Questions at Benefit Cosmetics interviews

1. Tell me about a time when you've resolved a problem for a frustrated customer top question

How to answer

1. About Yourself

   Think of a time when, as a customer, you had a problem with a company.

   • How did you feel?
   • How did you want to be treated?
   • Was the situation resolved to your satisfaction? If so what was done to resolve it?
   • If not, what went wrong?

   Have you had experience in the past where you helped a frustrated customer? When you were on the serving side of the table, what did you do to make a real difference to the customer and their experience?

   When considering this question, focus on your principles and your approach. You know that when customers are made to feel neglected and unimportant, they tend to get frustrated. You want to demonstrate to the hiring manager that you have the capacity to understand the customer’s problems and issues and can come up with a solution that best addresses their concerns.

   Of course, this may not always be possible in your line of business or profession, but I guess you see what I mean - showing full attention greatly improves your chances of mitigating the situation.

2. About The Company

   Every company relies on customers.

   Research the company you are applying to and try to find out what their standards of customer relationship or service are, as well as try to find out some real cases where the customers complained about the company, and what the company did to mitigate the situations (a possible source might be Yelp! or another social media platform).

   Based on your research, how does the company treat customers? How do they resolve customer issues?

3. About The Fit

   How do you demonstrate to the interviewer that you can WOW the customer by making their situation better for them as well as helping the company maintain good customer relations? Mr. Simon recommends using the Present-Past-Present method.

   There are many ways to apply this approach. For example you can start with the Present emphasizing that your approach to good customer service always starts with your great listening skills that enable you to fully understand the customer’s situation.

   Next go back to the Past for an example of just how you were able to resolve a frustrating situation for a customer. Focus on a situation in which you listened to and understood the problem and were able to resolve it and prevent the loss of the customer’s business.

   Finally come back to the Present to discuss how your skills and experience in handling frustrated customers will be a real asset to the company going forward.

Pro Tip

Statistics

This question is asked 3.2x more frequently at Benefit Cosmetics than at other companies.

2. How would you describe yourself?

How to answer

1. About Yourself

   Think of how your bosses and peers would describe you.

   Throughout your professional experience, you have probably heard them giving you some labels – try to remember the exact words they used.

   If you have received LinkedIn recommendations from someone, read those and think why people wrote them and what work situations prompted those descriptions. Remember the context of those situations and frame them as stories.

   Make a list of keywords, or short key phrases, that can describe you. Your Key Selling Points should definitely appear on this list, but try to also use some adjectives here, to add a positive emotional touch.

2. About The Company

   Research the company's values, standards and policies. Make a list of keywords or short key phrases.

3. About The Fit

   Which of your keywords correspond best with those of the company? Highlight 3-4 matches. Now try to imagine being a peer or a boss of yours and compile statements about yourself, in the 3rd person, mentioning these keywords. Remember to use adjectives, and don’t be afraid to mention real references from real people.

   For example, if you are applying for a position that requires good people skills, and your boss at your previous job called you a “conflict resolution guru,” don’t be shy to mention this reference, and provide a brief context that caused your boss’s praise. Use the STAR method to craft your story.

   Don’t limit yourself with just one keyword. If you are concise and don’t ramble with your answer, your interviewer will probably want to hear more than one. Just be observant and watch the interviewer’s reaction. You want to keep them interested.

Pro Tip

Statistics

This question is asked 5.7x more frequently at Benefit Cosmetics than at other companies.

3. How would you handle a customer with difficult behavior?

How to answer

1. About Yourself

   Look back on your experience. Have you dealt with a difficult or disruptive customer? Remember how you diffused the situation and how you turned things around.

   • Do you have certain principles, or methodology, to deal with difficult people?
   • Do you have strong people skills, are you good at conflict resolution?
   • Are you high on emotional intelligence? Can you give an example?

2. About The Company

   • What have you found about the company and its culture?
   • What have you learned about how the employees value each other?
   • How do they treat their customers?
   • Knowing their line of business or industry, what can be some examples of difficult customers?

   Do your research.

3. About The Fit

   When a question like this asked in an interview, it is an indication that you will probably encounter difficult customers, or other difficult stakeholders while working for this company.

   This would be an excellent opportunity to use the Present-Past-Present approach to respond to this question.

   Start with the Present. Speak about your “conflict resolution” skills and how you apply these today.

   Next go back to a Past situation - remember your Star Stories to relate a relevant situation that happened in a previous job where you resolved a problem for a difficult customer.

   Finally, come back to the Present, summarizing what you learned from past experiences and how you will apply them to the job you are interviewing for today.

   If you can give an example of how you handled a difficult person in the past in a situation similar to what this company may require from you, this will strongly increase your chances of showing yourself as a good fit.

Pro Tip

Statistics

This question is asked 77% more frequently at Benefit Cosmetics than at other companies.

