YAJIT: "What accomplishments have given you the most satisfaction?"

[Jeff7]

Yet another job interview thread.

This is just a worksheet, but it asks for an example of what I might say at an interview.

Anyone have any examples of what might be something to respond with?
I've really got nothing major that comes to mind, and definitely nothing exceedingly relevant to my major (mechanical engineering).

I doubt they'd accept things like "Most times fapped per day," or "Exceeded 50 terabytes of porn in less than 5 years," so don't bother with those.

Are they looking for, "OMG I like totally graduated high school, and it was the most amazing thing evaaarr!!" or is it something more unique that they're after?



Damn non-specific questions. "How do you describe yourself?" Yeah, that's not open-ended. Physical stats? Chemical makeup? Opinions on issues? Relevant job skills?
Learning about the various types of interviews, it all just gets sillier and sillier, like some funny game.
Other cultures sacrifice chickens, and go through rituals involving bullet ants. We put on stupid suits, ties, and ask each other stupid questions. Oh well.

 

[Howard]

Was an upstanding, law-abiding member of my cliques?

 

[esun]

Hopefully you've done something that you're proud of. For me, I would talk about my experiences as a TA when I was at UC Berkeley (I just got my ratings back and was 4.9/5.0, which I felt really good about), since I really enjoyed teaching. If you don't have any such thing, then you may have to make something up based on academic accomplishments and pretend to be super proud of it. Although, I gotta say, actually being proud of having accomplished something is a great experience, so you should really try to find something you're passionate about.

 

[Jeff7]

Stuff I'm passionate about, yeah, I suppose there are some things.
But not anything that I've actually participated in. For example, space exploration - big deal for me. But I'm not involved in it as anything more than an observer. I'm wary of finding a job in that sector, because my record for combining things I enjoy with work has always resulted in eradicating any affinity I had for the enjoyable thing. Certain foods, tinkering with my computer, trains - casualties of combining work and fun. Now I'm losing interest in mechanical stuff, thanks to this major. It just sucks all the fun out of it. I watched How It's Made any time it was on, even if it was reruns. I don't watch it anymore, it reminds me too much of homework and classwork.

One of my professors also said that employers like "enthusiastic" employees.
I tend to show less enthusiasm than Ben Stein in one of his typical roles. Faking it might be something else for me to work on.

But noteworthy accomplishments.......I really can't think of anything, at least nothing significant. That's why I'm hoping for some examples here, maybe something will jog my memory. Or else I need some kind of baseline.
Sure, I could say that it was an accomplishment that I washed dishes every other day when I was living on campus. Now it's at about once a week; I was always on edge and stressed on campus, so doing dishes was a bit of a reprieve. Now that I'm off campus and on my own, dishes are back to being a pain in the ass to deal with.
Or an accomplishment that I just finished a month's worth of homework in about 3 hours.....dammit, and I'm up too late. I forgot that there's a test tomorrow. Damn, that's going to suck. 4 hours of sleep, yay.