Answer:
How to answer “What is your greatest accomplishment?”
1.Begin by making a list of your accomplishments. ...
2.Review the job description. ...
3.Follow the STAR (Situation, Task, Approach and Result) approach. ...
4.Situation. ...
5.Task. ...
6.Approach. ...
7.Result.
Explanation:
What is your greatest accomplishment?’ is one of the most challenging and common questions you can expect during a job interview.
Your answer says A LOT about you as a candidate.
And oftentimes, the question can distinguish the ‘perfect’ candidate from an ‘OK’ one.
Wondering how to answer the question modestly (while at the same time, showing off how awesome you are)?
Read on to find out:
Why interviewers ask the “What is your greatest achievement?” job interview question
How to reply with the perfect answer using the STAR method
3+ “What is your greatest achievement” sample answers
Ready?
Let’s begin!
Why Interviewers Ask “What Is Your Greatest Accomplishment?”
Let’s start with the basics: what’s the point of this job interview question?
When asking this question, the interviewer wants to learn 3 things:
If you’re down to earth. If you brag endlessly about your accomplishment (especially if the achievements aren’t that impressive), the interviewer will think that you’re not the most pleasant person to work with.
What YOU think is success, and how you associate it with your job and career. If you’re applying for a job as an accountant and your greatest achievement is baking the best cake ever at your office party, you’re not making the cut.
If you’re success-oriented and if you’ve gone above and beyond in your work. E.g. If your greatest accomplishment is that you were always on time and left work on the dot at 5 pm, you’re not it. That’s not an achievement - that’s a minimum job requirement.
Now that we’ve got that out of the way, let’s talk about how to answer this question.
How to Pick the Perfect Answer with the STAR Method
“What’s your greatest accomplishment?” is a behavioral job interview question.
What that means is, the interviewer wants to understand your past performance, and how you handle specific situations (for example, under pressure).To answer just about any behavioral job interview question right, we recommend using the STAR method.
The main idea here behind the STAR method is that every answer should cover the following topics:
(S) Situation - Describe the situation and the context in which the event took place.
(T) Task - Talk about the tasks you had to complete (i.e. your challenge or responsibility).
(A) Action - Explain the actions you took to address the above-mentioned challenges or responsibilities.
(R) Results - Explain the kind of results you achieved. When describing the outcome, if possible, mention numbers and quantifiable facts. E.g. “Improved cold lead response time by 20%” VS “Improved sales.”
Now, let’s take a well-written behavioral job interview answer using the STAR method.