4. Where do you see yourself in 5 years?

How to answer

1. About Yourself

   What challenges do you like overcoming? Where are you starting from and where might you be going?

   For example, let's say the position you are applying for is junior accountant. It includes a wide range of tasks such as basic bookkeeping, financial analysis, and reporting. If accounting is your chosen field, then you would most likely want to move in the direction of obtaining your CPA so that you might step up to more responsibility as an accounting manager or senior auditor within the next 5 years. Your responses should make sense in how you see yourself growing in your professional career.

   However, at this point, if you are happy just where you are and want to further your current skills, that is also fine as long as there is a growth path for you that can be imagined and described.

2. About The Company

   Research the company to learn what career opportunities may be available in the department you are applying to, and what the trends are in the company in general.

   • Is the business expanding, are they opening new locations, or starting new projects?
   • Or are they heavily automating and cutting staff?

   Let’s say you are applying for a UX designer position for a brand-new product.

   In the future, if the product becomes a success - which is what the company hopes for - the company will hire more designers and you may become a lead designer, or you may become a product manager.

   On a side note: If you train your mind to be open to opportunities you will be amazed at how much this world has to offer to you!

3. About The Fit

   And, of course, try to see where the perfect fit lies between your own potential and aspirations, and the company’s trends and hopes.

   However, beware of the risk of showing too much excitement for future opportunities compared to your attitude towards the current position.

   As we said earlier, you must show interest and enthusiasm for the position you are applying for. If the interviewer senses that you are more enthusiastic about future growth than about the current position, they may conclude that you are not the right person for the job at hand.

Pro Tip

Statistics

This question is asked 14% less frequently at Benefit Cosmetics than at other companies.

5. What is your greatest weakness?

How to answer

1. About Yourself

   No one is perfect and your interviewer doesn't expect you to be perfect either.

   While it is good to be honest and open, it will not help you to put yourself down.

   What's important is to find a weakness that you have overcome. How you turned what might be considered a negative into a positive.

2. About The Company

   Research the company (website, social media, etc) to learn about the company culture.

   What personal and professional qualities do they value?

3. About The Fit

   This is the time to clearly state a true weakness that you have overcome.

   Be as specific as possible and stay away from vague cliches like “I work too hard.” It would be difficult for anyone to try and explain how they overcame a weakness like that

   Mr. Simon emphasizes the Present-Past-Present method of responding to behavioral questions. When you are asked about your greatest weakness, you should be able to successfully use this approach as well. Here is an example of how someone might answer this question.

   Present - "I have always had a fear of public speaking, and believe this may have held me back in my career, especially when having to make presentations to management."

   Past - "Last year I learned about Toastmasters International and decided to join this group to help me gain confidence in myself and improve my ability to present to others in just about any situation."

   Present - "By overcoming this weakness I believe that it has made me a much stronger candidate for this position, someone you can count on to make presentations to management, conduct training and communicate at a high level."

   It's important to show how well you've overcome a weakness by motivating yourself and learning a new skill to grow professionally.

Pro Tip

Statistics

This question is asked 30% less frequently at Benefit Cosmetics than at other companies.

6. What experience do you have in this field?

How to answer

1. About Yourself

   Start with defining your Key Selling Points you want to emphasize for this position.

   • What job experiences brought you to those points?
   • What were the job titles and the most relevant responsibilities?

2. About The Company

   Do your research of the company and the requirements for the position.

   • What is the company looking for in terms of experiences and qualifications?
   • What problems are they trying to solve with this position?

   Most importantly, make sure you are able to highlight and speak about at least 3-5 of your key experiences that match up with the requirements listed in the job description.

3. About The Fit

   Using the Present-Past-Present method is a perfect way to answer this question.

   Starting with the Present, speak about your experience as it relates to one of the key requirements in the job description. You might say "I noted that the job description requires experience in employee training and this is an area in which I have a great deal of knowledge and skill."

   Then go back to the Past to describe how you improved overall training of staff from 82% to over 97% within your first year on the job. Senior leadership took note of this accomplishment for which you received a company commendation.

   Finally, come back to the Present to describe how you will help ensure that the company maintains the highest possible compliance with all employee training requirements.

   Nowadays, every hiring manager wants results, so think in terms of specific achievements and try to structure your example accordingly.

Pro Tip

Statistics

This question is asked 98% more frequently at Benefit Cosmetics than at other companies.

7. What are your top 3 skills?

How to answer

1. About Yourself

   First, come up with a list of skills that you know you are good at – as many as you can think of. If you find this exercise difficult, use the helpful questions below:

   • What skills are you better at than your peer X? Your peer Y? Your boss Z?
   • What positive feedback could your manager, colleagues, clients, or even friends give about working with you?
   • What positive points were made about you in your last review(s) that involve the skills you demonstrated?
   • In which areas do you have professional knowledge and/or experience?
   • What records of achievement do you have?
   • What was the most impressive recent achievement you can think of? Which skills of yours made this success possible?

