Behavioral Interview Question based on "Sharpening Your Skills and Uncovering Hidden Limitations: The Unexpected Benefit of Coding Competitions"
Question: Describe a situation where you participated in a competition or challenge that pushed you outside your comfort zone. Did you discover any hidden limitations in your workflow? How did you address them, and what was the outcome?
Why this question is relevant:
The blog post highlights how coding competitions can reveal hidden limitations in your workflow, not necessarily related to coding skills themselves. This question allows you to showcase your:
Willingness to step outside your comfort zone and participate in challenging activities.
Self-awareness in identifying limitations that might hinder your performance.
Problem-solving skills and initiative in developing strategies to overcome these limitations.
How to answer using STAR:
Situation: Briefly describe the competition or challenge you participated in.
For instance, "I recently participated in a weekend-long hackathon focused on developing mobile applications for social good."
Task: Explain how the competition pushed you outside your comfort zone. You can mention the specific challenge or time constraints.
"While I'm comfortable with back-end development, this hackathon emphasized creating a user-friendly interface. The time pressure also added an element of stress that I don't typically experience in my day-to-day work."
Action: Detail how you discovered a hidden limitation in your workflow. Connect this to the blog post's concept of limitations beyond technical skills.
"During the competition, I noticed myself struggling to navigate quickly between the code editor and the design mockup tool. This constant back-and-forth required a lot of horizontal scrolling, which became tiring and slowed down my development process."
Result: Describe the steps you took to address this limitation and the outcome.
"Inspired by the blog post's mention of horizontal scrolling limitations, I realized this wasn't a skill issue but a potential workflow inefficiency. To address this, I experimented with opening both the code and the design mockup on separate screens. This allowed me to quickly switch between them without excessive scrolling, significantly improving my workflow and overall productivity during the remaining time of the hackathon."
This answer demonstrates your ability to:
Embrace challenges and learn from new experiences.
Identify areas for improvement in your workflow.
Develop creative solutions to overcome limitations.
Adapt and improve your performance under pressure.
By connecting your experience to the blog post's concept of hidden limitations and using the STAR method, you can effectively showcase your problem-solving skills, self-awareness, and adaptability.