Bank of Abyssinia S.C. Interview Questions
Tell us how you keep your knowledge current with ongoing changes in the banking industry.
Answer: Due to the competition within the banking industry, Bank of Abyssinia S.C. strives to stay
relevant by adapting their products and services to meet customer needs. Consider reading some news
articles, press releases, or blogs, to learn more about the industry.
Tell me about a goal you achieved. What steps did you take to get there?
The banking industry offers a variety of opportunities to those who are motivated. Bank of Abyssinia S.C.
is seeking individuals who think about the future and aspire to be successful in everything they do. Think
about something you accomplished through hard work and dedication
Here at Bank of Abyssinia S.C., part of your job will entail talking to our customers about sensitive and
confidential information. How will you handle these situations if offered this position?
At times in this role, you will be required to discuss the confidential finances of customers and this will
happen during customer deposits, withdrawals and payments to the bank. When these situations
happen during times where the lobby is busy with other customers, you will be required to speak with
customers in a very quiet manner. As you answer this question, make sure that you reiterate that you
are aware of the sensitive nature of the transactions you will be working on with customers at Bank of
Abyssinia S.C. and talk about how you will go about ensuring that a customers private information is
kept private. If you have worked in situations that involved confidential material in the past, be sure to
talk about them as well.
To get to know what type of leader we'd be hiring at this branch of Bank of Abyssinia S.C., how would
you describe your management style?
With your interviewer looking to hear your thoughts on what type of leader you will be, make sure not
to use generic labels of different leadership styles. Rather, try and remain focused on your ability to
build and maintain an effective team based atmosphere as the success of any branch at Bank of
Abyssinia S.C. will rely on the Branch Manager's ability to do so. From there, talk about your specific
skills and abilities that will really be able to foster that team atmosphere to promote branch growth and
employee satisfaction moving into the future.
How do you build rapport with those that you work closely with?
What is your experience in managing an overall performance appraisal process for your staff?
How would you rate your comfort level receiving money and counting back many to our customers here
at Bank of Abyssinia S.C.?
At Bank of Abyssinia S.C., we are building a very team based culture. If hired for this position, what
would you be able to contribute to this team based culture?
Have you ever operated a currency counting machine or a coin counter?
If you were on the job here at Bank of Abyssinia S.C. and a customer came to you with a very odd
request that you did not know the answer to or how to solve, how would you handle that situation?
If a client here at Bank of Abyssinia S.C. were to be denied the financing that they desire, how would
you handle that situation?
Tell me about your education. How has it prepared you for this opportunity with Bank of Abyssinia S.C.?
How would you deal with an irate customer?
Talk about a time you had to communicate with a colleague or customer that was unhappy. What were
the keys to making the situation better for all involved?
Out of all of our products at Bank of Abyssinia S.C., which one would you be most likely to use? Why?
If hired for this role with Bank of Abyssinia S.C., how would you handle a large workload of clients
working through a mortgage process?
Walk me through your thought process when delegating responsibilities to others that you are
responsible for. What are the important factors that influence your decisions?
In this finance role with Bank of Abyssinia S.C., what do you feel would make for an ideal customer
experience?
What ideas could you bring to Bank of Abyssinia S.C. to help grow revenue in this branch?
What do you know about Bank of Abyssinia S.C.?
Our clients here at Bank of Abyssinia S.C. expect top-tier service and products and we will expect you to
do just that in this role. Have you ever went the extra mile for a client when it wasn't expected? Why did
you do so?
Talk about a time you had to handle failure at any point in your career. How did you handle that
situation and move forward with confidence?
Talk about a time where you felt overwhelmed by your job duties. What did you do to stay organized
and on track with everything happening?
In your opinion, what are the benefits of banking with Bank of Abyssinia S.C.?
What experience do you have working on an advanced phone system and what skills do you have that
you feel would be essential to work with our clients over the phone?
