How would you answer this question in your Personal Fit interview? Receive feedback on your answer and browse through the Q&As to review the approaches of other applicants and experts.
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Tell me about a time that you managed upwards
Overview of answers
Managing upward is an important component of getting you PhD. Professors are very very busy, each of them has a terribly demanding schedule a bunch of projects, other than yours on your mind. Since, generally you only have your project, it is important to be proactive about setting meetings. You should come to those meetings with an agenda of what needs to be addressed so that your project can be successful. Additionally, it is important to remind advisors and the other members on your dissertation committee of upcoming deadlines and meetings. Sometimes, professors do not respond to emails or multiple emails. This is probably the most obvious way of managing upward, but I had a committee member that I needed to ask to meet with in person in order to actually meet; this meant getting brave enough to just regularly knock on his door to ask to set a meeting or to chat.
Hi A,
this is one of the uncommon question which you might face at the 2nd or final round of your interview. I would strongly recommend you to use a common approach that consists of 5 parts:
1. Situation
2. Problem
3. Solution
4. Results
5. Your learnings.
Using this universal approach/ framework will help you to structure every uncommon, even somtimes difficult questions in a very good manner
be authentic and good luck,
André
in my first non-technical consulting experience, i was originally hired to do unit testing of a software system. when i arrived, however, this task had been contracted out. by remaining flexible, i stepped into what amounted to the PM consultant's assistant. this PM, while very experienced, was relatively unfamiliar with PM software tools. by managing approvals and tasks more closely and detailed with software tools, i was able to provide more succint updates on work completed by project team members. before the biannual progress report to the CEO, i voiced my concerns based on my findings about our projected Time to completion for the project. in doing so, i was able to sit with the PM consultant and the plants VP of ops to discuss and evenutally update our timeline schedule (it was already a year behind). this led to a successful presentation to the CEO, and the project was eventually completed on-schedule (after i left)
I asked a new manager the frequency of updates she would like from me, as well as if there's any thing she wants to approve before adding to the pack
Don't really get the question yet.
while working at AZ
M&A in UK. Had to avoid the deal. so I had to stand up to the CEO and persuade the Shareholder not to go blind and postpone the deal. the CEO insisted we would lose the opportunity doing DD. I insisted we would cut the price. we postponed the deal for 6 months. made the DD and reduced the price 30%.
i managed leaners at grade 4 and 5 level and it has developed managerial and leadership skills.
Hello!
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