Mary Barra Asks Three Simple Questions in Job Interviews
Photo: Fortune Live Media
Job interviews are stressful, no matter if you’re applying for a position at a new company or a promotion at your existing workplace. Mary Barra, head of GM, has a lot of experience on the other side of the table, asking the questions to find the best candidates. Recently she spilled the three questions she asks in every interview she conducts.
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When choosing the right person for a job opening, Barra says that she’s looking for a few key attributes: integrity, technical know-how (so they can actually do the job), team-oriented attitude, and the ability to influence change. To see if applicants fulfill her integrity requirement, she has three go-to questions. They seem deceptively simple on the surface. According to Inc.’s Bill Murphy Jr., she queries she poses are:
- How would your peers describe you in three adjectives?
- How would your supervisor describe you in three adjectives?
- How would people who’ve worked for you describe you in three adjectives?
If you’re trying to think of different adjectives for how you present yourselves to these three different groups of people, you’re going about it all wrong.
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Barra told the Wharton People Analytics Conference in 2019 that she really looks for people to use similar words for all three categories. To her, the ideal applicants use similar adjectives for each group, because that means they usually act with integrity and don’t put on different fronts depending on who they’re talking to. This is especially when she’s hiring for leadership positions, because a good leader should “work just as well with their peers and superiors as they do with their subordinates.”
Even if you don’t have a job interview lined up with Mary Barra anytime soon, take some time to consider her three questions before you meet a prospective employer. If you don’t have similar answers, maybe it’s time to reexamine your workplace personality.
News Source: Inc.
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