The clients of a financial firm like Bank of Abyssinia S.C. can display an arrange of emotions when they
work with our Client Services team. How would you handle a situation where a client was very angry?
What are your top three strengths? How will you use them to make an impact at Bank of Abyssinia S.C.?
It’s easy to get excited about the job prospects for Information Technology (IT)
professionals. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics projected a 12% growth rate in
IT jobs between 2018 and 2028, which translates to more than 545,000 new
positions. But a hot job market doesn’t mean you won’t get nervous about
preparing for job interviews—or that you don’t need to prepare.
Of course, you should make sure you’re ready to answer common interview
questions for any role. But don’t stop there. Below we’ve also outlined ten
questions you’ll likely face when interviewing for IT roles. You’ll learn the “whys”
behind the questions and get advice from IT hiring managers about what they
look for. There are also sample answers for each question to help make
preparing for your interview a breeze.
But first let’s talk about what roles fall under the IT umbrella.
What Is Information Technology (IT)?
A good way to visualize the role IT plays in companies is to think about the
function like a home’s key operating systems. Just like homes need electrical,
plumbing, heating, and air conditioning systems to make them functional,
companies need information technology systems to manage the flow of data and
operate their business.
“At the highest level,” says Adam Brooks, Technologist and Senior Manager of
Learning Delivery, Workflow Standards and Systems at Charter
Communications, “the IT function provides systems and tools that allow
employees to work efficiently and effectively and [allow] companies to report on
key aspects of the business.”
IT collaborates with most every business function—from accounting and
operations to human resources and supply chain management—to develop the
tools and processes to collect, store, manage, secure, and report upon
information necessary to run the business. Folks in IT often refer to colleagues in
other departments as internal clients and stakeholders. Sales data, inventory
management, order data, shipping addresses, payroll data, customer service
records, and accounts receivable data are all examples of the types of systems
IT works and consults on with business partners.
Typical jobs in IT include analysts, specialists, software developers, and
technical support reps. An analyst, for example, might consult on creating an
automated report to capture and sort sales data for an online retailer, working
with sales personnel and software engineers. Specialists can work on a variety of
systems and may be dedicated to certain areas such as payroll or accounts
receivable. Meanwhile, an IT software developer may create programs that
interface with vendors or suppliers to order new inventory when needed. Support
reps work directly with clients (both within and outside of the company they work
for) to troubleshoot system problems and answer questions about system tools.
What Are Interviewers Looking for When
Hiring for IT Roles?
While you’ll be asked questions surrounding technical requirements and
experience unique to specific roles in an interview, the collaborative nature of IT
means recruiters and hiring managers place a heavy emphasis on the ability to
work across business functions and collaborate with a team. Here are several
sought-after skills to be aware of as you prepare to answer IT interview
questions, so that you can emphasize them in your responses:
Effective Listening
“I’m always looking for candidates to demonstrate they’re good listeners, as
understanding others and translating that into action is a key component of
success in IT,” says Rene Daughtry, a solution services manager for Cisco’s
PMO Americas division. Understanding how coworkers use information and
manage data is an important part of any IT role.
Show that you’re attentive and will understand your colleague’s needs by being a
good listener in your interview. And when you think of stories to tell in your
interview, try to remember ones where you asked questions, sought examples,
and had clients to show you how they planned to use your work product.
Problem-Solving
“I want to see how candidates approach problems and situations, particularly
when they may not have all the information,” Brooks says. “Good problem
solvers know to look to others who may have faced similar challenges and seek
them out.” You can share these skills in your interview by talking about examples
of when you looked to others for help in approaching a problem you weren’t
familiar with.
If you’re an early career candidate and don’t have examples from past IT roles,
maybe it was the first time you drove a car with a stick shift or when you had to
use unfamiliar software to complete a class project. When the interview question
calls for it, you want to emphasize the approach you take in getting more
information and how you act upon it.
