There's a Zombie Apocalypse
How to interview Executive Assistants
Imagine you’re an Executive Assistant. You walk into an interview. You’re as ready as you can be because you prepared. You read about the company and the executive(s) you’d be supporting. You practiced your answers. You perfected your story.
Things are going well. Questions are being answered. Rapport is being built. You got this.
And then the interviewer throws a question at you out of left field: “What would you do if there was a zombie apocalypse right now and we are here (in the office)?”
How would YOU answer that question?
The company I used to work at would ask this question to all candidates, including Executive Assistants, back in the day.
What is the right answer? Why are they asking me this? What do they want me to say? What are they testing for? Those are the thoughts that would’ve gone through my head if I were asked that question. I would’ve crumbled under pressure trying to come up with the “perfect” answer thinking that’s what I was supposed to do lol.
A couple of my really good friends are the ones who used to ask this question in interviews. I’ve chatted with both of them in the past about this on separate occasions. And I asked them “What was the right answer to that question? You know, I would’ve totally failed the interview if you had asked me that.”
It turns out, there IS no right answer. And the answer actually isn’t as important. The thought process and how the question is answered are what they were looking for.
Are you a brainstormer? Can you problem solve? Are you a creative problem solver? Can you collaborate? Can you delegate? Can you work autonomously? If you aren’t sure of the answer, do you say so? Do you take the question seriously? Do you get into the nitty gritty details or are you care free about it? How do you react?
With that said, obviously, your answer to this question isn’t what gets you hired or not. But it does give the interviewer an insight into what you might be like as a person and potential employee/coworker.
To be honest, this is actually a perfect (and dare I say reasonable?) question to ask an EA in an interview because we deal with so much weird shit on a daily basis. If you’re an EA (with several years of experience) reading this, I know you can remember at least 5 ridiculous, near impossible requests that you were able to somehow successfully complete. A zombie apocalypse? Pfft… no big deal compared to what you’ve accomplished lol.
Next time you’re interviewing an EA, don’t ask only direct, obvious, google-able questions. Ask the off kilter ones that give you a glimpse into their personality, sense of humor, problem solving ability, sense of urgency, adaptability, etc.
Instead of “tell me a time when you made a mistake and how you overcame it” (my least favorite interview question btw), ask them something memorable and different that they won’t be able to google in advance and practice answering!