Interview questions, please help!

[2mummies]

I'm preparing for an interview for a customer services position in banking. I currently work in retail, before that I was self employed in the tourism industry. I've got a list of questions that they might ask, and I need to find examples of situations for each. The "tell me about a time when you haveade a mistake that impacted on your team" one has got me. I can't think of anything in particular that would sound good in an interview! Could anyone please tell me what situation you would give for this question, it might give me some inspiration. Many thanks in advance!

Bump!

hmmmmmmmm ........this will probably show me in a bad light but years ago as a manager in a customer service department I was very irritated when two of the team kept chatting, far more than just having a 'quick word ' with each other. I snapped and said something like 'haven't you two got any work to do' - clearly I approached it wrongly and I can see that the two team members were a bit annoyed but so was I. Could you use something like that, but make it sound a lot softer and bleat on about encouraging people to manage their own workload, be pro-active about sharing out the work etc etc .

I don't think the bad feeling lasted for long as we were all great friends again within an hour or so

Thank you for that Ragwort, that sounds quite good. But I'm going from a line manager role to a non managerial position, so that might make me sound like I'm a bit bossy which they probably won't want! Not that you were being bossy!

Ha ha, I was (and probably am) considered bossy, or as I like to call it, assertive .

What about something like, you were asked by senior management to suggest a new project and you recommended XYZ but without consulting your team - it made you realise that such decisions should be a joint team approach. It's quite a difficult interview question really, if you say something like 'I went home early and left everyone else to finish off the work' it will make you look lazy.

Or could you bluff something about implementing a new software package without researching it properly so that it caused extra work for your team.

I can't think of any really good examples that will put you in a good light - perhaps someone else will come along soon with some suggestions?

Thank you for your ideas, these are whirring around in my brain trying to mould them into the right thing for me. Any other suggestions would be very welcome too!

How about you tried a new process that could have saved the team time but you quickly realised it was failing. You recognised this and put into place your contingency plan.

Thank you. Any others wish to share their interview gems?!

Or how about

I have never made any mistakes that have impacted my team as I thoroughly research and discuss all changes before implementation