Hunger for Learning
With technologies and business needs evolving so rapidly, eagerness to learn is
a quality highly prized by IT hiring managers. “The interest and desire in
learning—about the business, the market we are in, the challenges we face, and
what technologies best support success—is critical for me,” Daughtry says.
Here are some of the questions you’ll be asked to try to uncover these qualities:
1. Tell Me About a Work Problem That Required a Complicated Solution and
How You Worked With Your Team to Resolve It.
2. What’s a New Software or Technology You Recently Worked With and
How Did You Come to Learn It?
3. What Do You Do When It Looks Like a Project You Are Working on Might
Miss a Deadline?
4. Tell Me About the Stakeholders and Internal Clients You Work With
Outside of IT and How Your Work Supports Overall Business Goals.
5. Tell Me About a Time When You Explained a Technical Process or
Concept to Someone Who Didn’t Have a Technical Background.
6. Can You Tell Me About a Project Where You Volunteered to Help or
Offered Support?
7. Can You Provide an Example of a Challenging Coworker Relationship?
How Did You Handle It?
8. Tell Me About a Work Product You Delivered That You’re Particularly
Proud Of.
9. What Tools and Strategies Do You Use to Organize and Prioritize Your
Work to Best Meet Team Goals, Expectations, and Deliverables?
10.
Why Do You Want to Work Here?
1. Tell Me About a Work Problem That
Required a Complicated Solution and How
You Worked With Your Team to Resolve It.
Hiring managers are exploring several skill sets with this question, which is a
favorite among IT interviewers. Problem-solving is the obvious one, but they’re
also hoping to learn about how you approach teamwork, collaboration, listening,
and communication with this question.
How to Answer:
“I’m less concerned with the ‘what’ behind their answer than the ‘how,’” says
Jeremy Child, Human Resources Director at LemonBrew Technologies. “I want
to hear how the candidate worked with other team members, how they made
certain they understood the problem, and how they personally contributed to the
solution.”
For behavioral questions where the process or story is as important as the
outcome (usually questions that start with things like “Tell me about a time
when…”, “Describe for me…”, “Give me an example when...”) try answering
using the STAR Method. STAR is an acronym that stands for:

Situation: Set the scene and give the necessary details.

Task: Describe what your responsibility was in that situation.

Action: Explain exactly what steps you took to address it.

Result: Share what outcomes your actions achieved.
By using this approach in your response, you’ll demonstrate focus and have
more opportunity to share specific skills.
Don’t be afraid to share a solution that didn’t initially work out. Persistence and
follow-up are valued in IT roles and showing determination in getting past
roadblocks is a plus.
Your response might be similar to this:
Situation: “I had a problem with a recent project when a software package didn’t
work as promised. The program was designed to support our sales team and
allow them to collect customer data, track contacts, and place and transfer orders
to our warehouse for shipment and billing. After we installed the software, orders
weren’t getting billed correctly.”
Task: “I was responsible for working directly with our sales team, the outside
software vendor, and our accounts receivable personnel to understand how the
data was collected and where the problem was. It turned out that the off-the-shelf
program didn’t capture certain data needed for billing and needed to be
customized.”
Action: “I met with each department to learn exactly what they needed. I brought
in the outside vendor to add custom data fields to their program to allow for
customer billing. My team updated the interface with accounts receivable, sales
began to collect additional tax and vendor ID information, and we fixed the
problem.”
Result: “We’re still using this software package today and the additional data
fields have helped to streamline billing. The time between an order being placed
and the company receiving payment has decreased by 50% on average.”
2. What’s a New Software or Technology
You Recently Worked With and How Did
You Come to Learn It?
Interviewers are looking for your level of technology exposure and understanding
here. But what’s most important is the “learning” component of this question.
How to Answer:
You’ll want to stress to your interviewer how you acquired your skills, whether
through school, vocational training, certification, previous jobs, or a combination
of these. If you had the opportunity to pick up new software knowledge or skills
as a result of a project you worked on, this question offers a great opportunity to
share that and explain how you’ve used the skills in practice.
