Is it ever too Late for your Next Career?

Well no I don’t think so and recently I began work with John who is 64 and wanted to consider his next career move.

John’s career began in the forces where he was an engineer before moving into production management in the computer industry. From there he moved into design and manufacturing in the telecoms industry, then on to operations director in the pharmaceutical industry before moving into consultancy work in the tobacco industry. His work took him all over the world and along the way he undertook various pieces of research and development and also worked closely with HR departments delivering training and development.

Then he decided to retire and move to the South of France, but a few months and many gastronomic delights later John was beginning to become a little bored and wondered if he had retired just a little too early, not one to sit on his laurels he undertook a building development project which led to another and before he knew it he was sourcing French properties for folks back in the UK and project managing the development work.

So as you can appreciate John is a man of many talents and when we began our work together he wanted to figure out what he wanted to do that would fit into semi-retirement – keep him mentally stimulated but also give him the scope to do nothing if he choose to. Nothing other than developing his appreciation for fine wines, fine food and fine art that is, oh and learning to speak French and playing boules.

This was no ordinary job search campaign and we soon agreed his best plan of campaign was to connect with people he’d met throughout his career, just by way of catching up for a coffee or beer and having a chat about things in general. Well no sooner did he do this when an opportunity arose for him to deliver some very specialist consultancy training work, whereby he was training the Consultancy Firm’s consultants for this specific field based work.

He’s now established himself as the person they come to when they bring new consultants on board and he’s also been asked to be a Non Executive Director supporting the development of talent with a commitment of one day a month over ten months of the year. Un coup de chance? (a stroke of good luck?) – Maybe a little luck but I’ve come to learn the better we are the luckier we become! And John is top of the game in terms of being good.

So, it’s never too late to begin your next career and a lot of employers will value the wealth of skills and experience you will bring to the organisation.

Published with client permission. Name has been changed.

Evolving Careers Players can help you transition into your next career. We deliver 121 career coaching, group learning and development and outplacement  services. We devise community forum theatre, corporate drama workshops and role-play scenarios. http://www.evolvingcareersplayers.com Get in touch to discuss your needs : carmel@evolvingcareersplayers.com

Moving from Full Time Employment to Consultancy Work

A number of clients who have found themselves being made redundant from their roles because of the current economic crises consider setting themselves up as consultants in their area of expertise. Sometimes they’re at a point in their lives where they’re not quite ready to retire but they are ready to begin to wind their work down in some manner and make more time for interests or hobbies that are important to them.

Quite often these clients will count their previous employer as a source of consultancy work.  This is actually quite common when organisations are forced to downsize, because along with losing a lot of its good people it also loses the knowledge and expertise they contributed. Bringing people back on board who have organisation and industry knowledge and expertise makes perfect sense. The consultant benefits by earning a good daily rate and the organisation can pay this because they no longer have the responsibility and overheads for such things as pension and health plans or professional development.

James and Olivia are two clients who have successfully established themselves as consultants in this manner. Both James and Olivia were senior executives in their respective industries, James in the Transport Industry and Olivia in a leading Non Governmental Organisation. I was employed by their organisations as an outplacement consultant to see them through their career transition. As with all my clients I began their programmes by asking them to take a step back to  examine their skills, knowledge, experience and to consider how these were transferable into supporting them into a new career that ‘s in line with their interests, values and longer term life and career vision.

James enjoyed his work and his industry but he was at a stage in his life when his family had grown and had flown the nest. He had seen them through university and they were no longer dependent on him, he was also fortunate to no longer have a mortgage on his home and so all in all was in a good place from a financial perspective. He did however have a ‘bucket list’ of things he wanted to achieve in his life which included travelling to wonderfully exotic and interesting destinations with his wife. He also wanted to give something back to society and in some way make a difference. He wanted to continue working but just not in the same vein as before. It was important for him to remain intellectually stimulated through his work, he also wanted to retain the social aspect it provided and he needed it to fund his ‘bucket list’.

We explored and considered ways James could design his career to allow him to live his life to achieve these things. He had an extensive network with contacts throughout the UK and Europe to include Russia– one of the destinations he aspired to travel to.  Being a sociable person he began connecting with people and discovered various projects in the pipeline throughout Europe, he was known and respected in his industry and once people knew he was available for work they were more than happy to meet with him and very soon offers began to come through for consultancy work to include work with his old organisation and a piece of work in Russia.

