Interview questions at Fossil

1. Tell me about yourself top question

How to answer

1. About Yourself

   What is your current occupation? Define yourself professionally in one statement.

   Pick 3 key skills that make you great at your work (your Key Selling Points). How have you applied these skills?

   Try to give some numbers to support your statement.

2. About The Company

   Your first step is to Research the company to find out as much as you can about what they do and their approach to their business and their employees.

   Based on what you know about the company and the job description, why are you interested in the position you are applying for?

3. About The Fit

   Now is the right time to show the fit between your skills and the company's requirements. Your answer works best if you emphasize your relevance. How do you do this? You will have already researched the company, studied the job description to identify their needs and possible pain points and prepared the relevant Star Stories that show how you addressed similar issues in the past. Your next step is to develop your Present-Past-Present approach.

   Start with the Present. Focus on the skills and experience from your most recent positions. What has enabled you to get the job done successfully and how this relates to what the employer is looking to accomplish.

   Next go back to the Past. Here is where your Star story comes in. Explain how you were able to use your skills and experience to accomplish a task that relates to an area of concern for the employer.

   Finally come back to the Present – summarizing the lessons you learned and how they shaped your response and approach today.

   Remember, the whole conversation is about the present, not the past. Just one sentence can summarize why your approach works, and its applicability and relevance to this position.

Pro Tip

Statistics

This question is asked 68% more frequently at Fossil than at other companies.

2. Describe a time you went above and beyond for a customer

How to answer

1. About Yourself

   Think about a time you were the customer, how were you treated when you had a problem or issue that needed to be resolved? Did the company solve your problem with great service and a memorable experience?

   Now think about a time you had to help a customer. What did you do to make that experience unforgettable for them?

2. About The Company

   Think carefully about the company and what they are looking for. Read online reviews and any other available information.

   • What are their standards for treating customers?
   • What complaints have you seen that can give you a hint of some of the challenges associated with customer service?
   • How focused is the job description regarding customer service functions? This will give you a strong hint that customer service is an area to be aware of for the upcoming interview.

3. About The Fit

   A great way to show your fit for the job is to use the Present-Past-Present method in answering this question. The following is an example of how you might apply this approach:

   Start with the Present by telling the interviewer what skills you have that will ensure the best customer experience. These might include attributes like patience, listenting, attentiveness or any other customer service related skills you might possess.

   Next go back to the Past to tell a story of how you went above and beyond for a customer. Use the STAR method to help frame your story and be sure to bring your skills into the narrative.

   Finally, come back to the Present to describe for the interviewer how you will bring your customer service skills to the job you are applying for, to help ensure that the company can always rely on you to provide the highest level of customer service.

Pro Tip

Statistics

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

3. 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 36% less frequently at Fossil than at other companies.

4. 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 21% less frequently at Fossil than at other companies.

5. Tell me about a time when you've resolved a problem for a frustrated customer

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 41% more frequently at Fossil than at other companies.

6. What were your responsibilities in your last job?

How to answer

1. About Yourself

   Remember your last (or current) job and compile a list of things you had to do while working there.

   If you don’t know where to start, picture your typical working day at one of your previous jobs, or college day if you are applying for your first job ever.

   Describe the categories of tasks in bullet points. Then, try to remember the less ordinary tasks you had to do as well, and add them to the list.

2. About The Company

   Research the company and the job description.

   • What do you expect to be doing in this job?
   • How would your performance be measured?

   List a few items in bullet points.

3. About The Fit

   Choose a few task categories that seem like a match between your experience and the requirements of the current position. Think of a couple of relevant examples to illustrate your experience.

   Craft your stories using the STAR method.

Pro Tip

Statistics

This question is asked 4.5x more frequently at Fossil 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 5.5x more frequently at Fossil than at other companies.

8. Walk me through your resume

How to answer

1. About Yourself

   Print out your resume. For each of your recent job experiences (at this point do not go back more than 5 years), write down 3-5 key points at which you feel you are strong.

   For example, for your current (or previous) job, you may want to list skills like “Excellent presentation skills,” “Employee Engagement guru,” “Analytical skills,” “Attention to detail” (they don’t have to be all soft skills, but being aware of at least a few of your strong soft skills is important). Make sure you have examples for each of your statements.

   If you have difficulties to think of these points, search online for job descriptions for similar job roles, and figure out which of those keywords appeal to you. Look for people on LinkedIn that have jobs similar to the one you are applying for. Their profiles often contain many keywords that you can use in response to this question.

