INTERVIEW WITH YOUR WORK PLACE

It is said that Ernest Hemingway liked to make sketches to his works in Parisian cafes. Mikhail Bulgakov often lit candles in his work room for inspiration. Honore de Balzac drank up to twenty cups of strong coffee per day to keep his creative mood going. Each of us has his own work habits.

Sometimes your work place influences your career developement. Your desk in a way describes your personality. Even though hasty interpretation of a personality based on your desk is unacceptable this kind of interpretation sometimes does take place. For example, if you have a messy table, one can assume that you do business in an undisciplined way. It might actually not be true. What if each piece of paper or a folder is on its shelf? Would it mean that you have no other work to do but tidy your desk? Or are you so accurate that you are able not only to manage your work but also to keep your space clean? Be aware of these issues when you work on your career.

As computers today are massively used in our works for many of you the work space has fully moved to the virtual world. Your computer is your work place. If so, how much time do you need to find a document in the memory of your laptop? Do you use an organizer program? How neatly do you reply to emails? All these matters make up your own work style.

Interview About Your Work Place

During an interview you might be asked to describe not only your work place but also a comfortable working environment for you where a desk, computer, or a drawer usually play an important role. For example, many companies organize their work area in a form of an open space, so say department heads are in the same room with the staff. For some managers such office set up is unacceptable because it is important for them to be able to work alone quietly talking on the phone, asking subordinates to their room for a private conversation. Therefore, your employment can be based on whether you, as the new employee in the office, deem the office lay out appropriate for work.

Let us look at several options of the most frequent interview questions and answers which determine what information about you can be obtained through them.

• Describe your work space.

An employer simply wants to understand how you work, what sequence of actions you comply with, and how it reflects on what is happening around you. Your answer can show how much you like order, and whether you comply with rules and norms accurately. These things are important to know when you are expected to work closely with colleagues who might be using the same documents with you or a common space.

• What do you need for work?

This question helps an employer to understand the level of your competence and your awareness of your responsibilities. Also, the answer shows how you approach your work. Even the sequence in which you are listing your actions can tell a lot about your type of personality. For example, some people group items by type: office supplies, equipment, books, etc., and some - by function for each type of work. Depending on what tools you ask for it becomes clear how you do business, do you like to save, how important comfort is for you, etc. There is no wrong answer that you can give. HR-manager tries to learn more about you so your work in the future is productive.

• What does your ideal work place look like?

Here, in addition to your attitude to your duties, the personnel manager is trying to find out how well you articulate your needs, whether you know well what you want, and whether you are able to properly use opportunities.

In addition to the above questions there are other options for interview questions on the subject of your work place:

• How often do you clean your desk?
• What do you do to keep your table in order?
• How much time do you need to make your place clean?
• Without what tools you can function well, and what tools would you never give up?
• What is more important for you: the overall orderly appearance of your table or to have all the necessary things at hand?

Conclusion

When you answer these and other work place related questions it is best to tell the truth, even if your desk is not very neat all the time. An employer is interested in identifying your personality as a whole. First of all, he wants to know what your priorities in life and work are, to understand your point of view on some moral issues, and to get to know the peculiarities of your character.

Sometimes an employer does not want to hire a too organized and meticulous staff for a creative work. It is even possible that such a tidy person was on staff before but the rest of the team was uncomfortable with him.