To facilitate his travel aspirations and the ability to give back at a social level, James decided he wanted to take on assignments that would demand a commitment of several months at a time, once each piece of work was complete he would take one to three months off, during this time he would travel to a destination on his ‘bucket list’. He also identified a Social Enterprise in South Africa, where he and his wife spent time and he contributed his business acumen in helping them develop their vision and strategy.

Olivia’s being made redundant coincided with her husband and her relocating to the English coast. She wanted and needed to continue working but she also wanted to take time to settle in to her new home and community. She knew her work would take her away from home but she wanted this to me no more than three days a week, allowing her time to set up home and get to know people in her community. She also had a love of basket weaving and she wanted to make time for this along with time for cycling another love which she shared with her husband.
Similarly to James, Olivia set about networking and letting people know she was available for work. She was also highly regarded in her area of expertise and very soon she was having interesting conversations which led to work, some of which was located closer to the coastal area she had moved to, than she could have hoped for.

What is even more interesting about Olivia’s story is that once she started to connect socially with people in her community she discovered by way of conversation a non-profit basketry organisation in need of resurrection and this is exactly what she’s setting out to achieve with another woman who resides in the area.

As with all consultancy work, there are peaks and troughs in both James and Olivia’s work and because both of them have identified that they no longer wish or need to work on a full time basis, at times when they have a workload that demands more of their time than they are willing or able to give, they’re in a position to establish collaborative working relationships with fellow consultants in their respective fields and outsource this work. Many consultants will do this and it also allows them to be in a position to earn a commission for the work they pass along should they choose to.

*Published with clients permission, names have been changed.

Evolving Careers Players can support you in moving from full time employment to consultancy work. We deliver 121 career coaching, group learning and development, and outplacement services. We devise community forum theatre, corporate drama workshops and role-play scenarios. http://www.evolvingcareersplayers.com Get in touch to discuss your needs:  carmel@evolvingcareersplayers.com

Because of Longevity there’s Space for a Whole New Career between Retirement and Death

When I first began delivering outplacement programmes, I delivered a programme which was sponsored by the government to help people back into work. It was a year long programme focussed on training and developing people in the area of Supply Change Management.  I was engaged to support people in the job search element of the programme. The participants were quite diverse in terms of age, experience and backgrounds.

I remember a conversation I had with one of the participants called Joe, because it’s one I have time and time again. Joe was in his early 60’s and although he was going through the motions of the programme, he had the belief because of his age that at the end of it organisations wouldn’t be interested in employing him and would choose younger candidates over him.

My thinking was different: Joe’s CV demonstrated his loyalty to the organisations he had previously worked with and had actually worked for his most recent employer for over 30 years before his position had been made redundant. Although he’d been with the same organisation his career had been quite progressive and he’d advanced in terms of the roles and responsibilities he’d undertaken. Along with his CV demonstrating his loyalty and ability, it also demonstrated his ‘stay ability’.

To my way of thinking these factors made Joe an attractive candidate to employers, yes perhaps he only had four or five years before retirement but this is actually quite substantial taking into account how much people move around in their careers today, someone younger may perhaps see an opportunity of joining an organisation as a stepping stone to the next stage of their career and will use this experience to facilitate this.

Today’s job market is very different to that of when Joe began his career, when a job was for life. I actually think this is quite positive because it allows a flow which supports people at different life career stages and when people like Joe want to join an organisation with a commitment to staying with them for four or five years, the organisation will recognise this as being a genuine commitment.

Joe told me our conversation helped him rethink his situation and he approached his job search with a more positive approach, he now recognised just how much he had to offer a potential employer and felt more confident in communicating this.

And of course should Joe choose to do something different, because of longevity there’s space for a whole new career between retirement and death and with the diverse range of skills and experience he’s developed throughout his career I suspect there might be a number of interesting options available to him.

Published with client’s permission. Name has been changed.

Evolving Careers Players can help you and your people transition into new roles. We deliver 121 career coaching, group learning and development and outplacement services. We devise community forum theatre,   corporate drama workshops and role-play scenarios. http://www.evolvingcareersplayers.com Get in touch to discuss your needs: carmel@evolvingcareersplayers.com

Top Seven Tips for Career Development

Career development is about enriching your working life to reflect your changing professional and personal needs. As your career develops it is important to retain a sense of purpose that motivates and challenges you, allowing self-fulfilment and opportunities to develop and grow. The following tips are intended to help you manage your career development plan.

