Interview Strategy

10 Tough Interview Questions

1. Tell me about yourself.

Well, I attended California State University, Northridge and earned my bachelors of science degree in kinesiology 2004, as well as my California teaching credential in physical education in 2006. I taught middle school physical education for eight years at San Fernando Middle School where I worked with a team that focused on raising the health and fitness levels of the students. For example, when I arrived at that school, only 23% of the students were passing the FitnessGram assessment, which is a national fitness assessment that measures health and fitness of youngsters. Together with a team of teachers within the physical education department, developed a strength and conditioning program for our students that we implemented on a daily basis. The result was 65% of our students passing the FitnessGram assessment in the first two years. From there, I went to San Fernando High School to work as the athletic trainer for their athletic teams. When I arrived at San Fernando High School, I was brought in to help reduce the number of injuries occurring in their student-athletes. When I arrived there were injuries occurring in 52% of their student-athletes. To decrease that number, I developed and implemented strength and conditioning programs for each team aimed at reducing and preventing injuries. The result was a decrease in injuries from 52% to 19% in the first year alone.

2. Why should I hire you?

I think your organization should hire me because I’m the best person for the job. I feel that I am the best person for the job for several reasons. Your organization is looking for an athletic trainer that can join the Injury Prevention Team, as well as help educate your patients about injury treatment and prevention. I believe that my experience in education where I was able to increase the number of students passing the FitnessGram assessment shows my ability to teach and implement strength and conditioning programs. Further, my background working as an athletic trainer in high school where I was able to develop and implement programs and decrease the number of injuries speaks to my abilities to fit in with the Injury Prevention Team.  Additionally, I am passionate about what my profession and will work to be nothing short of the best at what I do.

3. What is your long-range objective?

My focus here is to be the best athletic trainer you have here at Select Medical, within three years. Keeping in mind that I am part of a team, I want to be the best teammate on the Injury Prevention Team. I want to create a program here that can be considered first class when it comes to injury treatment and prevention, as well as educating our patients. Additionally, I would like to expand the program’s reach to include all forms of rehabilitation, including physical, occupational, and recreational therapy. To prepare myself I am continuing to develop professionally by staying updated and proficient in all the current research data and treatment techniques.

4. How has your education prepared you for your career?

My education has played a key role in preparing me for my career. Earning my bachelors of science in kinesiology has educated me in the key elements of how to treat and prevent injuries, developing strength and condition programs, and the necessary steps to implement those programs. This was solidified during my last college semester while I was doing my internship hours for athletic training, working with and learning from professionals in the field. Additionally, while earning my teaching credential, I was able to learn and hone my pedagogical skills. This is where I learned how to develop lessons, ideas, or concepts and clearly convey those to students. Those skills were further developed while I was doing my student-teaching hours during the last semester of earning my credential. I was able to work with veteran teachers that were able to mentor me and help me develop and polish my teaching skills. I feel the combination of my athletic training and my teaching background uniquely prepares me for this job.

5. Are you a team player?

Yes, I am absolutely a team player. I feel as though in each phase of my education and career I have been a team player and my background illustrates that. While I was teaching middle school physical education, I had to work with a team of teachers to achieve the goal of raising our fitness test scores. As the department chair, I had to consider the feelings, ideas, and opinions of all the teachers in the department and work with them to come to a consensus. We were able to that and significantly raise the test scores. While working as an athletic trainer in a high school setting, I had to work with various coaches, student-athletes, and parents to help treat and prevent various injuries and decide the best course of action for the student-athlete. This approach helped significantly reduce the injuries sustained to student-athletes. I’m a firm believer that the strength of the team is increased when everyone is on the same page and transparency is paramount.

6. Have you ever had a conflict with a boss or professor? How was it resolved?

When working with a team, I believe there are going to be differences of opinions and sometimes a little bit of conflict within the team. When I was working in middle school and the physical education department was given the task of raising fitness scores for the students, we had to develop a plan of action that would help us achieve our goal. There were some teachers that believed we should spend half of the time educating the students through writing and discussion and the other half through physical training. The other half of teacher believed we could simultaneously educate them while physically training them. It was a bit contentious, as each side believed their approach was most effective. As the chair of the department, it was up to me to help the department come to a consensus. My first step was to remind everybody of what our ultimate goal was, which was to raise scores. My second step was to have the department take a realistic look at our resources and the time frame we were working with. We only had about four months to achieve this goal, which is not a lot of time when you’re talking about developing and implementing a system with so many students. I suggested that, given the limited amount of time, we could use our shortened days, which was every Tuesday, as our writing/discussion days, and use the other days to physically train them. After looking at our limited time frame, we all agreed we needed to dedicate more time to training the students. However, so as not to diminish or brush off the teachers that felt writing and discussion played an integral role, we managed to keep some time for that, which left everyone feeling as though their thoughts were validated. In the end, we increased scores from 23% to 65%.

7. What is your greatest weakness?

My greatest weakness is planning and organization. In the past I have put myself into tough situations because I was not organized and ended up having to scramble to get things done. This is something I have been working and will continue to work on going forward. To help me plan and stay organized, I have a planner that I use on my phone where I input reminders to alert me of daily tasks, appointments, deadlines, and any other tasks I have planned for a particular day. I also have desktop calendar that I write many of the same reminders on so if I’m not looking at my phone I’ll see it on my desk. So far, this has helped me tremendously and I feel more organized and efficient in my time usage and my daily tasks.

8. If I were to ask your professors (or your boss) to describe you, what would they say?

I believe they would say that I am a leader that is willing to take initiative and get a team of individuals to reach a common goal. I believe that whether it’s as a teacher or an athletic trainer, my bosses would say that I get positive results and that I am always willing to put in the hard work required to get those results. I believe that my current boss Mr. Jeremy Lawrence would tell you that I am dependable and energetic with the ability to work well with others from various backgrounds, interests, and personalities. I believe Mr. Harrington would tell you of my ability to teach concepts relating to strength and conditioning while educating individuals how they can effectively implement these concepts. Further, Mr. Harrington can discuss my ability to work individually and personalize any strength and conditioning plans to fit that individual’s unique needs. In fact, I have letters of recommendation from both of these individuals that will tell you exactly that.

9. What qualities do you feel a successful manager should have?

I believe a successful manager should display vision of where he or she wants to take their team and organization, as well as the ability to lead that team to achieve that goal. The manager should always be able to clearly convey their vision of what is expected and also have the vision to put their subordinates in a position to succeed. A good manager also leads and motivates their team by empowering their team and giving them the ability to take ownership of their contributions that way everybody feels needed and creates buy-in from all team members. When I think of a true leader I think of my father and how he worked with his subordinates when he was a supervisor. He always conveyed his expectations of his team, made sure they had the resources to complete the job, and afforded the trust that they would get the job done without him hovering over their shoulders, which sometimes implies distrust. Because of his approach, he was one of the most well liked bosses and his crews were routinely got the best results.

10. If you had to live your life over again, what one thing would you change?

Although I am very happy with where I’m at in my life bother personally and professionally, oe aspect of my life I would change and focused on in my career would have been to slow down a bit. Allow me to clarify what I mean. When I began my career, I was so focused on getting on to the next task, that I don’t think I took enough time to enjoy each stop, with my teaching, internships, or my athletic training. I feel as though maybe I missed opportunities to enjoy the people I worked with and the opportunity to learn from those individuals as much as possible. Going forward, I want to focus on enjoying the people I work with and learn from them because I feel as though this is what a true leader should do and this will allow me to evolve into the leader and professional that I strive to be.