“I’m interested in knowing how candidates apply what they’ve learned, not that
they simply have the knowledge,” says Brooks. With that in mind, you’ll want to
be sure to share how you’ve used the technology tools you’re familiar with.
One way to answer this might be:
“Last year my employer offered Microsoft 365 certification and I took advantage
of the opportunity to take the introductory classes. This certification is on cloud
computing and MS 365 is a widely used package, so I was anxious to add this to
my skill set. I was able to immediately apply what I learned and shared with my
boss a couple of recent upgrades where we could use the SharePoint
component of MS 365 to better connect with our remote locations. My boss
agreed and I was able to transition us over to SharePoint, which saved everyone
time and frustration and allowed us to complete every project more quickly than
before.”
3. What Do You Do When It Looks Like a
Project You Are Working on Might Miss a
Deadline?
“Finishing projects, especially ones with tight deadlines, is a challenge every IT
person faces,” Child says. “I ask this question to learn how the candidate
communicates with stakeholders and internal clients about delays or obstacles. It
also gives me a good feel for how they negotiate for more time or resources.”
How to Answer:
This is a good opportunity to show you understand how your work impacts
others. A good option to discuss is a time when you had to juggle your priorities
and work schedule to keep others from missing their deadlines. If you’re early in
your career and don’t have an IT-specific example, a story from another job or a
school project works too—as long as it showcases your communication and time
management skills.
This is another question where you might want to use the STAR Method to share
your example.
A good response might be:
“In school, I was assigned a project with three other classmates to create a basic
program for automating email reminders that professional services firms could
use with their clients. My role was to contact a dentist’s office, an accounting
office, and a law firm, interview their administrative staff, learn about their
appointment systems, and share findings with my team. They would then design
the software interface. I knew their work depended on me getting the needs
analysis done first. I rearranged my study schedule in order to do this quickly.
However, the law firm that initially agreed to meet with me had to cancel at the
last minute. Given the time it had taken to set up the first appointments and the
time I predicted my analysis would take, I realized that this would make it
impossible for the rest of my team to make the deadline.
“I quickly communicated this to my team and they said that a partial analysis
would help them get started and prevent us from missing the deadline. I
completed this while looking for another law firm. I asked my team if they had any
connections that might help with this and one team member was able to connect
me with their mother’s law firm so I could get the last interview done as soon as
possible.
“After completing the full analysis, I met with my team, shared my analysis, and
made myself available as they developed the interface. I was able to then take
prototypes to the firms I’d spoken to and see how they might use the tool we
created for them. By bringing the problem to my team immediately, I was able to
find out what would help them keep things on track, and by asking for their help, I
was able to find a solution to the original problem more quickly than if I’d tried to
solve it alone.”
4. Tell Me About the Stakeholders and
Internal Clients You Work With Outside of
IT and How Your Work Supports Overall
Business Goals.
With this question, hiring managers want to know you understand the support
role IT plays in assisting business operations. Whether it’s helping design a
customer service tracking system, creating a digital interface that will help your
company’s purchasing department pay vendors, or assisting your colleagues with
technical issues, you’re expected to have a broad understanding of how your
stakeholders use the tools you help create.
How to Answer:
Tell your interviewer how you work with teammates to learn what they do. Share
how you keep up with broader company goals and the current environment at
your organization both in terms of challenges and opportunities.
“It’s important to me that candidates know how their role fits into the larger goals
of the business,” Brooks says. “I listen for candidates to tell me about their
internal client relationships and how they work with them to design process
fixes.”
Your response might be like this:
“In my current role as a specialist, my internal client group is human resources. I
specifically work with the employee benefits department and am responsible for
collaborating with that team and the various insurance companies that provide
benefits. Each has different ways of collecting and reporting employee data. My
job is to make certain I understand how our systems capture that data, keep it
secure, and make it available to the insurers. This ensures that HR can smoothly
and easily support the staff and keep organized, accessible records without
worrying about security issues and that employees in other departments get the
benefits they need and can easily find information on them.”
