Targeted Interview Process

The targeted selection interviews normally consist of two or three, one hour interviews with hiring managers in our company. One interview will be with the hiring manager and two interviews with peer hiring managers. The targeted selection interviews have more of a cultural/behavioral focus.

What is Targeted Selection?

The big part of the interview process is this interview – the targeted selection interview and this is where they ultimately assess the cultural fit. Interaction with team members is a large part of the culture. This interview is meant to give the hiring leaders insight into how you work as a team member, what motivates you and what your definition of success is as well as a few other insights. These interviews will not be technical interviews but there may be technical elements as you may be discussing technical scenarios in your answers.

The targeted selection interview is part of the hiring process for permanent roles. Targeted Selection is a series of three 60 minute interviews with current hiring leaders. The questions you will receive will be more behavioral/situational based questions. In your responses, please stick to the STAR (Situation, Task, Action and Result) format in your responses. Please review the .pdf document attached regarding the Competencies of the Dynamic Organization to give you an idea of what U.S. Cellular as a whole is looking for in regard to cultural fit.

What is STAR format?

Situation/Task:What was the context? Why?
Action:What was done (or not done)? How was it done?
Result:What was the effect of the Action (or inaction)?
Example question:Was there ever a time when you had an issue with a customer? What was the situation? How did you resolve it?

A good STAR answer would have the following format…

Situation/Task:There was a time when we had a client that was expecting delivery of X type of service and they called in wondering why they had not received.
Action:What did you do to solve the problem?
Result:What was the result of your action? Was the problem solved?

There may be follow up questions to your answer so for those, feel free to stick to the STAR format for those if applicable

Evaluating Topics?

The areas that the evaluation questions will cover will be as follows:

  1. Creating Customer Value
  2. Pursuing and Demonstrating Technical/Professional Expertise
  3. Applying Innovation and Continuous Improvement
  4. Delivering Results
  5. Embracing and Navigating Change
  6. Collaborating Across Organizational Boundaries
  7. Making Quality Decisions
  8. Communicating with Impact
  9. Motivational Fit

As you can see, the areas are varied but the goal is really to assess a candidate in terms of how they fit into our culture. While there might be some technical questions, this is primarily a situational/behavior interview. You can answer these questions with either business or non-business examples but business examples are preferred. It is important to provide full answers or “STARs” and as many “STARs” as you can provide to have a full evaluation.

Tell about a situation / process put in place to improve / monitor quality of service / delivery of products.

Tell about a recent issued escalated to you and how you handled it?

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