During a phone screen or interview, you'll most likely be asked about your responsibilities in your most recent position. It's important for hiring managers to know your contributions to your previous company to see how you will fit into their organization. Therefore, when answering this question, you'll want to show the interviewer how your past experience will translate to future success with their company.
Sell Yourself While Being Honest
It might be tempting to exaggerate your past experience to seem like the most qualified candidate, however, this can cause major problems. When performing a reference check, if the interviewer were to find you have embellished, you could be removed from consideration for the job. Instead, truthfully sell your responsibilities to the interviewer, while relating them to responsibilities for the role. Remember to relate larger responsibilities in the scope of the company as a whole, rather than focusing on your day-to-day, routine tasks.
Be Relevant to the Position
When describing your past responsibilities, it's important to relate them to the requirements of the role. By specifically tailoring your answers to address the role's requirements, you can prove that you have the qualifications needed to succeed in the role and contribute to the success of the company.
Don't Rely on Your Resume
Finally, don't read off your resume when talking about your past responsibilities. The interviewer has already seen this and resumes tend to include only general responsibilities and achievements. In the interview, you should go into more detail about specific responsibilities (though, skip over daily duties) and how you performed them, and their importance to the overall business.
Example:
You're interviewing for a customer support role that required excellent communications skills, experience providing service over the phone and knowledge of Microsoft Excel.
Poor answer: "I answered answer customers' questions over the phone and though email."
Good answer: "As a Customer Service Representative at one of the nation's largest cable providers, we had hundreds of requests daily. While some matters involved relatively standard assistance, many others required a high amount of care and attention. My responsibilities included answering customer requests via phone and email, upselling customers to more robust plans, and updating customers' most current contact information and adjusting their accounts, all while upholding our standard of excellent customer service. I logged any issues that surfaced into a database and forwarded those issues to our product team for investigation. In addition, I updated and maintained the schedules of our support technicians who traveled to the homes of our customers to provide cable set up and technical assistance. All customer requests were taken care of swiftly and accurately, leading the company to receive higher customer service ratings than our competitors."
Be prepared to answer this question in interviews, because employers will ask it to verify your qualifications and determine how well you will fit into the organization. By adding detail and description to your responsibilities, taking into account the requirements of the position you're interviewing for, and selling yourself without embellishing, you will "wow" potential employers and stand out against the competition.
http://blog.simplyhired.com/2011/02/interview-question-what-were-your-responsibilities-in-your-last-job.html
Sell Yourself While Being Honest
It might be tempting to exaggerate your past experience to seem like the most qualified candidate, however, this can cause major problems. When performing a reference check, if the interviewer were to find you have embellished, you could be removed from consideration for the job. Instead, truthfully sell your responsibilities to the interviewer, while relating them to responsibilities for the role. Remember to relate larger responsibilities in the scope of the company as a whole, rather than focusing on your day-to-day, routine tasks.
Be Relevant to the Position
When describing your past responsibilities, it's important to relate them to the requirements of the role. By specifically tailoring your answers to address the role's requirements, you can prove that you have the qualifications needed to succeed in the role and contribute to the success of the company.
Don't Rely on Your Resume
Finally, don't read off your resume when talking about your past responsibilities. The interviewer has already seen this and resumes tend to include only general responsibilities and achievements. In the interview, you should go into more detail about specific responsibilities (though, skip over daily duties) and how you performed them, and their importance to the overall business.
Example:
You're interviewing for a customer support role that required excellent communications skills, experience providing service over the phone and knowledge of Microsoft Excel.
Poor answer: "I answered answer customers' questions over the phone and though email."
Good answer: "As a Customer Service Representative at one of the nation's largest cable providers, we had hundreds of requests daily. While some matters involved relatively standard assistance, many others required a high amount of care and attention. My responsibilities included answering customer requests via phone and email, upselling customers to more robust plans, and updating customers' most current contact information and adjusting their accounts, all while upholding our standard of excellent customer service. I logged any issues that surfaced into a database and forwarded those issues to our product team for investigation. In addition, I updated and maintained the schedules of our support technicians who traveled to the homes of our customers to provide cable set up and technical assistance. All customer requests were taken care of swiftly and accurately, leading the company to receive higher customer service ratings than our competitors."
Be prepared to answer this question in interviews, because employers will ask it to verify your qualifications and determine how well you will fit into the organization. By adding detail and description to your responsibilities, taking into account the requirements of the position you're interviewing for, and selling yourself without embellishing, you will "wow" potential employers and stand out against the competition.
http://blog.simplyhired.com/2011/02/interview-question-what-were-your-responsibilities-in-your-last-job.html
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