1. You are accountable for your own success, as such it is your responsibility to be aware of your attributes and skills that can give you a competitive edge. Commit to excelling in what comes naturally to you to develop personal mastery. For example if you are a good negotiator, look for ways to fine tune your technique by practising in every day situations both in and out of work.

2. Imagine as deeply as possible your vision for your future work reality. Then work backwards from that to determine what you need to learn or experience over the next one or two years to be seen as a highly desirable candidate to step into your next role. Thinking of the bigger picture and understanding the challenges your industry is facing will support you in identifying the right intelligence and know-how needed to accelerate your career advancement.

3. Embrace learning through experience – be open to learning and change, your talent needs to be nurtured and developed through the right experiences and this will support meaningful work. Use assignments and secondments creatively, bring your personal insights and creative abilities to each assignment. Aim to build breadth and personal depth. This is your opportunity to shine and build your personal brand.

4. Make mentoring work – build a personal advisory board who can guide your career goals. Identify your circle of influence and take time to invest in these relationships. Take responsibility through benchmarking – Benchmarking allows you to compare yourself with others, identify their comparative strengths and weaknesses and learn how to improve.

5. Demand inspirational leadership and support your manager in being innovative with leadership programmes. Identify key thought leaders in your industry – people you admire and respect for their authentic leadership, then role model their behaviours.

6. Find ways of gaining exposure to new people and ideas by being a participant in the strategic task force. Think of your networking as a professional development bootcamp. Learn to value your time and how to connect with the right people. Nurture the relationships that matter most. Give time and attention to keep the most meaningful relationships relationships active at all times.

7. Invest in your personal life to create balance and strengthen your career. Spend time with the people important to you and do the things you love to do outside of your work. This helps to clear your mind and broaden your observations through a different lens and appreciate new ideas that can help shape your thinking and contribute to your personal growth.

Organisations are finding it tougher to retain their star performers, help them to tailor your job in line with your own career development needs. Take control of your career development by ensuring you have a short term, medium term and longer term career plan. Having this plan in place will help you to focus your development wisely to have the most effective impact on your career.

Evolving Careers Players can help you to manage and develop your career. We deliver 121 career coaching and group learning and development. We devise community forum theatre, corporate drama workshops and role-play scenarios. http://www.evolvingcareersplayers.com Get in touch to discuss your needs: carmel@evolvingcareersplayers.com

Change Management Survivors Syndrome

In this current economic climate many organisations are forced to go through restructuring processes resulting in considerable downsizing. This can seriously impact morale and bring it to an all-time low. People are struggling to keep their heads above water but they need to somehow come through this and make it work if their organisation (and their roles) are to survive.

‘Survivors Syndrome’ is when the people who have remained in a job are challenged with delivering not only on their original roles/workloads but also stepping in and stepping up to fill the gaps caused by the loss of their colleagues along with their skills, knowledge and experience.

Low morale leads to negativity causing a ‘stuckness’ in people’s thinking. Fresh thinking is needed to be able to move beyond this, to explore ideas that stimulate. A useful technique to help achieve this is to work with archetypes.

Case Study:

Kate as head of Human Recourses is tasked with rebuilding morale within the organisation. She brings in Evolving Careers Players (ECP) to explore ideas that will be stimulating to the project and the team. A pilot team made up of 4 people across 4 functions of the organisation: I.T. , Finance, Sales and Marketing and Research and Development are selected work with the ideas before the project is rolled out to the organisation at large.

To be in a position to understand the 4 team members ECP need to take on their characteristics. Working with the core principles of ECP around the techniques, structures and methods of theatre, together ECP, Kate and the team are able to identify/recognise the team/themselves as the following archetypes:

The Brick Wall: This role specialises in stonewalling, it refuses to make any contribution to the interaction. It is the archetypal ‘no comment’

The Rescuer: This role is about putting the focus on to other people, calling for help to be given to someone else. This way the spotlight on the self is avoided.

The Mouth: This role likes to talk its way out of situations, saying anything at all, even complete rubbish, rather than have the focus of enquiry more meaningfully directed.

Mr Cool: This role likes to take a laid back approach to life, essentially articulating an arrogance that makes a mockery of any challenge.

The first scenario

The ‘big question/problem’ is raised: ‘How do we rebuild morale’ and is answered in a ‘round robin’ way in character.

This is conversational: by way of dialogue the players take on the identity of the 4 team members. This allows the players to gain an understanding of each person: to get under their skin, to feel their pain and to get into their minds to allow them to know how they think.