5. Tell Me About a Time When You
Explained a Technical Process or Concept
to Someone Who Didn’t Have a Technical
Background.
“Often, nontechnical coworkers aren’t aware of [all the ways] technology can
transform manual work into something that can be automated,” Brooks says. So
this question explores your communication skills and ability to help others
understand processes and approaches that may be new yet ultimately helpful to
them.
How to Answer:
Here’s a great opportunity to use a story or example of how you took a new
concept, explained it to someone else, and saw that they “got it.” Maybe you
were able to put it in simple terms they could understand right away or maybe
you listened carefully to their questions to help you frame the explanation in a
way they could best understand. Interviewers want to know you can explain
technical concepts without using jargon, check for understanding, and gain buyin from others.
If you don’t have a specific work-related example, borrow a real-life example of a
time when you did something similar with a friend or family member.
You might use this type of response:
“When explaining technical concepts to my nontechnical colleagues, I think about
how I’d explain this to my dad. He really wanted to set up a website for his small
business, but didn’t have a lot of experience or familiarity with web design. I
helped him get started using a platform that does a lot of the coding work for you,
but he still wanted to understand how things worked behind the scenes.
“For each question, I broke it down using analogies—for example I compared
APIs to a restaurant menu. When there was still a disconnect, I’d sometimes pull
up introductory videos explaining a topic and watch them myself to see how
others would explain this same topic. Then I would sit down with him and show
him how things worked on the back end with these explanations in mind. This
helped him gain a fuller understanding of what a small business site could do and
got him excited about the possibilities.”
6. Can You Tell Me About a Project Where
You Volunteered to Help or Offered
Support?
Hiring managers like to see initiative in candidates. With this question, they’re
seeking to learn about your motivation and interest in going beyond what’s
required.
How to Answer:
Share not only when you volunteered, or for what, but also why. By explaining
your reasons and motivation for taking on new projects, you’re showing the
interviewer your enthusiasm for learning new things and helping others.
“I want self-starters on my team,” Daughtry says. In other words, he likes when
employees seek out opportunities to grow in their careers. “I like to hear about
instances where candidates volunteered to work on technology projects not just
to help out, but to gain new skills and make new relationships.”
A good response may be like this one:
“We have weekly ‘all-hands’ staff meetings with the entire IT department to brief
everyone on existing and upcoming projects. When I recently learned of a
software upgrade project coming up, I approached the project manager after the
meeting to see if I could join on. At my last company, we’d gone through a similar
upgrade, and I had learned a lot and saw this as an opportunity to both share my
experience and learn even more about how to implement this kind of process in a
much larger company. I was especially interested because the work was with the
sales department, which I hadn’t worked with much up to that point, and I saw it
as an opportunity to get a broader exposure to the business.”
7. Can You Provide an Example of a
Challenging Coworker Relationship? How
Did You Handle It?
Conflicts are inevitable at work, and this question explores your communication
and problem resolution skills. Brooks likes this question especially because it
reveals how staffers differentiate work issues from personal conflicts.
How to Answer:
While we all have a story about working with difficult people, it’s important here to
share how you de-escalated a situation rather than focusing on who was right or
wrong. It’s never a good look to throw coworkers, bosses, or companies under
the bus during an interview. So speak more to the concern expressed by your
coworker as opposed to their personality or behavior. It’s OK if you brought in
help, just be sure to to share why that was appropriate. Using the STAR method
here will make your response clear and specific.
You might say:
“One of my colleagues was going through a rough time outside of work and their
performance suffered as a result. We were working together on a project and I
was responsible for taking our work product directly to the internal client for
testing. My colleague often was late to meetings and missed deadlines for his
contribution, which left our client frustrated.
