Behavioural Interview Question - Tell me about a time when you saved your company money

Hi, in this video we're going to answer the situational interview question, tell me about a time when you saved your company money. So in this video we'll cover a sneak peek into why they ask this question, the mind of the interviewer, What to say when you're answering, and a concrete example from my own experience to get you thinking. So stay tuned. So what's the point of this question? Why is this question asked? So this question is designed to see if you are thinking about cost savings when you can. How cost-conscious are you? How financially responsible are you when you're dealing with the company's money? Money and resources. If there's an opportunity to save money somewhere, did you see it and did you take advantage of it? Did you seek it out? They want to know how you think to see whether you'll be thinking in that way for them if you're hired. Will you be looking for ways to save money or not? So how do you answer this? So again, we use the SARI formula for all these tell me about yourself or tell me about a time when questions because it's hands down the best way to get everything in in a structured way. So the SARI formula stands for situation, action, results, interesting features. So it's also known as STAR, SAR. Everything is the same basically, but it's just different forms of the same acronym. So it's essentially how to tell a story in a structured format with the beginning, middle, and end. So you want to tell the story so it's memorable and interesting, and that includes just enough detail to paint a picture but not too much detail where it's confusing and redundant. So I'm going to give you an example here. So for this question, step 1 is the situation. So this is where you paint the picture. The story should be pretty concise. You want to keep it short and sweet. And explain the scenario. So for example, this is my example. We were replacing everyone's desks with sit-stand desks. As you know, standing desks are the new thing now. I've even heard that sitting is the new smoking. So I was asked to order a certain type of desk from a specific company and slowly start to upgrade and move everybody into a standing desk. So that's the scenario. So step 2, action. What was my action? What was your action? What was your thought process behind it? So for example, I looked at the company's pricing on these desks and I thought to myself, hmm, they charge quite a bit for shipping and assembling of these desks. I wonder if there's a way to get this done for less money. So I did some quick research and I found out that there was another company that sold the exact same model of desk and they would ship them for free and they would include assembly if we were ordering 4 or more desks. And since altogether we were replacing 40 desks, I thought this was a no-brainer. So that's the action. So step 3 is the result. How did it work out? What was the end result overall? So I took this information to my boss and And she was super pleased with me for finding out this— finding this other company. And when I showed her that all in all we'd be saving over $1,000 in total on shipping and assembly costs after the entire job was done, she was super happy. And step 4 is the interesting features. So this is anything you learned along the way, what you did to take away from the situation, what you got from the experience, any little nuggets of wisdom that you want to share, anything That makes the story more interesting to listen to. So when I mentioned sitting is the new smoking, that was an interesting feature, a little tidbit of info that maybe they hadn't heard before, and interesting to put it into words. Also, another example might include something like personal about yourself. So in my situation, um, I've always been kind of geared to cost savings because that's how I grew up. So I would say my dad was always having me look up Sales. In fact, when we shopped at the grocery store when I was little, I was always looking out for the sale price tags. So my mind is just wired to think in that way. And that's it. There you have it. What is your thought process behind price awareness when it comes to saving money or cutting costs? How do you think of it? And are you always looking for a way, or do you just accept the cost as it is? How do you take action on saving this money? What do you do? And what was the end result? So you zero in on what you learn, keep it interesting. And for example, I learned that I'm pretty good at researching and doing price comparisons. And it might not always be on the price itself that you save the money. It might be somewhere totally unexpected, like shipping and handling fees, extra hidden fees that maybe you didn't know about, an employee's time and resources. Are all ways that you can save money, and there's even more than that. That's just to name a few. So how do you think about cost savings? How many different ways can you think to save costs or time or resources for the company without sacrificing quality? So thanks again for being here watching this video, and remember, nailing the interview questions is is great, but there is a lot more to interviewing than just answering the questions. In fact, I tell my clients that if all you do is answer the questions alone, you've already lost the interview. There is an entire interview strategy at play, and if you would like to learn more about it, you can get started now by clicking the link below and downloading my free guide. In this free guide, I outline the SARI formula, a step-by-step breakdown of why it works. You will also get 10 concrete examples of the most common interview questions and specific examples from my own experience and experience from my clients. You'll get 10 fill-in-the-blank templates so that you can fill in your own stories. And just in case you are still getting stuck because telling stories from scratch is challenging. I've given you 25 questions to ask yourself to come up with those stories and dig them out from your brain. So thanks again for watching, and I will see you next time on NatalieTV. Seriously, we couldn't even shop without something being on sale. If I wanted to buy cookies, I couldn't because they had to be on sale. So you can imagine my excitement when I found the The red tag.