Kate and her team observe and the scene is filmed to be watched back and discussed. Each team member is asked to say one positive thing about themselves in the interaction, to say what one thing would they change about themselves to allow this to move on. Then the person sitting to their right is asked to say one positive thing about their colleague in the interaction and to make one suggestion to their colleague of a change to be made to move on. They are instructed to keep this positive. Following on from this the second scenario is established. The team take on the role of directing themselves.

The second scenario

The ‘big question/problem’ remains. ‘How do we rebuild morale’

The players in their characters keep the two positive things mentioned and take on the two suggested changes they could do to move things on. The conversation continues, is observed, filmed, watched back and discussed. Each team member again says one positive thing about themselves in the interaction along with one thing they would change about themselves to allow things to move on. The person to their right once again says one positive thing about their colleague in the interaction and one suggestion of a change to be made to move on.

The exercise was repeated as many times as needed for the team to be be confident they had a workable action plan which would help rebuild morale that could be rolled out throughout the organisation.

Evolving Careers Players can support your change management strategy and help you to rebuild morale within your team when times get tough. We deliver 121 career coaching, group learning and development, and outplacement services. We devise community forum theatre, corporate drama workshops and role-play scenarios. http://www.evolvingcareersplayers.com Get in touch to discuss your needs: carmel@evolvingcareersplayers.com

To Hire from Inside or Outside – That is the Question

The market during the downturn provided significant challenges for employers when hiring. Conservative decision-making became widespread, particularly in the form of narrow sector focus and an unwillingness to ‘risk’ transferable skills or experience, seeking the comfort of market expertise. Downsizing within organisations called for restructuring processes where employees had to compete with each other by interview for roles within the new business structure. How can these challenges be overcome in a recovering but ever changing market place.

Ultimately, we must respond to the changing dynamic of the market and look to exploit the opportunities that arise from it – just as hirers become less risk-averse, so do prospective candidates and this provides opportunity to attract candidates with real potential. Recognising potential is key for all companies striving to keep pace with this rapidly changing, increasingly complex world.

The argument for hiring from outside because people from different backgrounds can bring in new perspectives and opinions that will challenge the existing and sometimes stubborn organisations is strong, however promoting from within presents the argument that the inspiration it gives to other insiders helping to keep your talent pipeline strong and motivated.

When hiring from outside you’re forced to write a proper job-spec, consider a larger pool of candidates, grill them in well-structured interviews and conduct in-dept reference checks. This isn’t as easy with internal candidates who are already your colleagues and friends, who will naturally ask ‘aren’t my years of contribution and performance evidence of my qualification?” ‘don’t you know me well enough after this time?’ which in all probability is true but to make it a fair playing field everyone needs to go through the same rigorous process.

Start by defining the profile of the ideal person and consider a wide pool of both insiders and outsiders. To identify the best you need to recognise the people who have the right motives, qualities and potential to help you excel. You need to get past the polish to hire the best candidate. Using role-play for real-play workplace scenarios allows you to get to know each candidate beyond ‘canned’ answers because they’re having to react in the moment allowing you to find the right person that both fits your company culture and can refresh your business with new ideas.

There are many challenges when hiring, and anyone who strives to lead from good to great knows the importance of getting things right at the root which is the people. Focusing on hiring for insatiable curiosity and the insight to see connections, to achieve greatness in building and transforming companies that remain at the forefront of society is the key to success. Start from a fair playing field and consider the best people from both inside and outside, surround yourself with the best by seeking out potential because this is what will keep you at the forefront of this recovering but ever changing market place.

Evolving Careers Players can help you in your selection process. Through Corporate Drama role-play we enable real-play work based scenarios. We deliver 121 career coaching, group learning and development, and outplacement services. We devise community forum theatre, corporate drama workshops and role-play scenarios. http://www.evolvingcareersplayers.com Get in touch to discuss your requirements: carmel@evolvingcareersplayers.com

Top Ten Tips to Tell a Story that makes an Impact

All great communicators are great story-tellers, they use their own stories to communicate with power and impact. By doing this they have authenticity and presence giving them the ability to influence and lead. The following tips are intended to help you to tell the right story at the right time.

1. The most powerful communication has a human element. Share your experiences, your successes and your challenges, what you did to overcome them and what you learnt in the process. This gives insight into who you are, allowing you to break down walls and connect with people at a human level. In stories characters will always have flaws, and if you include a past failure, it will add another layer to your story and endear you to your audience.

