(Who is Leonard? Leonard – Non-Profit Leader with 25 years experience seeking Executive Director role)
Terry: Leonard, I have your information here, but tell me about yourself.
Leonard: I’ve dedicated my professional career to working with young people and families to create a better quality of life. I’ve been involved in non-profit work, public health work and advocacy work during that time.
I have two sons, one is XXX and one is XXX, who recently got married. They live here in the XXX area. I just recently spent a year taking care of my ill mother and have recently moved her here to XXX.
Terry: Now I suspect that you left your last job because of your mother’s situation. Is that correct?
Leonard: That is correct.
Terry: What have you been doing to stay up to date professionally during this gap?
Leonard: I’ve stayed active in my professional association, the XXX Association. I am a leader of both, the XXX Section and have been a leader of the XXX Committee and XXX Committees of that Association.
I’ve worked on national advocacy campaigns related to federal legislation, most recently the XXX for children’s health care, mental health and XXX Legislation and more recently the Federal XXX Regulation of XXX Law.
Besides those, I’ve been doing a number of consulting projects, mostly with start-ups. Folks who are interested, for instance, there’s a gentleman who was interested in building an agency that would do XXX for recovering XXX in XXX. I’ve been working with him on both a business plan as well as a strategic plan as to how he would build that out.
I have a number of other examples like that that I’ve been working on.
Here’s how I would rate this answer . . .
Q1. Tell me about yourself – LENNY QUICK RATING – C
Don’t think you need to mention mother and sons unless you immediately draw personal connection to mission of organization, could also include some more professional context about what you bring.
Your answer to the followup question I’d rate as an A, showed how you’re up to date professionally, showed good specificity and was relevant to this specific opportunity.
See 12 unique answers to this question below. Just follow each link to see what real people said. Review the rating for each answer. These real-life examples are a powerful short-cut to help you write your own answer to this frequently asked job interview question, “do you have any questions for me?”
Or you could hit the easy button and have a professional assist you to prepare for your next interview.
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