2. About The Company

   Research the company to help identify the kinds of skills needed.

   Carefully review the job description, this should detail the types of skills required for the job.

3. About The Fit

   Highlight the skills from your list that match the list from the job description.

   Pick 3 top skills. These are your Key Selling Points, and be sure to communicate them to your interviewer when asked this question.

   To bring these skills home to the interviewer you should use the Present-Past-Present method to tell your interviewer how any one of your 3 top skills will benefit their company.

   Let's say that working well in teams is one of the 3 skills you spoke about. As an example of how this works, starting with the Present, you might say "Although I can take on many projects on my own, I have always loved working as part of a team, collaborating with others, and learning from them to reach a positive outcome for the company."

   Then go back to the Past to relate a specific Star story, for instance: "At my last job, my team was asked to help an important customer set up and install the latest update to its inventory management system. Due to a tight timeline, we had to put in a lot of extra hours to meet the client's deadline. The team pulled it off within the timeframe and under budget. I was particularly proud of my role in this effort, which was noted by both the customer and my manager."

   Then come back to the Present to say, "In reviewing the company's website I noticed the importance that it places on teamwork and based on my skills and experience in working in teams, I am certain that I would be a great fit going forward."

Pro Tip

Statistics

This question is asked 7.5x more frequently at Benefit Cosmetics than at other companies.

8. What are your salary requirements?

How to answer

1. About Yourself

   The first thing to research is the salary range for your role in the market. What is the industry standard?

   Next, think of your qualifications for the role. Weigh in your traits, skills, education, and experience. Try this exercise, draw a line on a piece of paper where on the left side sits a complete beginner, and on the right side - the best professional in the world the company may try to invite for the role. Where do you position yourself?

   Now, remember that once you start in your new role, your qualifications will be growing fast, due to all the new experience you will be gaining - consequently, your value will rise as well. Your salary, on the other hand, will not increase as quickly. So, try to imagine where your qualifications will bring you, on that scale, in about a year into the new job.

   Map the scale against the industry range. Now you should be able to come up with an objective figure, as opposed to pure speculation.

   This is not real math, however, so your number cannot be very precise, of course. Define a range, which starts with the minimum that will keep you satisfied a few months into the job, and the maximum which, a year into the job, will give you the lifestyle you would ideally like to have at that time.

   Make sure the range stays within 40%-60% between extremes. Remember, the higher the position up the ladder, the wider the range can be. What is the number in the middle? Will you feel comfortable with this number?

2. About The Company

   Research the company and find out what they are paying. The best places to find this information are Glassdoor, LinkedIn, PayScale and other similar websites.

3. About The Fit

   Based on your research, does the company fit your desired salary range?

   Now, whether you should be giving a range, or a single target number is a matter of debate. I personally think that a single number, given in a suggestive manner, is better than the range, because when given a range, they may logically gravitate towards the lower end, especially since you’ve said that the lower number is acceptable.

   One example of how to structure your answer of a single target number is this:

   I have done my research and based on the average for the industry, location, and my level of expertise, something like XXX seems reasonable to me. What do you think?

   Besides giving the factual answer that the interviewer is asking for, such an answer will also show you to be someone who takes the initiative, who goes the extra mile, and someone with data-driven and analytical mindset.

Pro Tip

Statistics

This question is asked 2.9x more frequently at Benefit Cosmetics than at other companies.

9. Tell me about a stressful situation and how you dealt with it

How to answer

1. About Yourself

   In order to form a response to this question, think back to a time when you encountered a stressful situation at work, and answer the following questions.

   • Was the situation a challenge just to you personally or to your entire team?
   • What was your approach to the problem and how did you handle it?
   • What role if any did emotions play in the process of dealing with this situation?
   • What was the outcome, was it successful?
   • Did the outcome meet the company’s expectations as well as your own?

2. About The Company

   • What do you know about the company, where you may encounter a stressful situation?
   • Are they working on a major project which is approaching a due date?
   • Are they going through what appears to be a difficult time where cost-saving is a top priority? Perhaps the company culture is full of negativity and mistrust, or they have gone through massive layoffs. Is there any chance that customers are being neglected?

   Any of these situations may lead to stressful times at the company, and you should try to know more about their expectations, and how realistic those expectations are.

   Or, are they just a dynamic, highly agile company run by smart and creative folks, which may work excellently for some people and be confusing and mind-blowing for others?

   Do your research.

3. About The Fit

   Once you have determined which STAR story will best answer this question, use the Present-Past-Present method for your response. The following is an example of how someone might apply this method.

   The candidate started with the Present by telling the interviewer that she is able to rise to the challenge of the situation regardless of the level of stress that may come with an assignment.

