability to work well under pressure
-high quality of work
-building relationships with others to get things done

There is no good truthful answer to the second question because 90 days is a pretty short time to do much besides figure out the job and the players and find the bathrooms! At an admin level, you are limited in the impact you can make. Some safe answers might be that you would help to increase the productivity of your boss/group by keeping him/her/them more organized. You could also preface that question with one of your own - what are the major issues/problems your company is facing, what are the priorities for the person you hire into this job? That should give you some insight into what impact they hope you will make.

Good luck!

Answer 3

I'm an admin assist as well...i have no college education inconsistent employment record....lots of big gaps short employment here and there in many different industries. They see all this on my resume, they also how skilled I am. The reason I'm telling you this is that from my resume I'm not a desirable employee for today's corporate market b/c they favor loyalty above ability, yet I have received offers from every single interview I've ever been on. I'm giving you great advice I hope you follow it. That's not something I would normally say but I'm empathetic to you're situation and I want you to make you're life better. Also, as a sup for an airline we would all interview the candidate at the same time and then discuss after so I also have some insight on that end.

First people pay more attention to your mannerisms than you're words. If you're freezing up and you're not confident you may be doing something sub-consciously. But even if you freeze you can easily recover. I freeze up and stutter all the time. You have to be honest, you can't just give some answer that you think is what they want to hear. You have to be confident. You said you are a real good admin assist ask yourself what makes you a good admin. You need to know what your strengths and weaknesses are and be honest with yourself because the truths will reveal themselves eventually. Since you didn't give us any info on how you are answering the questions I'm wondering if you may be having trouble identifying these aspects in yourself or often I find people are not aware of what types of talents make a good admin assist b/c its become such a generalized title that is often used instead of clerk. So think about all of your previous experiences and what types of contributions you made, ideas that you had and were implemented. Its not enough to just do what you're told. Analyzing all these aspects about yourself in you work environment and perhaps in school or home environments can help you to recognize what you're talents are. Then that talent is your strongest skill and you apply that to how you would make an impact. For me, I always try to make procedures more efficient, I like to organize so its easy for me to set up systems. From that I can see I have a natural talent for problem solving. Then apply those skills to how I can impact their organization. How could I apply them to make it the business better. I tend to always say something about evaluating the current procedures in order to be more efficient.

As weird as it may sound the best thing to help you get over the freezing is if you practice the interview all the time to yourself. Its important that when you practice to not use the same exact answer every time. The more you say the words to yourself the easier it will be to have answers when you get lost. Not every interviewer is going to ask you the same questions, but they are all somewhat similar in what they are trying to learn about you.

You can make mistakes, mix up words as long as you recover from those moments. Be yourself and confident in yourself.