“Problem Solving Interview Question” Please respond to the following:
Respond to this typical interview question: Explain a specific example in which you utilized problem solving strategies to resolve a problem in the real world.
Also, respond to this question: I have a mountain that I need to move from point A to point B. How would you do it?
Expert Answer
Explain a specific example in which you utilized problem solving strategies to resolve a problem in the real world.
There are many instances where I used the problem solving abilities to tackle a real time problem. I am quoting one example here among many I have during my 5 year career span of recruitment. I am an operation manager and suddenly I noticed that there is low quality work is being done by my team. I tried to check with my team but they are doing as per the guideline but still I receive so many client escalations.
With growing escalations I keep on checking the situation with my team ( group of team leads) but they assure that entire team is working fine and all the training which are being provided to the end user are perfect.
Problem solving strategy: I, then decide to meet each and every individual on the workplace who are on the Individual contributor level to know the root cause of this lowering of the quality.
I met around 25 of my employees who are the end doers and are actually executing the tasks. To my surprise there is lots of gaps between what I used to know from my managers and what they have told me.The training module with which they are working is not up to mark and there were no changes in them as per the customer /client guideline but I was given impression that everything was perfect by my set of team leaders.
So I identify the problem and ask for an immediate meeting, given warning to the faulty managers, updated the guideline and handover this to the team and started a complaint forum which is directly being looked by me.
Solution: Within 3 days, quality gets back on track.
Q2: Also, respond to this question: I have a mountain that I need to move from point A to point B. How would you do it?
As nothing is clear about the mountain, I can further ask few questions:
- How much size of the mountain is?
- Where it is located?
- What are the resources you are giving me to do this work?
- What kind of technology assistance will be provided to me?
- What will be the time frame of doing this?
- And last How far is the Point A and Point B
I will tell the interviewer that though movement of a mountain is practically not possible but can you define what is the mountain you are talking about? Is this a real mountain or you have named something as mountain?