UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON Facilities Services Foundational Values - Interview Questions 1. If you are selected as a finalist for this position, we will be calling on your work references. What do you expect they will say about your safety habits, technical skill level, and ability to get along with others? 2. What are some of the more challenging aspects of your current job and how do you handle them? 3. After having reviewed the job description, what parts of this job will be the most difficult for you? 4. Tell us about some of your accomplishments of which you are especially proud. 5. Please describe one or two of your most important accomplishments in your last position. 6. Describe the expectations your supervisor should have of you. 7. Why do you want to work at the University of Washington? 8. Please tell us why you want to work at the UW and what skills or qualities you would bring or add to this position? 9. How does this position fit with your overall career goals? 10. In considering your abilities, what area(s) do you need to improve? 11. What will your references say are your strongest and weakest trade skills? 12. How would you describe your learning style—do you prefer to read manuals, attend training classes, and receive one-on-one training? Please explain. 13. What three words would you use to describe the attributes/qualities of an effective crew? 14. What was your least favorite position and why? 15. What do you like most/least about your present job? 16. What are your long-term career goals? 17. What specific kind of work do you most enjoy doing and least enjoy doing? 18. What training have you had to improve your work knowledge, skills and abilities related to this job? 19. What motivates you to be productive and do quality work? 20. How do you keep up-to-date with new developments/technology in your trade? 21. What type of environment do you work best in and why? 22. What motivates you to do the best job you can do? 23. What does the word “integrity” mean to you? Sensitivity to Diversity 24. Briefly explain how you would promote and support diversity in the workplace. 25. What do you consider to be the most important skills for successfully working with diverse people and cultures and why? 26. Explain what valuing diversity in the workplace means to you and give us an example of your experience working in and with a culturally and ethnically diverse group. 27. Please tell us about a specific situation where you had to get something across to someone that he or she found difficult to understand. 28. Give us an example of a difficult communication issue you have encountered, how you dealt with it, and what you would have done differently if you could do it over again. 29. Describe your past experience in working in a culturally diverse work environment. 30. If you observe behavior that you know to be unacceptable in the workplace, such as racially or sexually inappropriate language, how would you respond to the situation? 31. Have you ever experienced any problems in working harmoniously with people who have backgrounds and interests that are different from yours? If so, how did you handle the situation? 32. What would you do if you witnessed an incident of harassment by one employee to another? 33. What have you done in the past three years to build your skills for working in a diverse work environment? 34. In your past positions, what have you done to ensure a work environment that values diversity and is all-inclusive? 35. What is the most important thing you have learned about working in a diverse work environment? 36. Give an example of a diverse work force that got along well. To what do you attribute their success? 37. Describe your best experience working with a diverse group of people. 38. How do cultural differences effect the work environment? 39. In a culturally diverse work environment, what have you done to ensure that everyone is treated the same? 40. How do you effectively communicate with others? 41. UW work crews are usually quite diverse. Please describe how you have interacted with a co-worker or client who speaks a different language or doesn’t understand your message. Relationships with Supervisor 42. Briefly explain what you expect from your supervisor and what kind of supervision you work best under and brings out your best work. 43. How do you handle criticism from a supervisor? 44. Give us an example of a time a supervisor critiqued your work and how you responded. 45. Describe an incident in which you disagreed with your supervisor and how it was resolved. 46. Describe the best supervisor you’ve worked for and what made him/her the best and also describe the worst supervisor you’ve worked for and what made him/her the worst. 47. Tell us about a time when you strongly disagreed with a decision your supervisor made. What did you do? 48. What characteristics distinguish a good employee from an average employee? 49. How do you feel about receiving work assignments and taking directions from a lead who may be less experienced than you, or from a supervisor who may not have any technical experience in your field? How would you go about working out the differences? 50. How would you react if you felt that your lead/supervisor gave you direction that was not correct or efficient, and what if you were told to follow the direction anyway? 51. Describe your expectations of an effective working relationship between you and your lead or supervisor. 52. When you present your supervisor with work-related problems, how do you assist him or her in resolving them? 53. Do you prefer to have some input in decision making with regards to your work, or would you prefer to be given a firm work plan to follow? Why? 54. What do you consider a successful employee-supervisor relationship? 55. What do you do when no procedure exists for a job you’ve been assigned? 56. Describe a situation in the past where you made a mistake and your supervisor made you aware of it. What was your response? 57. Describe an occasion when your work or an idea was criticized and how you responded. 58. What do you do when you are assigned a task that you don’t want to do? 59. What do you do when you’re given directions you don’t like? 60. What do you do when you’re assigned a job that others didn’t want to do? 61. What do you do when you’re held accountable for someone else’s mistakes? 62. Describe a time when you had a problem with your supervisor and had to talk to him or her about it. 63. Describe a situation in which your supervisor was upset with the way you did something. How did you respond? 64. What are some of the things that you and your supervisor have disagreed about and how were they resolved? 