Every other week or so we pose a question you might get asked during an interview and a suggestion on how you might formulate your answer. 

This week’s question:

How has your job – or job search – changed as a result of the Covid 19 Pandemic?

The Coronavirus has affected everything including the way people look for work. Beyond the obvious that there are fewer in-person interviews as more are conducted online; you haven’t been in the same room as your (former or present) coworkers in 9 months because they’re all working from home; you’re saving a bunch of cash in vehicle upkeep and fuel, or transportation costs from not commuting every day; and you are probably tired of being at home dealing with all the obstacles that entails. But your interviewer is more interested in changes to way you do things. Have your personal and/or professional priorities changed since the virus interrupted everything? Have you found yourself more productive and less distracted working from home? Or the opposite – are you more distracted and less productive? What coping mechanisms do you employ to manage stress, your work responsibilities, and keep your piece of mind? Have your career goals changed? Do you want to pursue the same kind of work and challenges you looked for prior to the Virus? Keep your response focused on the positive. Describe the obstacles you’ve overcome that had positive outcomes, and whenever possible connect your actions to the work you’re doing or pursuing. For example: Did you set up a new bookkeeping system for tracking bills and expenses at home? Actions such as this demonstrate attention to detail, an affinity for working with numbers and accounts, as well as budgeting and your ability to use financial software, and it demonstrates productivity and accomplishment. Did you build something that required following detailed instructions? If so, can you address the relevance of the manual dexterity used, or being meticulous in your measurements? Did something transpire during your stay at home period that made you look at your work-life differently and choose another career direction or objective? These are the things you might want to briefly and concisely address. If the job you’re applying for now is vastly different from what you’ve done in the past, what made you decide to shift your focus to another occupation? Again, keep it positive and brief. Honesty, as always, is the best policy. Information you give your interviewer must address their questions conveying the relevance between your responses and the job you’re applying for as fully as possible. In the long run, the reasons you made any changes during the pandemic will not be as important as the work you want to do. Now you must convince your interviewer of the value of those changes and how that employer will benefit from bringing you onboard.

To see previous installments of

Tough Interview Questions and Answers,

click here.

(Most recent are at the bottom of the list.)