Learning Orientation

Behavioral

• Describe a time when you took a new job that required a much different set of skills from what you had. How did you go about acquiring the needed skills?
  
• Have you had an occasion when a prior strength actually turned out to be a weakness in another setting? How did you cope?
  
• Throughout your career have you learned more about your profession through course work or through on-the-job experience? Explain.
  
• What area of your last job was most challenging for you? Why was this specific part of the position difficult? Is this still challenging? Why or why not?
  
• Tell me about a time when you volunteered for an assignment to expand your knowledge and skills.
  
• Tell of a time when you had to educate yourself about a topic to make a presentation.
  

Situational

• The company announces a reimbursement program for any course taken that will improve your performance in your current position. Do you take advantage of it? Why or why not?
  
• A new co-worker speaks another language. Do you try to learn small talk in that language or discourage the potential confusion caused by the use of different languages in the workplace?
  

General

• Tell me about the one person who has influenced you the most during your career. Was he or she a manager or mentor? What did you learn from him or her? Why do you think you learned so much from that person?
  
• What is more important to your profession—experience or continued education?
  
• How do you stay informed of current ideas on management and on the [industry/field]?
  
• Under what kinds of conditions do you learn best?
  
• In what areas would you like to develop further? What are your plans to do that?
  
• What are your career path interests?
  
• Should employees seek to improve their knowledge and skill base? Why? Why not?
  
• What was the best training program in which you have participated?
  
• What are your major professional reading sources?
  
• What sorts of things have you done to become better qualified for your career?
  
• Careers grow and develop just as people do. Where do you see your career now? Why? What are you doing to sustain it?
  
• What's the most valuable thing you've learned in the past year? Why?
  
• Do you feel you are knowledgeable about current industry-related legislation or trends? Why or why not?
  
• What was the last work-related educational seminar or class you attended? Why did you attend this course? How have you transferred the knowledge gained in the course to your work?
  
• Do you have aspirations to earn advanced degree(s)?