SECTION 1 – WHY ARE PROBLEM SOLVING SKILLS SO REVELANT TO
BE HIRED?
Let's practice. 1. Consider this hypothetical question and its response. Does it follow the recommendations from the text on page 3? Justify your answer. No, it does not. The answer must include the person's reflection about the hypothetical problem and he/she should also give examples and justify his/her answer.
2. Imagine that you are at a job interview and the interviewer asks you these questions. Answer them. Remember what to include in the answer. ANSWERS MAY VARY. THESE ARE JUST SOME IDEAS.
1. If your boss bought the wrong technological devices, what would
you say? I would say it would be advisable to return them If possible so as not to waste money.
2. What would you do if you discovered a workmate had made a
mistake? I would offer him/her my help to solve the difficulty.
3. What would you do if you had to solve a problem and there were no time to contact your boss? I would take a minute to reflect upon the options so as to take the best decision.
4. What would you plan if sales decreased a 20% in your company?
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I would plan a meeting with my team to consider different possibilities
to improve this situation.
SECTION 2 – THE S.T.A.R MODEL
1. Let's consider these STAR examples. Join questions and answers. There is an extra item.
When I was working as a catering manager, we were
informed the night before an event that the ingredients we needed to prepare the meal were not Tell me about a going to be delivered on time and would arrive after time when you we needed them. I got the list of the ingredients A faced an B needed and made a stop on my way to the event. My unexpected team and I were able to make the appetisers just in challenge at work. time for the party. All of the guests enjoyed them so much that the planner mentioned them in her online review.
When I was working as an office manager, the CEO of
our company told me that employee productivity was down and that I needed to come up with a solution. Tell me about a I decided to ask the team members by conducting time when you had interviews and sending out short surveys. After to change your B D gathering this information, I was able to see that planned course of employees didn´t have a way to keep track of and action at the last organize tasks. I recommended that the CEO moment. implement a new project management system and productivity increased by 10 % after implementation.”
Tell us about a time When I was working as a retailing manager, I had a
C A when you had to customer who came in to pick up a dress that she had
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solve a problem, ordered online. But when I went to collect her order, I but you dealt with found that the dress had accidentally been put back a dissatisfied on the sales floor. I was bought by another customer. I customer. called another of our store locations and asked them to hold the same dress in the customer´s size. She received the order within 2 days for free. A week later, I found out that the customer had called our corporate headquarters to mention how much she appreciated the gesture.
What did you do to
solve a problem but you didn´t have all D the necessary information about it beforehand?
When I was working as a catering manager, we were informed the night before an event that the ingredients we needed to prepare the meal were not going to be delivered on time and would arrive after we needed them. We needed to find an alternative way to get the ingredients quickly. I got the list of the ingredients é needed and made a stop on my way to the event. My team and I were able to make the appetizers just in time for the party. All of the guests enjoyed them so much that the planner mentioned them in her online review.
SITUATION TASK ACTION RESULT
PAGE 70
3. Can you do the same with the other two answers?
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a. When I was working as an office manager, the CEO of our company told me that employee productivity was down and that I needed to come up with a solution. I decided to ask the team members by conducting interviews and sending out short surveys. After gathering this information, I was able to see that employees didn’t have a way to keep track of and organize tasks. I recommended that the CEO implemented a new project management system and productivity increased by 10 % after implementation.
b. When I was working as a retailing manager, I had a customer who came in
to pick up a dress that she had ordered online. But when I went to collect her order, I found that the dress had accidentally been put back on the sales floor. It was bought by another customer. I knew that if I failed to find a new dress for the client, she would probably file a complaint and I could lose my job. I called another of our store locations and asked them to hold the same dress in the customer´s size. She received the order within 2 days for free. A week later, I found out that the customer had called our corporate headquarters to mention how much she appreciated the gesture.
LET’S PRACTISE 1. Complete Bethany’s answer with the verbs in brackets in the correct tense and voice. What question is she answering?