   Now that you’ve gone through all your recent experiences, are there any points that repeat more often than others, or are especially important to you? These are candidates to be your Key Selling Points -highlight 3-5 of them.

2. About The Company

   Research the company and the role for which you're being interviewed. When researching the company, find out what skills and qualities they value the most. Carefully consider the job requirements. What is it that you will be responsible for?

   Now, write down 3-5 keywords from the job description that you find of utmost importance for this job role.

3. About The Fit

   Try to establish the match between your own highlighted keywords, and those of the job description. These are your Key Selling Points! You should normally limit yourself by 3-5 such keywords or phrases.

   Now, craft a story based on your career history. You don’t have to go in chronological order - you can start with your current or last job experience, and then go back to your previous ones, or focus on just the experiences that are relevant to your story, and only briefly mention the less relevant ones and only if needed.

   Select one point to highlight for each phase of your career. Make sure you ingrain your Key Selling Points in the interviewer’s memory - after the interview is over, you want them to remember you as someone who is strong at XYZ, or experienced in A, B and C.

   It's okay to focus more on stellar achievements and brag a little bit about them.

Pro Tip

Statistics

This question is asked 2.3x more frequently at Fossil than at other companies.

9. 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 33% less frequently at Fossil than at other companies.

10. 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 69% more frequently at Fossil than at other companies.

11. Who has inspired you in your life, and why?

How to answer

1. About Yourself

   The answer to this question is completely at your discretion.

   • Who encouraged you to become who you are today?
   • What qualities do they have that you admire most?
   • What are the common values between you and this person that you can use strategically in your career and life?
   • How did they help you to do proper introspection that influenced your life?

   Maybe it’s your parents, someone else from your family, a teacher or a mentor, a researcher, or a writer you admire. Maybe it’s a public figure that inspires you. Whoever this inspiring person is, remember that the interviewer is looking for a heartfelt response.

2. About The Company

   Read the job description carefully and research the company to learn as much as you can about the company’s culture.

   What qualities does the company value in their employees? See if you are able to match their values to those of the person that inspired you.

   You should not only identify the person who inspires you but, if possible, also tell why and how their influence may have relevance to the company you are interviewing with.

   Be extra cautious while naming anyone that might be controversial (for example a politician or a celebrity) as your inspirer. The interviewer might have preconceived thoughts or ideas about certain people that you might be unaware of. This might lead them to judge you unfarily about your choice.

3. About The Fit

   Be prepared to give examples of how the words, actions or teachings of your inspirer have helped to motivate you in achieving your goals.

   As always, prepare an answer which highlights qualities that would be highly valuable in the position you are seeking.

   Most employers look for characteristics such as adaptability, good interpersonal communication, leadership, creativity, innovativeness, honesty and dedication. Ask yourself, what ‘specific’ attributes have you learned from your motivator? Mention how learning such attributes helped you in your career.

   You should provide a specific example that shows the above-mentioned attribute of the inspirer.

Pro Tip

Statistics

This question is asked 4.3x more frequently at Fossil than at other companies.

12. What negative thing would your last boss say about you?

How to answer

1. About Yourself

   While it is good to be honest and open, it will not help you to put yourself down. What's important is to focus on a weakness or shortcoming that you have overcome.

   Be certain not to mention something that is vital to (or related to) the position for which you are applying.

   Think of something that may have been noted by a past supervisor that was, perhaps, mentioned in your performance reviews as a developmental area.

2. About The Company

   Research the company (website, social media, etc.) to learn about the company’s culture. What personal and professional qualities do they value?

   Carefully check the job description to avoid speaking about any past weaknesses that may touch upon key areas of responsibility for the position that you are applying for.

3. About The Fit

   Despite what may seem to be a negative question, you can actually turn this into a positive one! You do this by stating a negative trait or a weakness, unrelated to the position you are applying for, and explain how you have either already overcome it or are working to improve it.

   Be careful with your choices, if you mention any weaknesses that are needed to be successful in the position you are interviewing for, you probably won’t get hired!

   For example, if you're applying for a front-end developer position, do not talk about how you are taking classes to improve your HTML coding skills. Even if you think you are succeeding in your studies, this will look to the hiring manager to be a shortcoming on your part.

Pro Tip

Statistics

This question is asked 4.6x more frequently at Fossil than at other companies.