2. Take time to think about an intriguing way to begin your story, you need to capture the attention of your audience from the very beginning. The beginning doesn’t just “hook” your listeners, it also sets the tone and launches the plot of your message. An example might be establishing conflict from the outset e.g. “we were halfway to Mars when our fuel tank blew up”. This helps to create a sense of urgency and you can go back and fill in the details once people are on board with the fact that exciting stuff is happening.

3. Take your audience on a journey, stories are full of events and revelations which take your audience somewhere new. All the best stories contain transformations. Think about what transformations you want your audience to experience by the end of your story.

4. Take your time, the pleasure is in the telling. Remember a pause, a look, a gesture can convey as much as words. Allow yourself to see the pictures, hear the sounds, smell the scents, savour the tastes and feel the emotions, and then your audience will too.

5. To keep you audience on the edge of their seats, use …………. ‘suspense’. Not knowing what is going to happen next will make people want to sit up and listen. You could do this by posing a “big question” that will keep people hooked until the end. Maybe you’ll have a surprise ending, and who doesn’t love a surprise! A surprise can come in the form of a well-guarded secret revealed at the right time. This is guaranteed to get people talking and your story will spread like wildfire

6. At times when you have to deliver difficult messages, it’s worth remembering that listeners are more open to receiving when they hear the message delivered in a story format. They can lower their walls and defences because the message is coming to them in an indirect way. This helps to replace suspicion with trust.

7. Share your vision stories to inspire hope, stimulate action and raise morale. Telling a story first will guide your audience towards seeing what the future ahead holds and this is particularly important during times of uncertainty. Talk about the obstacles to overcome, when people know the efforts needed to achieve these goals they will appreciate them even more, the old adage of ‘not appreciating things that are easily attained’ comes into play here.

8. The greater the range of emotions in your story, the deeper the connection you will build with your audience. Empathy is important when storytelling, look at the world as though you are experiencing it from different perspectives, stand in the shoes of your audience. This helps to communicate your understanding of what others are feeling and thinking and shows respect of other’s point of view.

9. Tell stories to inspire people who want change, to sustain positive energy over time. Stories will get people’s imaginative juices working, they will become curious about what else there is to find out and have a greater sense of being an integral part of that change.

10. Finally if your thought process has dried up and you’re struggling to come up with ideas to get your next story started, places you can find inspiration from include:

Family, friends, colleagues –having an innate interest in people’s lives is a core attribute of all storytellers.

Dreams – we’ve all been intrigued by a dream at some point and have been left frustrated by waking up and wanting to know what happened next. The solution – write it down as quickly as possible and you never know what a seed may germinate.

Ask yourself ‘what if’ – what and if are as non-threatening as two words can be, but put them together side by side and they have the power to haunt you for the rest of your life’ (from the film Letters to Juliet).

Develop your  storytelling ability by making storytelling part of your daily life. After all storytelling is the best communication tool a leader can use, and as a leadership strategy, whenever you want to make an impact tell a story.

Evolving Careers Players can help you make an impact in all your communication needs whether its presenting, influencing or negotiating. We deliver 121 career coaching, group learning and development and outplacement services. We devise community forum theatre, corporate drama workshops and role-play scenarios. http://www.evolvingcareersplayers.com Get in touch to discuss your needs: carmel@evolvingcareersplayers.com

How to Handle a Bad Boss: Strategies for Managing Upwards

One of the main reasons that workers become unhappy at work is bad management. A bad boss can turn even a good working environment into an uncomfortable and unhappy workplace. They are in a position of power, you however are not powerless, BUT you do need to take responsibility to speak up in an attempt to change the situation.

An essential strategy is to Speak Up: Having a frank conversation with your boss about the problem in a calm, and professional manner can help you work towards resolving it. The way in which you approach the conversation will be dependent on your relationship. Yes, there are bosses who are inherently bad and misuse their position of power but there are also bosses who have lost their way and are behaving out of character, and there are bosses who are unaware of the impact of their behaviour. The key thing is to prepare, and to approach it from an objective standpoint. To do this you need to:

Put yourself in their shoes to understand how they see the world and the workplace, to help with this consider:
What they’re passionate about.
What keeps them up at night.
What challenges they’re facing.
What they’d love to do more of/less of on a daily basis.

Plan what you’re going to say:
Be clear on the points you want to get across, and the overall objective you want to achieve from the meeting.