Bethany Williamson
During my first year working as a project manager at Slate Construction, I 1
WAS WORKING (work) with two of my colleagues to meet a deadline. We 2 WERE DESIGNING (design) a proposal for a shopping mall, but we 3 WERE HAVING (have) some problems to finish our work. My mates 4DIDN’T AGREE
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/COULDN’T AGREE (not agree) with each other on how to approach the proposal and the deadline 5 WAS (be) near. We 6 HAD TRIED (try) different ideas but there was always something wrong in them. We had even combined our ideas with no result. It 7 WAS (be) obvious that we 8 NEEDED (need) to work better as a team, so I 9 INVITED (invite) them both to lunch, outside the office. Having lunch and listening to each other’s plans 10 GAVE (give) them the opportunity to see that they had similar visions of the big picture but disagreed about details. After hearing both their plans, we 10 MADE (make) a single list with the most efficient ideas that we all agreed on. In the end, we 11 OFFERED (offer) our client a solid proposal and we 12 WERE CONGRATULATED (congratulate) on by our boss and our happy client.
2. Complete Scott’s anecdote with the correct connector from the
box. There is an extra one. What question is Scott answering?
Scott Nguyen
due to – because – although – as a result – so – and – as
In my previous job in a retail company, things were not going well
1_____BECAUSE__________ sales were going down and the company was considering a staff reduction. We needed to find a way to promote new sales. 2_____SO____________ I had an idea: 3_______AS_____ sales had decreased significantly, the sales team had lost confidence in their work. To motivate them, I created a perk programme which I proposed to my boss. He really liked it and adopted it. 4_____AS A RESULT____, there was an 11% increase in sales. 5____DUE TO________ my contribution, I was promoted
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6___AND___________ got everyone’s respect. I had never felt so proud of
myself before.
3. Now, formulate Bethany and Scott’s answers but making some
changes in the original version. ANSWERS MAY VARY.
a. Change the results in Bethany’s answer.
b. Change the action in Scott’s answer. c. Change the situation in any of the two answers and make the necessary changes.
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SECTION 3 – ACADEMIC LITERACY
1. Do you remember this chart? What does it show? Share your answers with your classmates. Then, observe it carefully. What elements are missing? Complete it.
This chart shows the organization of IMRAD model. TITLE, METHOD,
DISCUSSION AND REFERENCES are missing.
2. Great! You could detect the missing elements in the previous
exercise. Let’s go on reading the role of standards in research papers. What is a standard?
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In Unit 2, we learnt that the IMRAD model is a standard accepted and used by scientific communities to produce and publish new knowledge. Standards are something established and followed to make new concepts easier, simpler and clearer to follow, find and share.
It is important to say that there are standards not only for the sections, but also for the content each section has to contain.
What can we find in each section of a research paper? Where inverted
commas (“”) were included, it means these concepts can be missing. They are not compulsory.
What is it about? Brief and informative.
TITLE + ABSTRACT Remember the 5 moves (some may be absent or in a different order). Why did the author/s decide to start this research? Context – problem to be researched – INTRODUCTION importance – research question. The aim of the research is placed in the last part of this section if not presented in a section. Who were the subjects of this research? What procedures and instruments were METHODS used to collect data? Not only methods, but also justification for their use. What was found? Were these results statistically significant? RESULTS Findings are summarized with headings and informative figures. To what extent did the results confirm the authors hypotheses? Any references to DISCUSSION limitations or future studies? The results are explained. “CONCLUSIONS” What are the major findings? Section used to recognize by name, the “ACKNOLEDGEMENTS” contribution of a mentor and / or people who helped with the research.
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REFERENCES Bibliography consulted.
SECTION 4 – EXTRA PRACTICE
1. Order this job interview answer. What question is this candidate answering?
ORDE R
It scared me to death to get away from my computer screen, but
I found the courage to call some of our biggest customers to A 3 discuss what we’d developed and whether they could use it to solve real-life problems.
We developers created an innovative piece of software, but the
B 2 sales team was too busy to give us much attention.
It was at that moment, when that deal closed, that I realized that I loved selling and solving problems for customers more than I C 5 loved programming. And I’ve been in sales and marketing ever since!
A decade ago, I was working as a programmer in a group of
D 1 about 100 in a remote development center.
I ended up speaking with an engineer at Lockheed Aerospace
and we figured out that our software would save them about a E million dollars a year. 4 Lockheed ended up not just buying the prototype, but gave us the upfront money to turn it into a real product. Text adapted for pedagogical purposes from https://www.glassdoor.com/blog/importance-story-telling-job-interview/
2. Identify the situation, task, action, and result in the previous story.
A decade ago, I was working as a programmer in a group of about 100 in a
remote development center. We developers created an innovative piece of software, but the sales team was too busy to give us much attention.
