Do you consider yourself competitive? What does that even mean, is it a good or bad thing? Most likely the answer lies somewhere in the middle. It is good to be competitive, because it means you are always attempting your hardest to be the best, but competitiveness that goes overboard – such as excessive aggression or being a sore loser – well that is just not a good thing.
Interviewers need to know if you are competitive by nature, and more significantly they need to figure out the degree to which you showcase that competitive nature. Remember, being competitive can be analyzed as a good thing. So the query is – how do you show you are competitive without sounding complicated?
Behavioral Interview Query: When have you ever discovered yourself in a competitive situation professionally? How did you manage it?
There are 2 great answers here. Let’s look at them both:
Answer 1: “You know, I don’t try to compete with colleagues because I know how sensitive others can be. But I’m always competing with myself. When I complete similar projects I attempt to do each extra project faster and more accurately than the previous project and see if I can ‘beat’ myself and my efficiency.”
Answer 2: “What I have found is that there is always unspoken competition when there are numbers at play. For instance, when I was a cashier, our items and customers each hour weren’t only measured, but also pasted on the wall. My colleagues and I find it quite motivating. We were always attempting to beat each other like a game, and none of us were upset if we lost – only joking about taking it as a challenge for the following week. So competition arises in distinctive ways all the time, but it tends to be friendly and I consider it makes us all better workers.”
What you see here is:
- Competition = Good
- Friendly = Good
- Hard Working = Good
Both answers claim that you take competition as a part of life, and that it is not significantly about losing as much as it is about getting better. That is the key to a great answer with this kind of query.