Job Interview Done Well

hi nicole hello prudence nice to meet you nice to meet you as well welcome to the interview thank you thank you for having me i'm excited to be here great um before we start talking more about the details of the job um can you tell me a little bit about yourself sure um well i am fairly early on in my va career but extremely enthusiastic i recently completed an eight-week full-time intensive program with african leadership accelerator um specifically to train me to become a va it was a very intensive program and comprehensive some of the

key highlights that we covered were a deep dive into google workspace so that includes docs sheets slides forms google drive gmail google calendar and then we covered soft skills like communication collaboration and time management and we also covered and practiced a lot of the most common va skills so things like arranging travel transport booking accommodation managing entry and exit requirements for different countries we covered meeting agendas and taking appropriate notes in a meeting we also covered data entry and completed a comprehensive data entry task as well as project management and it was a very hands-on

applied program so we got a lot of practical experience doing that so that's kind of about me recently and some other things i might tell you about me are that i'm a highly analytical person and extremely organized and focused on details and so i'm really excited about tackling va work it was exciting to hear and just to listen about the course that you've been undertaking seems like it empowers you to be good at becoming a va so talking about this role that you are applying for can you tell me why you think you are a

perfect fit well i was really excited when i saw the ad which was on linkedin about a week ago because it specifically mentioned social media management and i have a particular interest in growing my strength and social media management i've done a lot of informal social media management on a volunteer basis for a couple of performing artists that i know and are in my network and i've managed their campaigns and seen 300 increase in their followers over just a few weeks of my work with them so i have a specific interest in developing that further

and that really called me about this particular role also i really liked that it mentioned uh booking travel and doing data entry because i've had some experience with that and and that has come easy to me and i enjoy it so i'm i'm looking forward to doing more of that kind of work as well tell me more about your current role um and what do you do what are the top three skills that you use every day yeah so right now i am volunteering for a local politician she is the mayor of a small town

and i care a lot about my community and wanted to gain some experience so i have been for the past four months volunteering in our office and it's been such a rich experience i have been handed so many different kinds of tasks to do and it's been so exciting to like be given something new and and not necessarily know right away exactly what's needed but to figure it out you know so for example she said she needed to communicate with 3 000 people in her constituency okay so one i didn't know what the word constituency

meant at the time she said it so i immediately googled it and found the context and made sure i really understand what that meant and then i went back to her and redefined the problem as i understood it to make sure that i really knew what she wanted and she was like yep you got it right on so i was like great and then i developed two different possible strategies for how we could communicate one was more of a digital strategy and one was a physical letter writing campaign and i listed out some pros and

cons of each one and i brought it brought it to her and she made the call that she wanted to go with the letter writing one and so then i was then put in charge of executing that and we had to develop a prioritized list and make sure we had accuracy on everybody's physical address and we got out this campaign and we had a huge response rate over 80 percent of the people who received the letter responded to us in the way that we had asked them to do so it was it was a really

exciting experience it does it sounds really enriching which would lead me to my next question why would you leave such a role for what we're offering here what's your motivation you know i do really love the work that i'm doing and i'm learning so much and i'm so grateful for the experience i really desire to grow in my career and i'm looking for a job that will give me an opportunity to learn as much as possible to expand my skill set to challenge me to give me something that um you know i can really sink

my teeth into and it really seems like this particular role especially with its focus on social media campaigns would be a great opportunity for me to do that i like what you've said about growth and learning on the other end what do you think you can contribute to this role yeah well i can give you a couple of key things um one is that i am very resourceful and i feel that my strength lies in figuring out things that other people have kind of given up on or feel like it's too hard like i am

gritty like i persevere and i will find a way if there is one and i like solving difficult problems so the the example i gave of this campaign of how to communicate with constituents like i figured out how to do that and i'm also not afraid to fail so um we can't know everything and i will always give my very best and to to vet my solutions um but in the event that something doesn't work out i'm very quick to humbly absorb that learn from it and try again um so i would say you know

to summarize that particular skill it's like a a resourceful problem-solving perseverant skill um another skill is that i'm very good with numbers and spreadsheets specifically so i'm good at making pivot tables graphs and charts that illustrate in ways that people can understand and you know see we have a data set i i love working with those numbers and converting you know raw numbers in a spreadsheet into a visual format that people can look at quickly and understand comprehensively what's happening with their data i love telling a story visually with numbers so that would be the

second one um the third one is i really enjoy working with people and i feel like relationship with your teammates is one of the most important things you have i value that i value getting feedback i value keeping relationships positive and and love working with people from a diverse variety of backgrounds and figuring out how we can all lend our our different strengths to create something create a team that's really solid right um you preempted one of my questions which had to do with your response to failure for you know how do you handle failure

and you've just spoken to it really well so my next question for you would be um the last time you found yourself in a conflict situation how did you manage that oh that's a great question i'm glad you asked that the first thing that comes to my mind is um a minor conflict i had with this mayor who i was volunteering for um she was under the impression that she had told me that a certain set of documents needed to be delivered by a certain time the next day and for whatever reason i didn't receive

that information correctly i don't know if she misspoke or i miss her doesn't really matter but what does matter is i failed to deliver the documents at the time she had intended they get there and so she was a little upset with me um and you know i i feel like i handled it pretty well i first i just apologized and and i reflected back to her that it was really important that the documents show up at a certain time and they didn't get there so i i just sent an email to the recipient and

apologized for my error and not getting getting it there on time i'm not sure if it was my er or not but it doesn't really matter i was i was just wanting to make it right so i you know sent an email and i apologized and um you know they were gracious about it and then i i also asked the mayor if we could set up a system in the future that i could just confirm with her um times and so i actually created a spreadsheet with the different tasks that she needed and the dates