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(SITUATION) It scared me to death to get away from my computer screen, but I
found the courage to call some of our biggest customers to discuss what we’d developed and whether they could use it to solve real-life problems.(TASK) I ended up speaking with an engineer at Lockheed Aerospace and we figured out that our software would save them about a million dollars a year.(ACTION) Lockheed ended up not just buying the prototype, but gave us the upfront money to turn it into a real product. It was at that moment, when that deal closed, that I realized that I loved selling and solving problems for customers more than I loved programming. And I’ve been in sales and marketing ever since! (RESULT)
3. Complete this job interview story with the verbs in brackets in the Past Simple tense or Past Continuous tense.
Question: Describe a time when you went beyond what was required to get the job done. Answer: "I have always been willing to do whatever is necessary to get the job done, but one time does stand out in my mind. Our team 1WAS PREPARING (prepare) a major proposal for a prospective client. Our technology team leader 2WAS (be) ill and he 3HAD NOT COME (not come) to work for several days. I 4JUMPED (jump) in to learn how to construct some complex macros in Excel to showcase some key data and took the lead with creating presentation slides for our pitch. I 5NEEDED (need) to work several evenings until midnight to get the work done in time while I 6PERFORMED (perform) my regular duties during the daytime. The client 7ENDED (end) up accepting our proposal and cited the quality of our presentation exhibits as a key reason they went with us.”
4. Complete this job interview story with the verbs in brackets in the correct tense and voice.
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1 A few years back I WAS WORKING (work) as a Service Advisor at a car dealership. One morning in our department staff meeting the Service Manager 2ANNOUNCED (announce) that we 3HAD RECEIVED /HAD BEEN RECEIVING (receive) an unacceptable amount of negative reviews for the service we had been providing our customers. His solution was to create a committee that would analyze the situation and put forth actionable improvements, and for this he 4ASKED (ask) for volunteers. I was eager for an opportunity to show that I was capable of taking on more responsibility, and since I 5AM (be) a person who 6ENJOYS (enjoy) working in group situations, I was the first to volunteer. I 7WAS QUICKLY MADE (quickly- make) the leader of the committee by my Service Manager, which put me in the position of the leader of a group of 4 other people who 8 WERE TASKED (task) to come up with a solution. Over the next three weeks we 9ANALYZED (analyze) each of the 10 customer services reports and DISCOVERED (discover) that the vast majority of negative reviews were a result of lengthy wait times for customers. Knowing that we had to come up with a solution to decrease the amount of time our customers were left waiting, I then 11LED (lead) 12 brainstorming sessions to find a way in which the problem COULD BE FIXED (can fix). We zoned in on changing the way our mechanics worked on each work order. After implementing my suggestion, mechanics were able to focus mainly 13 on their specializations, which MEANT (mean) they worked faster and more efficiently, which translated to wait times dropping by 18%.
5.Read the answer in activity 6 quickly and choose the question the applicant is answering.
a. “Tell me about a time when you were able to diffuse a situation.”
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b. “Describe a situation in which you had to get creative to solve a
problem.” c. “Tell me about a time when you were able to persuade someone to change their mind.”
6. Choose the correct connector.
The trucks at the retail store at which I worked as an assistant manager came loaded by personnel at a distribution center, box-by-box. AFTER / WHEN receiving a few trucks, I noticed that my employees were unloading broken merchandise that took a lot of time to clean up BEFORE / AFTER the rest of the truck could be finished. The broken glass, paint, or whatever material it was prevented the employees from proceeding farther into the truck, causing more person-hours than normal. I noticed that the merchandise was broken DUE TO / BECAUSE heavier boxes were on top of lighter boxes. After a couple of days of this situation, with productivity decreasing, I learned that the rest of the stores in my district faced the same problem SO / BUT nobody seemed to be able to find a solution. HOWEVER / AS A RESULT, I asked each store to take pictures of the mess AS / SO the distribution centers could see exactly what was happening. MOREOVER / THEREFORE, I asked each one to write down how many additional person-hours it took to clean up the mess. After we gathered this information for a four-week period, we had a pretty good estimate of how much the company was losing. I took the information to my district manager. Once he realized how much money his district was losing each month BECAUSE / BECAUSE OF broken merchandise in the trucks, he contacted his regional manager, and the trucks after that were loaded more carefully.