   She then went back to the Past to describe when she and her team had to hit a tight timeline for a customer that depended on the outcome of her team's work. It was an emotional time in which the team worked long, hard hours with lots of overtime. As hard as it was at the time, in the end they successfully completed the assignment and the customer was so pleased with the results that it increased its business with her company.

   Finally, the candidate came back to the Present to explain how much she enjoys taking on challenges because they help her grow as a professional and she knows that she can successfully complete assignments for the company, no matter how stressful or difficult.

Pro Tip

Statistics

This question is asked 89% more frequently at Benefit Cosmetics than at other companies.

10. Do you prefer working in a team or working alone?

How to answer

1. About Yourself

   To prepare for this question, try to think of your previous experiences. Which type of work suited you best and why?

   For instance, someone who prefers working by themselves may be able to focus better on the problem and a person who prefers a team approach may like having others to help figure out problems.

   If you're a fresh graduate or someone that does not have much work experience, you can think of schoolwork or the times that you worked with others in an organization.

2. About The Company

   • What has your research found out about the company and its culture?
   • What have you learned about how the employees work?

   Review the job description as it may give you clues to whether the job focuses on teams, independence or both.

   Try to expand your search into social media posts at Glassdoor or others where employees/former employees may have posted about working conditions you would be working under.

   Remember: knowledge is the key! The more you know about the company, the better prepared you will be to answer questions like this.

3. About The Fit

   Based on your research, what did you find is the company's preference?

   • What type of workplace does the company appear to have?
   • What kind of challenges could you help the company/department resolve by working as part of a team?
   • What about the challenges that can be resolved by working independently?

   Emphasize both independent successes as well as group successes (be sure to mention actions you took to help the team).

Pro Tip

Statistics

This question is asked 9.2x more frequently at Benefit Cosmetics than at other companies.

11. Describe a time when you put your needs aside to help a coworker understand a task. How did you assist him or her? What was the result?

How to answer

1. About Yourself

   Answering this question may give the employers a much better sense of who you are as an employee and as a person.

   • Do you like helping people?
   • Are you easy to get along with?
   • How did you deal with unexpected obstacles in your last work?
   • Have you ever had the experience of working with someone who needed assistance?
   • What was the result?

2. About The Company

   Research the company carefully.

   Use the company’s website, social media posts and recent press releases to better understand the company’s goals and if your background makes you a great fit. How do the employees value one another?

   Understanding key information about the company you’re interviewing with can help you go into your interview with confidence.

3. About The Fit

   Provide an example of a time you helped a coworker in these circumstances, describing the situation in detail using the STAR method.

   The key is to show that the mentoring of a coworker was a higher priority than the task you had at hand at that time (emphasizing that you focus on the highest priority tasks first).

   Make it clear that your responsibilities did not suffer from offering your coworker a helping hand.

   Explain how you realized the person needed help both because it was the right thing to do and because it would benefit your company by strengthening that person.

   Aiding in this way presents you as a solid employee who knows when and how to help others as well as his/her company. It shows that you not only helped them to complete a task, but also taught how to be able to do it alone in the future.

   Your actions demonstrate that you are able to recognize areas that need improvement and attention to detail, which are excellent traits for an employee to have.

Pro Tip

Statistics

This question is asked 31.5x more frequently at Benefit Cosmetics than at other companies.

12. What one skill do you possess that you think will be the most important to a hiring manager?

How to answer

1. About Yourself

   If you’re not sure which skill would be best to share, consider your previous work experiences.

   • Where did you excel?
   • What would your peers say you’re especially proficient at?
   • Have you ever received recognition for meeting a particular objective or excelling in a specific area?If so, your skills likely assisted you in reaching this achievement.
   • What personal talents or attributes helped you meet that milestone?

   Ask former coworkers or managers to help you to determine your strengths that made you unique. Imagine yourself as a manager who needs an employee to fill the position you are currently applying for.

   What would you as the manager expect from a candidate for this job?

2. About The Company

   Start by reviewing the job description and making note of any required skills or abilities that match your own.

   The job posting is a great guide for what employers want to see in candidates. In addition to job requirements, consider the depiction of the company and its culture in the job description.

   Be sure to research the company by reviewing its website for additional information to get to know what skill you should mention.

3. About The Fit

   It’s important to highlight your best hard and soft skills (your Key Selling Points) to position yourself as a well-rounded candidate.

   Though you may have several different areas of strength, include only those that are relevant to the job. Adaptability, critical thinking, problem-solving, creativity, and effective communication – it is the list of most common soft skills that can be helpful in any job, so you can choose the one to share with the hiring manager that best describes you.

   But to make your answer stronger, the skill should be specific to the job you are applying for. Be certain to give examples of how this skill helped you in your last job.

Pro Tip

Statistics

This question is asked 4.2x more frequently at Benefit Cosmetics than at other companies.