Tough Interview Questions: Your Boss Thinks an Idea is Great. You Don’t. What Do You Do? | JobSearchTV.com
By Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter
Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter offers 3 ways to answer this tough interview question, ” Your boss thinks they have a great idea. You think it stinks. What would you do?”
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I’ve got another 1 of those tough interview questions designed to make you squirm. Okay, here is the scenario. So, you are in HR and they ask you this question.
Your boss has an idea that they think is spectacular. You think it stinks. What, do you do?
This is an interesting question because the answer may be different in different cultures. I’m going to answer it with a US-centric approach; in other cultures,
the answer may be, “ I do whatever my boss tells me to do.
In the US, you have to texture it in a different way.. We will start off with, “I think that’s a really good idea. In other organizations I’ve worked in, 1 of the things my management valued was the ability to critique ideas, pros, and cons, or to see if we could poke holes in the idea in order to brainstorm situations. Because as good as it sounds, there invariably are pros and cons to each situation. So, would you mind if we spent a little bit of time evaluating it from the 360 perspectives and maybe bring a couple of other people into the process?”
“Nah!. I don’t want to bring someone else into this.”
“I want to support you here making this idea be able to be executed effectively. Can I point out a couple of things that come to mind that I’m sure you thought about, but, just to be on the safe side, I want to make sure that you have considered them?”
That is a smooth approach, where you’re not being confrontational, where you are representing yourself in a way that is very supportive.
Again, I offered one cultural difference approach. Another cultural difference approach, and this can work with certain types of firms in the US that you are going to interview with as well, but the idea would be, “I don’t really care for the idea. Here is what I do like about it. This is where I think it misses. This is what I see you could do with it, but, as presented now, this isn’t going to fly.
So, again, 3 different perspectives. The middle one is the most textured one and is designed to be less confrontational. The 1st 1 is very subservient. It fits in certain types of cultures and, the 3rd 1, is the one that is no BS.
Again, I don’t know the firm that you are interviewing with. I’m posing these answers as 3 different alternatives to the question, “Your boss has an idea that they think is spectacular. You think it stinks. What do you do?”
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ABOUT JEFF ALTMAN, THE BIG GAME HUNTER
Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter is a coach who worked as a recruiter for what seems like one hundred years. He is hired to provide No BS Career Advice globally. That can involve job search, hiring staff, management, leadership, career transition and advice about resolving workplace issues. Schedule a discovery call at my website, www.TheBigGameHunter.us
He is the host of “No BS Job Search Advice Radio,” the #1 podcast in iTunes for job search with over 2500 episodes.
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