How you define success has an impact on How Do You Deal With Success and how you assess them. Because your concept of success is so essential, interviewers will almost certainly question you about it.
How you reply to this question might reveal to the interviewer what is most important to you and what you might prioritize.
In this post, we will look at why interviewers want to know how you define success and how to respond to this question.
Employers want to know how you define/deal with success because it helps them decide the type of employee you will be in the future.
In some ways, this question is an assessment of your work ethic. How you define success influences how hard you’re willing to work to achieve your objectives.
If you define success as challenging or making yourself to be better than you were yesterday, for example, employers will know you will work hard to be productive.
Employers may also ask this question to determine your priorities.
Maybe you define success as fulfilling team objectives and successfully interacting with coworkers, or maybe your primary metric is generating business income. Employers can detect how you prioritize based on your response.
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Article Road Map
How To Answer The Interview Question, “How Do You Deal With Success?”
Preparing to define success may need some introspection and experience communicating your ideas. Here are a few strategies for properly answering this question in an interview:
1. Consider Your Most Cherished Accomplishments.
Consider your best accomplishments to practice how you define success. Consider at least five.
Perhaps you are pleased with the promotion you earned at your previous work, or perhaps you consider changing careers to be one of your greatest successes.
Look for recurring themes in those successes. These patterns might indicate your definition of success.
For example, if many of your accomplishments center around overcoming anxieties and obstacles to reach your goals, you may define success in this manner.
2. Consider success to be a process.
Sometimes your most prominent accomplishments, such as becoming an executive or ultimately turning a significant profit on a fledgling firm, are the easiest to concentrate on.
However, you may also define success in terms of short-term victories, such as meeting daily, weekly, and monthly goals.
Viewing success as a process might help you focus on the tiny victories that lead to a big triumph.
3. Consider the company’s perspective on success.
Consider how they may define success while conducting research prior to an interview. Using that information, synthesis your definition of success with the company’s values, allowing you to answer the interviewer’s question while also demonstrating that you understand and share the company’s goal.
For example, if you are interviewing with a non-profit, its success may not be based on money as much as it is on good community effect.
4. Provide concrete instances.
Because success can be vague at times, giving interviewers specific, tangible examples will help to ground your definition and provide you with another chance to discuss your accomplishments.
Give concrete instances of times when you felt successful and explain how it happened.
For instance, if you define success as leading or working with a team to accomplish collective and individual goals, tell the interviewer about a time when you exceeded a target and completed a project ahead of schedule.
You may next talk about how you assisted your team by increasing teamwork, acknowledging individual efforts to boost motivation, and creating goals.
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How Do You Deal With Success? – Example answers
How you define success will be totally determined by your personal beliefs, professional goals, and life experiences.
Although you should be truthful in your response, it is also a wise approach to demonstrate how your view of success matches with the employer’s goals and would make you an effective employee at their business.
Sample 1
“I consider success as achieving a combination of corporate and personal objectives while assisting my team in doing the same.
I think that effective goals encourage us to push ourselves and improve and that reaching such goals not only benefits the firm by meeting its objectives but also makes us more effective employees who can contribute to even greater success in the future.
As a leader, I want my staff to believe they are capable of reaching their goals as well as the company’s, therefore I make it a priority to personally assist them in meeting specific milestones.”
Sample 2
“I consider success as playing my part in my team and in my organization. I believe that my employer has placed me in a position where I can contribute to the team’s and company’s goals, therefore I strive hard to complete my individual responsibilities as efficiently as possible.
I still want to advance within the firm, but I want to do it by having a meaningful effect where I am.”
Sample 3
“I define success as achieving both little and major steps toward a goal. Success, in my opinion, is a process in which obstacles motivate me to look at things from new angles and come up with innovative solutions to issues.
Taking on such difficulties allows me to grow myself while also making progress toward corporate goals. I may leave work feeling accomplished if I have made some progress toward addressing a problem or attaining a goal, even if I have not completed all of my personal goals for the day.”
Sample 4
I prefer to perceive success in stages. As someone who is energized by new, complicated problems, I never want to be in a position where there is nothing more to learn or achieve.
If during the length of my job, I can leave work each evening feeling pleased that I’ve learned something new or helpful, I consider that to be a success.
Sample 5
For me, success will always be about making a difference in the lives of others. If I know that at the end of the day, my work has helped someone find work, feed their family, or turn their life around, I sleep well at night and wake up excited to get back to work the next day.
Read Also: 10 Ways To Fight Attraction In The Workplace.
What Not To Say When You Answer The Interview Question – How Do You Deal With Success
The definition of an interview question is one that is open-ended and does not have a particular right or incorrect response.
Regardless, it is preferable to avoid some thoughts when answering this question. Use these pointers to help you avoid possibly unfavorable responses during your interview. Avoid:
Mentioning religion: While your religious views may influence your own sense of success, it is better to leave any reference to religion out of your response. If you are interviewing with a religious group, this is an exemption.
Sharing your political beliefs: Politics, like religion, may affect your idea of success. Regardless, avoid expressing your political beliefs or backing or opposing any political leaders or candidates throughout your interview.
Excessive personal information: It is OK to share some personal information while answering this question. You want the interviewer to get a feel of your personality and who you are outside of work, but you don’t want to reveal too much.
When addressing inquiries regarding career achievement, there is no need to go into detail about your family.
Limiting your potential: Make sure your response allows you to advance in the position for which you are interviewing. You don’t want to leave the hiring manager with the impression that you’ve reached the peak of achievement and have nowhere further to go.
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Conclusion
In your response, emphasize the abilities and personal traits that will be an advantage in your new position.
Give the interviewer a good sense of your personality, but not your family life, religious beliefs, or political views.
If you can go into your interview certain that your concept of success aligns with that of your prospective employer, you’ll have laid the groundwork for a memorable and productive “meeting of the minds” with your interviewers.