PP
Thank you for your comprehensive critique, appreciate the time you spent on it, I did, as I say brush over the questions, I was rather zombiefied by my night shifts and trying to answer them at 3:30am, I will however, answer them again now and will try to elaborate where possible and clear up some of my comments.
First off, I will say that I am certainly no angel, not by any stretch of the imagination, I'm sure my good wife can testify to that
, also I think the term "losing your temper" is rather subjective, and by this I mean my interpretation of this statement is that if one loses one's temper, they have lost it completely and are in a fit of rage, this is something I have not done to my knowledge, I have however, got very irate and angry of course, so I shall deem the term "losing one's temper" as getting very angry & irate when I answer the question
1. I last lost my temper was when I was driving down a country lane where I live and the local "news reader" who had lived in my village for a couple of months decided to drive his car in the opposite direction to me at a rate of knots which meant he was almost on 2 wheels when he came around the corner I was approaching and then took the side of my car out whilst I had come to a stop, he then accused me of going too fast when clearly I was stopped and his car stopped half way up the hill which indicates his speed. Then I had to take a 50/50 on the insurance claim
2. From memory I cannot remember losing my temper in the workplace.
3. Many times, the nature of my business is one of customer service, and customer KPI's are of the utmost importance. An example of this as follows, I work in the printing industry and at the time I was in charge of a high tech printing press, a customer calls and asks for a certain product to be delivered Sunday morning, the only chance we had to produce this was to run outside our shift pattern, shifts are 12hrs long, and on this occasion I was working 6pm Friday to 6am Saturday, which is when the factory closes until Sunday morning, this coupled with the hour long journey each side of work means my working day is 14hrs, the only way to ensure the customer received his product on time was to work well into the Saturday morning which meant staying at work an extra 4hrs, thus eating into my sleep time and meaning I had to miss my game of cricket that weekend.
4. Strengths, 1. very team orientated, managing a team of 40 at work, captain of a cricket club 1st XI, captain of a snooker team etc, at the same time as being a leader I have always had people above me in the seniority chain, this has never been an issue for me, I see this as an incentive to strive to get as high as I can on the career ladder, and an opportunity to feed off these people and learn as much as I can to enhance my knowledge of the job in hand.
2. Strive for perfection, and what I mean by this is that I am always looking for ways to improve or make easier small and large tasks in hand, for example, is there any need for me to be doing all this paperwork? can I create an excel spreadsheet that means I can enter figures and it will come up with the end result alot quicker? how can I turn around this printing press more efficiently? how can I prioritize the faults in the product to minimize wastage etc.
3. I will always hold my hand up if I am wrong or have made a mistake, there is no shame in this.
Weaknesses, 1. I can get bored easy, and I mean in the long term, for example if I am stuck in the same role for a few years without any goal, if there is an end result like a promotion in seniority or to captain then great, I like to climb the career ladder thus always having an aim, I feel this focuses the role I am already in to strive to do the best possible to put myself in a position where I may be considered for promotion, if my role happens to be "dead man's shoes" then I generally take on more workload, i.e. distance learning degree etc.
2. I cannot think of anything else that stands out
3. I cannot think of anything else that stands out, there are a couple of things that I feel I have corrected in myself already if you would like to hear them
5. What would I change about myself? I would change the fact that I can't think of anything "major" that I would change about myself
Pete, I think I need to come on your course
6. In the workplace, rare, rules are there for a reason, H&S cannot be compromised for anybody or anything. I have to admit to a couple of small breaches at work, flourescent jackets are mandatory for the haulingway and yard, and on a couple of occasions when there were none on the hangar to wear I have gone out without one, I have handled flammable liquids without eye protection as well.
Away from the workplace yes I have broken the speed limit on occasions, and I have wore my muddy shoes into the kitchen behind the wife's back
7. A good leader will never raise his voice, he will be firm but very fair, there will be no favouratism towards anyone, he will know the facts, he will lead by example, he will back his management, and he will never expect someone to do something that he isn't prepared to do himself.
I have a few examples that I'll keep to myself for the interview
8. Certainly by being as stated above, this encompasses both points of Q8, one missing is that praise goes a very long way, never be too scared to praise someone for a job well done.
Enjoy