and times and then um every night i just let her know if there's any been any updates so um and since since we implemented that system we haven't had any miscommunications so i feel like we navigated it really successfully and grew from it i like hearing how you owned up to the mistake whether it was yours or your teams but you represented your team as a whole and all that to that mistake and i like how you took initiative to set up a system that you can use in future so my next question is working

with the mayor um for a city or a town you are exposed to a lot of information some of it's sensitive how do you manage that um just handling sensitive information i take that very seriously you know for example one document that has information that potentially is sensitive and i don't want to share any more because even to disclose that might be a violation and i just i always err on the side of caution but with this sensitive information i created a document and made sure it was password protected and only i and three other

people who the mayor identified specifically as trusted individuals have access to that file and that password um so you know and i'm always looking for other ways to make sure that our that our information is definitely safeguarded it's it's really important to me right and and i'm guessing that working with the mayor um you do have a few altercations here and there seeing that you know she's high profile tell me more about that you know what i think she's a really wonderful person i i think that she has a very difficult job and certainly she's

under stress at certain times and you know there are times where she kind of loses patience um but i i really understand why that would be the case um and so i try to support her as best i can and i appreciate her work ethic i appreciate that she cares so much about what she does and it's really an honor for me to to support her i've really enjoyed working for her i've learned a lot from her so nicole other than the course that you so highly talked about and the few weeks experience with the

mayor you don't seem to have any other experience um so why should we hire you for this position i would probably be asking the same thing um and i i recognize that when you're hiring someone who's fairly early on in their career you're taking on a little bit more risk so i appreciate the fact that you are interviewing me and giving me a shot what i can tell you is that i'm extremely committed to this career path and i'm excited and enthusiastic about it and i do feel like i've gained a considerable number of foundational

skills that will allow me to hit the ground running my technological skills so i've got um proficiency in this seven different google workspace apps i've done a few projects really showing my skill and demonstrating my skill in terms of booking travel i have my volunteer experience for doing social media and my volunteer experience for the mayor and i feel like that's really equipped me with this solid foundation so that i'm ready to continue expanding and i'm excited to prove myself if you hire me over someone else who maybe has a little bit more experience i

can promise you that you will see my energy and enthusiasm and my eagerness to demonstrate my value and make myself indispensable as part of your team your eagerness and enthusiasm for this role can be seen through our conversation i know earlier you mentioned that you had to give your current employer one month notice but we need somebody immediately um to start within the next week um would you be able to do that i understand to make sense that you'd want somebody to start right away i do feel a commitment to my my current volunteer opportunity

i did tell them that i would give them one month notice and it's important to me that i honor that so i'm wondering if we might find a creative solution so i would be willing to work 10 hours a week starting immediately and another thing i'd be willing to do is to talk to the mayor's office and see if they might let me taper off the last few weeks so that i could ramp up more with you and ramp down more fully with them i can't promise right now without having spoken to them that they

would allow that but i've seen a couple other people do something similar and i think given you know how grateful that they are for the quality of work i've done that they'd be willing to work with me so um i hope that we could find a creative solution where i can start adding value right away and then very quickly come up to full time i fully respect your thought pattern there and it is important to conclude your contract on a good note should we take this further i think we can talk about it some more

and see how best we could do it i think i've exhausted my questions for you here do you have anything to ask me about abs or this position yes i definitely do um so i saw that last year abs was involved in a campaign around spaying and neutering pets and i thought that was so cool because i'm a pet lover and um i'm just curious do you think that the company will be doing anything more on efforts around animal welfare great question nicole and it's good to see that you've been doing a bit of research

about abs yes we do have some efforts in the pipeline there is a team i would love for you to meet um and you can talk to them more about that um but animal welfare is top priority for abs and should you join us then maybe you could spend a few of your hours supporting those teams responsible for animal loans oh that would be so exciting right um i do have one other question for you yes i am open to working remotely or working in the office you know both have their pros and cons but

i'm curious if you have a sense of what percentage of the work might take place remotely versus what percentage might take place in person great thank you for asking that question um because most people assume um i do believe that 80 or more of the work will be online um we might have moments during the euro where we need the teams to all come together um just to build camaraderie and for some annual conferences that we have and those we can discuss um you know should you join the team but normally that's like once or

twice a year for a period of like two weeks max um where you need to be in person i hope that answers you yeah it does thank you that's that's really helpful and that would that would work very well for me so that's good to know i have one more question for you if you don't mind sure sure gladly go ahead okay so my my question is um would i be reporting directly to you and if yes what are the two or three most important qualities you've had in past administrative assistants that you've really valued

another great question um you will not be reporting directly to me you'll be reporting to the digital content manager whom you'll meet in the second round of these interviews if you are successful um from what i've seen and from discussions um the most important qualities for this role one is somebody who's willing to learn we will give you a lot of tasks that you have not been exposed to but if you are resourceful and you have a learning mindset i do think that you would succeed in the position secondly we need somebody who's tech savvy

and able to navigate the social media space as the role title already gives away that this has to do with social media and you've spoken a little bit about that already and then lastly we need somebody who's a good team player you will not be working in a silo there are other people involved and we need somebody who can communicate and share information with the team and also collaborate well with others wow thank you so much that really gives me a fuller picture of the role and it also stokes my enthusiasm because i feel like

those are three strengths that that i that i bring i'm very learning oriented and growth oriented i've got strong tech skills especially on the social media and i really do enjoy working with diverse teams and feel really strongly about the importance of healthy well-functioning teams so that makes me even more excited about the role thank you for sharing that you're most welcome nicole it's been a pleasure meeting you um i look forward to our next conversation and just thank you for taking time to interview with us today oh thank you so much prudence it's been

wonderful to meet with you and talk with you and i really hope to hear from you soon you