“I met with my colleague and asked him if there was anything I could to to help
him succeed while he was dealing with this issue in his personal life. He
acknowledged the issues and explained that he was having things come up at
the last minute that took him away from the office. So I offered to help him by
shifting some of the task work around to give him more scheduling flexibility.
These changes helped him to improve his performance, kept the project on track,
and made the internal client happy.”
8. Tell Me About a Work Product You
Delivered That You’re Particularly Proud Of.
Hiring managers want to hear about your successes and understand what you
see as big wins at work. It’s also a subtle way to learn about your style and see
how you collaborate with others to accomplish things.
How to Answer:
Here’s an opportunity for you to toot your horn a bit and show how your work
made a difference. “When I ask this question,” Child says, “I’m curious to see
how their work made a mark on the business. Did they add efficiencies by
reducing costs or time associated with the process? It’s a bonus if they see
beyond their project and show how their work was a win for the organization.”
A visual aid could come in handy here. If you have one that showcases your
work, you might want to bring it with you to the interview in case the situation
calls for it. For example, you may have a “before” and “after” of a report you
redesigned or screenshots that show how you streamlined an internal scheduling
process. (Just make sure you’re not sharing any confidential information.)
A good response might sound like this:
“I support a field office that developed a special commission schedule for their
salespeople. Unlike other offices, these employees represent multiple product
lines with different commission structures. I worked with the office to create a
custom incentive program that pulled data from their sales and assigned different
commissions based on which product line was sold. It was a custom program
that made it easier for the sales team to predict their monthly compensation.
“The program was a big hit with the manager and her team. The increased
visibility ended up motivating the sales team to make more sales and earn higher
commissions. It was great to see how my behind-the-scenes work not only
helped my colleagues perform better and earn more, but also brought in more
revenue for the company.”
9. What Tools and Strategies Do You Use
to Organize and Prioritize Your Work to
Best Meet Team Goals, Expectations, and
Deliverables?
IT by nature involves a lot of project planning, testing, and evaluation. This
question is asked to learn about your exposure to project management software,
your experience with meeting deadlines, and your process for staying updated on
project status.
How to Answer:
Share specific project management tools you’ve worked with and how you use
them. You can also share with your interviewer what other strategies you use to
work smoothly and productively with your colleagues and supervisors.
You might say something like:
“We use the Productboard product management software in my current job. I
wasn’t initially familiar with it but was eager to learn a new tool when I started.
Our team has a brief ‘huddle’ each morning to go over the plan for the day. This
gives me an opportunity to share where I’m at and if I need anything from others
or they need anything from me. I’ve become comfortable enough with
Productboard that I can quickly check the status of everything in progress before
I go into the huddle so I go in prepared.”
10. Why Do You Want to Work Here?
Interviewers use this question to see if you’ve done your homework on their
business and the industry. It’s also a check on your interest in the work and the
company’s culture. Basically this question asks: Are you looking for any job or do
you really want this job at this company?
How to Answer:
Be genuine and authentic in your response. This question gives you the
opportunity to show what matters to you and how excited you are about the job.
So share what you’ve learned in your research and show your interviewer why
you want to work at their company specifically.
How do you do your research? You’ll often find a “media” or “press” tab on
company websites that share recent news. Another underused source is
company job listings: What other kinds of jobs are they hiring for beyond the one
you’re interviewing for? This can tell you about their growth areas. The
company’s social media posts are a great source for breaking news and can also
give you a sense of the kind of culture they have. You can also, of course, check
to see if the company has a Muse profile.
Your response will be highly specific to the company and what matters to you,
but one response may look like this:
“I saw on The Muse that you were also hiring for new positions on the West
Coast to support your new operations there. I did some more reading about the
new data center you’re building there and that excites me as I know this means
there’ll be opportunities to train new teammates. I also learned through a Wall
Street Journal article that you’re expanding in Mexico as well. I speak Spanish
fluently and would be eager to step up and help liaise whenever necessary.”