65. How do you keep your supervisor informed regarding work issues? 66. What would you do if your supervisor gave you a new task, but didn’t provide any training on how to safely perform the job? 67. Your supervisor has explained to you twice on how to use a new piece of equipment, but you still don’t understand. What do you do? 68. What do you expect from your manager or supervisor? 69. How do you effectively communicate with others? 70. What do you do if you hear a rumor about your lead or supervisor? 71. When you have tried to talk with your supervisor about a concern but the supervisor brushed you off, what did you do? What else could you have done? Supervisory Skills 72. What kind of supervision do you work best under and why? 73. How do you determine if the level of communication you establish with your supervisor/manager is adequate? 74. How would you react if you felt that your supervisor or manager gave you direction that was not correct or efficient, and what if you were told to follow the direction anyway? 75. Two employees come to you about a verbal disagreement. One says the incident happened one way, and the other employee has a different story. There are no other witnesses. What will you do? 76. You have an exemplary employee who suddenly starts coming in late. How will you handle this situation? 77. How important do you think attendance and punctuality are and why? 78. An employee complains that you gave another employee a benefit that the complaining employee did not receive and that this is not fair. How will you handle this situation? 79. What do you believe your role should be in correcting performance and other work related problems? 80. What do you believe a supervisor’s role is in motivating his or her crew? 81. How would you go about motivating a work crew? 82. During an employee’s performance evaluation, the employee suddenly slams his fist on the table and starts to berate you. How will you handle the situation? 83. Why do you want to become a lead/supervisor? 84. What do you believe are lead or supervisor responsibilities? 85. What is the most important quality a lead/supervisor should have? 86. Describe your leadership style. 87. What qualities do you look for in selecting new employees? 88. You assign two employees to a two-person job. One of the employees complains to you that they do not want to work with the other person because they are bossy, they do not do good work and that they never get back from breaks on time. What do you do? 89. How would you go about getting employees involved in developing solutions to workplace problems? 90. What work have you assigned to other people and what follow-up did you provide? 91. What would you do if an employee didn’t do the work as you instructed? 92. What do you find most rewarding or gives you the most satisfaction about leading or supervising others? 93. As a lead/supervisor, what is needed to ensure that a crew has assignments and is ready to start work on time? 94. How do you ensure that employees under your direction follow the University of Washington rules and regulations? 95. What would you do if an employee refused to follow your directions? 96. An employee has a tendency to criticize your particular methods of work. As a lead or supervisor, how do you deal with this? 97. You have an employee who is consistently late getting to the job site, takes long breaks, and leaves the job site or shift early. What do you do? 98. What do you think is the most effective method of maintaining shop discipline and support for departmental objectives? 99. In planning the work to be done by your crew, would you separate marginal employees from the better, or would you try to work them together and why? 100. When you assign work to your crew, how do you determine who should do each job? 101. If one of your employees used all the allotted time for a job, and it basically conformed to the requirements of the codes and the requesting department, but you felt it was of poor quality, what would you do? 102. You go out to a job to find that the work you expected to be accomplished has not been done and the craftsmanship is poor. What would you say to the people working on the job? 103. Describe your experience in dealing with the poor performance of employees who report to you. 104. You have just given an employee a poor performance evaluation. The employee is upset and strongly disagrees with you. What do you do? 105. Give an example of a situation in which you managed or led a work group and were able to create a high morale and high productivity team. 106. Describe a time when you had difficulty getting others to work together and how you handled it. 107. Describe a situation where you were successful in directing the work of others. 108. What was the most difficult decision you’ve had to make as a supervisor/lead? Explain what happened. 109. Describe your experience monitoring work to ensure deadlines are met. 110. How have you ensured compliance with instructions, procedures, standards and the quality of workmanship of those you have led/supervised? 111. Have you led or supervised any employees with performance problems? What did you do to correct the problems? 112. An employee recently received a poor performance evaluation. Since that time he/she has developed a negative attitude. What do you do? 113. How do you effectively communicate with others? 114. Explain how a supervisor can establish effective communications with staff members. 115. What are some good guidelines to keep in mind when directing employees? 116. In what instances are written communications better than verbal communications? 117. How do you deal with employees who abuse the break policy? 118. Please give an overview of your experience supervising others. 119. How do you know when you have effectively communicated with people you supervise? 120. What do you think is the most difficult aspect of supervising others? 121. What do you do when a rumor about one of your employees is brought to your attention? 122. How do you motivate people to perform the best that they can? 123. How does a lead/supervisor set the tone in the workplace? 124. How do you prepare for a performance correction meeting with an employee? 125. What does the word “integrity” mean to you? 126. How do you verify the accuracy of time slips submitted by your employees? 127. Tell us about any experience you have had where you were responsible for signing off on employees’ time slips and leave requests. 128. Describe your experience checking the quality and quantity of employee’s work. 129. What responsibilities have you had for ensuring that jobs are completed as specified in work requests?