Get prepared for your next interview with our interview question of the week.
There isn't much that can cause as much anxiety as a job interview. If you have been looking for a new job, then you know what I'm talking about. The thing is, in order to really stand out from the crowd, you have to be prepared with ready answers to anything an interviewer might ask.
If you're like most of us, coming up with the best answers when you're under pressure isn't easy. So, to help you get prepared, each week we take another interview question and break it down in order to come up with the best answer.
So, here you have it, The Interview Question of the Week:
Question:
If you won the lottery, would you still work?
Why it's a trap:
I think that some hiring managers really love these silly hypothetical questions. They are designed to find out something meaningful about they way you view working and how you feel about what you do. Of course, the question is pretty obvious and you should have seen it coming.
The only trick here is that if you say “No way, I would quit in a heartbeat!” you will appear to be someone who is just working in order to earn a paycheck. While that may be true for some people, in the interview is not the place to admit it. On the other hand, if you say that you would still work in the same position, just as hard as ever, you will sound insincere.
The best answer:
Since we know that the question is really about your work ethic and how you view work and achievement in your life, the best way to go is to answer the underlying questions. So, use this as a chance to talk about your positive feelings about working.
For example:
“After I got over the excitement of my huge lottery win, I would probably still keep my basic belief that working hard and achieving success is what makes people happy deep down. If money could buy happiness, then everyone in Hollywood would be ecstatic, and that just isn't true.”
“I think that I would still want to be active in my career in some way. Of course, not needing the money would make things more fun because it would allow me to have more flexibility and more options, but who knows?”
“Since the odds are slim that I would ever win, especially since I rarely ever play, I think I would rather focus on creating my own good fortune and stick with the methods that work for me - hard work and a desire to achieve.”
Of course, the question is hypothetical. If at some point in the future, after you received the job, you won a cool $10 million in the lottery, you can still feel free to quit your job and run off to someplace warm and tropical.
What do you think about this question and answer? Are there other questions you would like me to tackle here?
If you are looking for a job in Logistics, visit LogisticsJobsite for the best logistics job listings.
By Melissa Kennedy- Melissa is a 9 year blog veteran and a freelance writer for LogisticsJobsiteBlog, along with helping others find the job of their dreams, she enjoys computer geekery, raising a teenager, supporting her local library, writing about herself in the third person and working on her next novel.
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