I arrived about 30 minutes early, sat in the lobby and just playing notes in my head on things I want to make sure I cover…

• Meet and greet, quick ice-breaker about weather (foggy day) and she explained that interview will be 30 min, including time for me to ask questions; I handed over my transcript.

Questions:

1. Any updates since you submitted your app? (I talked about a recent promotion)
2. Give me an example of a situation when expectations were not met (talked about a personal situation that I solved)
3. Give me a personal goal you have set or are working on (talked about working out, had some fun chit chat about dessert)
4. Proudest accomplishment (talked about a presentation at work I made to the senior management; I pulled out a copy of the ppt, she did not seem too interested so not sure if that helped or not)
5. Greatest risk taken (talked about my immigration process, then digressed to talk about my family and shared some common background)
6. Tell me when you had a challenging conversation (talked about a meeting at work)
7. Tell me about someone you had difficulty communicate with (talked about a distant co-worker)
8. Tell me when you had to resolve a conflict between two people (talked about managing/preventing conflict among my direct reports)
9. What do you do outside of work (talked about modeling)
10. My turn to ask questions, finished in 30 minutes on the dot.

I thought I would only get through 5-6 questions but our conversation went very smoothly so we ended up covering a lot, she did not follow up on any of my questions though… I almost used all of my prepared examples and had to come up with a few on the spot. So lesson learned is to always have plenty stories in case they really tackle a specific category of questions! My interviewer was somewhat poker-faced in the beginning and at the end, but she did relax and laugh with me during our conversation. So hopefully all went well and I’ll hear back soon!