Be prepared for obstacles/objections:
Arrange a time to talk, keep it brief and to the point. Some bosses want to know the agenda before the meeting, other don’t, work with their preferences.
Anticipate their reaction/argument/defence – having put yourself in their shoes and planning what you need to say, you’ll be fore-armed to deal with this.

The important thing is to speak up and give your boss a chance to respond. Speaking up rather than cowering in silence for fear of an awkward conversation takes courage, but you owe that to yourself and your boss. Having a genuine desire to work collaboratively to make things work better can open a door to a new level of respect and trust. A door that will remain permanently closed otherwise.

Evolving Careers Players can help you to mange and develop your career, whether that’s managing upwards or navigating this ever-changing market place. We deliver 121 career coaching, group learning and development and outplacement services. We devise community forum theatre, corporate drama workshops and real-play scenarios. http://www.evolvingcareersplayers.com Get in touch to discuss your needs: carmel@evolvingcareersplayers.com

Brainstorming Techniques for the Creative Mind

Role-Storming is a brainstorming technique to encourage group members to take on other people’s identities while brainstorming. This reduces the inhibitions that many people feel when sharing their ideas with a group, and it helps people come up with ideas that they may not have otherwise considered, because they’re considering them from someone else’s perspective.

It’s a useful technique for #CorporateDramaRolePlay for developing problem solving skills.

Begin by presenting the problem to be solved to the group. It need not be a problem directly related to their work, in fact its probably even more beneficial to have a generic problem, because this demonstrates the transferability of problem solving skills which can be taken back to the workplace and applied to real problems.

Step 1. Brainstorm obvious ideas by conducting a regular brainstorming session with your group. Not only will this generate some good initial ideas, it will also highlight more obvious ideas. This leaves the group free to expand their thinking and push boundaries in later steps.

Step 2. Identify Roles: Ask each group member to think of someone they know – alive or dead, who they admire and respect for their problem solving skills. Ideally, they should know enough about them to take on their identity for a short time. The person they choose can be anyone, so long as it’s a person not in the current group.* Its best for it not to be someone the rest of the group knows.

Step 3. Get Into Character: For each role, allow group members a few minutes to get into character. ‘Hot Seat’ (put them on the spot with quick fired questions) using these questions to help with this:
• How does this person see the world?
• What is this person’s personality or attitude likely to be?
• How would this person solve problems?

Make an effort to support each member to get into the persona of the character: the more deeply
they understand this person’s feelings, worldview, and motivations, the better they can use this
perspective to generate good ideas.

Step 4. Brainstorm in Character: Present the same problem to the group and ask them to brainstorm in their chosen character.

Step 5. Repeat the exercise with as many different identities as you need, so that you can generate enough good ideas.

Evolving Careers Players can help you in developing creative and imaginative solutions to your problem solving skills. We deliver 121 career coaching, group learning and development and outplacement services. We devise community forum theatre, corporate drama workshops and role-play scenarios. http://www.evolvingcareersplayers.com  Get in touch to discuss your needs: carmel@evolvingcareersplayers.com

Top Ten Toughest Interview Questions Answered

Question Number 1

What is your greatest weakness?

This question is checking self-awareness and can come in many different guises e.g. ‘Describe something you should start doing, do more of, less of.’ It is asking you to honestly appraise yourself. To achieve this your answer needs to be personalised. A good way to do this is to consider it in terms of development needs and areas of improvement. It’s actually good to demonstrate you don’t have it all figured out yet and that you take a reflective approach to understand what you need to strive towards.

Your answer needs to be relevant to the role you’re interviewing for. In this current competitive environment to have been invited along to interview it is reasonable that you have demonstrated you have the ability to perform the essential elements of the role. You need to focus your answer on the ‘desirable’ elements, which may have been made explicit in the job description but you can support your answer even more strongly by demonstrating your ability to understand between the lines. Describe something you should start doing, something that you can strive towards that will also have a positive impact on the role, the team and the organisation.

The important thing is not to try to ‘spin’ it by turning a weakness into a strength but to own it. It is however ok to support your answer by relating it to an area of weakness in a previous role and what you did to overcome this, the impact it had and the learning you took from it.

Evolving Careers Players can help you through your interview process. We deliver 121 career coaching, group learning and development, and outplacement services. We devise community forum theatre, corporate drama workshops and role-play scenarios. http://www.evolvingcareersplayers.com  Get in touch to discuss your needs: carmel@evolvingcareersplayers.com