Executive Assistant Interview Questions in Minneapolis-St. Paul, MN
Like administrative assistants, executive assistants must demonstrate exceptional organizational, time management, and interpersonal skills. Executives are looking for candidates with impeccable written and oral abilities who can manage typical administrative software. Expect interviewers to ask how you would handle a variety of difficult situations, such as prioritizing multiple deadlines, working well in groups, and defusing irate people.
Tell me about a time where something you planned did not turn out as you expected.
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Can I balance a high stressed work environment and role being that I was a single mother.
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Name a difficult work related situation and how you overcame it.
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I was asked to create a spreadsheet to track nursing hours/patients that would allow the nursing staff to simply input nursing hour numbers and it would calculate specific ratios to assist with scheduling. This was difficult because of complex formulas need to evaluate specific criteria of nursing hours. I developed this sheet based on my knowledge of Microsoft Excel. This sheet remains in use even today. Less
how do you think you would handle internal problems within the team?
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I would call in a meeting to find out exactly what is going wrong. If it is only a small team, I would make it a point to talk to them one by one and get their feedback. There is nothing like talking to someone face to face to see and hear what one has to say. Less
How would you handle a difficult situation where a director asked you for your immediate help with travel, and you had an imminent deadline on a presentation quickly approaching.
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Since this job is all about multitasking, but also about teamwork, I would ask my supervisor for permission to teamwork with another assistant to get her help. If approved, I would solicit my team member to help me with the project so that I could focus my attention on the director's needs. Less
How honest are you?
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100% honest, only lied once in my life.-Now
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Honest enough to inform you, your question sucks
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Always completely honest. Which if I was a liar, then I'd be lying. But if I said I was always lying about everything, would I be lying about that too? Therefore the question is fundamentally flawed Less
VERY basic. More conversational than structured questioning. I was asked by multiple people, "What is your biggest accomplishment?" Another popular question, "Why do you think you're a good fit?"
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I interviewed for a Control System Engineering position a few years ago. I am an expert in pointing and tracking control systems in Aerospace. The interview was a complete waste of time. I spent about a week to prepare a graphical presentation on my skills in designing advanced military pointing and tracking systems. The Kymeta staff had no insightful questions and really did not care about what I could do for them to build a superior product. It was as though the need had gone a way. The questions that were answered in the structured interview by one individual was meaningless. By the end of the interview the principal engineer in charge of my interview waltzed in and said let's wrap it up. I was disappointed that I was not allowed to show my skills and background in a way that would really benefit the. In the end, I told them they were going to be a failure due to the vibration environment and they were ignorant regarding solving end to end systems design. It was the worst interview I ever had and was upset I had wasted my time. Initially, I drove around the parking lot to see how many costly vehicles there were. There were none. I knew going in that they must pay poorly as nobody is showing that they are doing well by having fancy cars. I would never work for them. If you look on LinkedIn, you will find they have had many employees in the past that were let go. If you are young and straight out of school, it might be a good place to do advanced work. For a senior engineer, I did not trust their systems approach and did not want to get blamed for the team doing a poor job. Old guys want to avoid this and manage the risk in doing any job as a contractor, consultant or an employee. It is too bad I could not help them. Maybe if I had talked to the CEO o Kymeta directly, I could have had the influence that I wanted to have. In any event, be very careful signing up to work for Kymeta. Less
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But if the antenna is meant to be steered electronically, why the gimbal?
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I am done discussing my Kymeta interview experience.
If you had only 24 hours left on planet earth, how would you spend it?
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Establishing good communication methods with the next place am going too. Could be another planet. Less
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kissing and hugging my wife, kids and loved ones
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With my family, enjoying some Top Shelf Single Malt and the finest cigars in my humidor. Less
If you had several tasks and had to finish them all by the same deadline, how would you approach this?
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Multitask, delegate, get my peers involved to help out so that I meet all the deadlines! Less
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Prioritizing, by completing the tasks with most priority, working diligently to get the assignments completed. If necessary, seeing if a colleague can assist with the tasks with least importance. Less
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I would prioritize within the scope of the tasks that needed to be completed. You have to give each task the attention that it needs and you have to make sure that you finish each thoroughly versus quickly. Less
What were you making in your last role? And in each before that?
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It's too bad she's interviewed more than one person in such a way. Let's hope (for other candidates sake and for the company's) she's not in that position anymore. Less
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In the state of NY recruiters aren’t legally authorized to ask this question!!
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In my last role I made 96k. In my previous roles is made between 75k -90k