How To Prepare For "P&G SITUATIONAL QUESTIONS"!

Summary

In this video, Bahroz Abbas delves into the art of mastering situational questions in Procter & Gamble interviews. While these questions can seem unpredictable, Abbas breaks down proven strategies to effectively prepare for them by categorizing them into three main areas: people management, organization, and business challenges. He emphasizes the value of having structured formulas for each category that can be tailored to different scenarios, thus aiding candidates in delivering clear and concise responses. This approach helps in overcoming the common misconception that situational questions cannot be premeditatedly handled.

Highlights

• Learn to tackle P&G situational questions with confidence. 💪
• Identify three main categories for question types: people, organization, business. 📊
• Create tailored formulas to handle different situational questions easily. 💡
• Use notes cleverly in virtual interviews to aid your performance. 📑
• Craft concise and effective answers with strategic preparation methods. 🎬

Key Takeaways

• Situational questions aren't as unpredictable as they seem! 🎯
• Categorize your preparation into people, organization, and business umbrellas. 🗂️
• Use a strategic formula for each category of questions to guide your answers. 📋
• In virtual interviews, use a cheat sheet to aid your responses discreetly. 🖊️
• Focus your mental energy on delivering answers, not memorizing them! 🧠

Overview

In his video, Bahroz Abbas sheds light on preparing for the challenging situational questions P&G includes in their interviews. These questions, although spontaneous in nature, can be tackled with the right preparation and mindset. Abbas not only demystifies the nature of these questions but also provides viewers with structured methods to approach them effectively.

With situational questions often revolving around people management, organizational capabilities, and business acumen, Abbas introduces a set of strategic formulas for each scenario. This allows candidates to feel prepared and confident, eliminating the anxiety associated with these questions. This approach helps in not only managing the session but in showing a clear and rational thought process.

Finally, Abbas highlights practical tips, especially for virtual interviews, where candidates can lean on notes without the interviewer’s knowledge. This allows them to focus on delivering well-thought-out answers rather than recalling them from memory, ensuring that their mental energy is directed towards effective communication rather than mere recollection.

Chapters

• 00:00 - 00:30: Introduction The chapter introduces the topic of preparing for situational questions in a Procter & Gamble interview. It explains that situational questions are scenarios given by the interviewer during the interview, where the interviewee has to explain how they would handle specific situations like meeting tight deadlines or resolving conflicts.
• 00:30 - 01:30: Understanding Situational Questions The chapter 'Understanding Situational Questions' explores the challenges of anticipating and preparing for situational questions in interviews, as opposed to behavioral ones. Unlike behavioral questions, which rely on past experiences that candidates are already familiar with and can prepare for, situational questions require candidates to think on their feet. This is because situational questions are not based on one's past experiences or resume, making them more difficult to predict and prepare for. The chapter emphasizes the importance of being adaptable and ready to tackle unexpected scenarios during interviews.
• 01:30 - 03:00: Tips for Preparation The chapter titled 'Tips for Preparation' focuses on debunking the myth that one cannot prepare for situational questions. The speaker argues that preparation is crucial, even for unexpected questions. The chapter promises to provide viewers with various tips, tricks, and hacks for successfully preparing for such questions. Additionally, the speaker makes a request to the viewers, asking them to like the video if they find it valuable, and shares a statistic about viewer subscription rates, aiming to encourage more viewers to subscribe to the channel.
• 03:00 - 09:00: People Management Situational Questions This chapter focuses on People Management Situational Questions, specifically in the context of preparing for a PNG interview. The content creator emphasizes the importance of subscribing to their channel for motivation and improved content production. The chapter aims to provide tips and hacks on answering situational questions effectively, beyond just knowing what questions might be asked.
• 09:00 - 13:00: Organization Situational Questions In this chapter titled 'Organization Situational Questions,' the speaker discusses how to prepare for situational interview questions. They reference a previous video about behavioral interview preparation and mention providing links to those videos and a full playlist of the P&G hiring process. Additionally, the speaker offers coaching and training sessions for those interested in a mock Procter & Gamble interview, suggesting to book a one-on-one session with them.
• 13:00 - 17:30: Business Challenge Situational Questions The chapter titled 'Business Challenge Situational Questions' introduces the topic by referring to additional resources available online, including a recorded session. It then delves into the preparation for situational questions, highlighting that these questions often fall under three main categories, with one key category being people management, which includes dealing with conflicts.
• 17:30 - 18:00: Conclusion The chapter titled 'Conclusion' emphasizes the importance of effective resolution and influencing skills in management. It highlights key areas including influencing your manager, resolving conflicts, and convincing people as crucial skills. The chapter also discusses organizational skills, particularly in managing tight deadlines, prioritizing tasks, and handling extra workloads. It concludes by touching upon various business-related aspects, leaving a broad yet essential perspective on the overarching theme of management and organization.

How To Prepare For "P&G SITUATIONAL QUESTIONS"! Transcription

• 00:00 - 00:30 Hello friends and welcome again in this video I will share with you how you can go about preparing for situational questions that you should expect to be asked in a pro and gamble interview now on the look of it situational questions are questions where you will be given a situation on the spot like when you're in the interview the interviewer will give you a situation saying tell me if you encounter such a situation let's say if there's a tight deadline tell me if you encounter a conflict how will you resolve it so on the looks of it it seems that you are not able to really
• 00:30 - 01:00 preempt or predict what kind of situation you will be given and hence it is very difficult or almost impossible for you to prepare the other part of the interview which is behavioral interview you have quite a lot of idea which is the kind of questions that will be asked and what are you going to talk about because you will be talking about things from your past experience which you have control over which you know of because they are on your resume you know of it and you can talk about it however with situational questions there is no past experience it is all a situ and how do
• 01:00 - 01:30 you solve the situation on the spot so it seems that there is not a lot to prepare however here let me break that myth you can prepare to the fullest level for any situational questions and this is why we are here in this video where I will share with you all the tips tricks and hacks with regards to preparing for situational questions now before moving forward let me call out in case you find any value from this video I have to ask for you one press the like button as this keeps you motivated second I want to share a start with you that 76% of You Who Come on my channel to view my videos do not subscribe to my
• 01:30 - 02:00 Channel please do subscribe to my channel as this goes a long way for me to improve my production put in more content and keeps me motivated as well so when you subscribe make sure you subscribe along with the Bell icon now let's get rolling back into the video now note previously I made content where I have shared what kind of questions you should expect from a PNG interview both on the behavioral side and on the situational side however even if you know the question that you will be asked you don't know how to go about preparing for that question so in this video I will share with you all the tips hacks with regards to to how you can go about
• 02:00 - 02:30 preparing for a situational interview question previously I've also made a video where I share with you how do you go about preparing for a behavioral interview question so I will leave the link to all these videos in the description of this video other than that I have a full playlist of PNG hiring process on my channel which you can check out I will leave the link here and also in the description of this video other than that let me also call out in case you're interested in having a mock coaching and uh training session on proen Gamble interview you can do so by booking a onetoone session with me you can book that one to one session
• 02:30 - 03:00 using the link that I will leave in the description of this video in case you are curious with regards to what do we cover in that session I will leave a link to a recorded session that I had with one of my followers on PNG Mock and coaching session you can check out that video here and that would be kind of a guide for you to know what to expect now coming back to the question or the topic of this video which is how do we go about preparing for situational questions now proing Campell situation questions would be under three umbrellas one would be around people management which would entail things like conflict
• 03:00 - 03:30 resolution influencing management influencing people influencing your manager and so on so forth so anything to do with how do you go about managing influencing convincing people resolving conflict and all that I will share with you how do we answer that second umbrella is around organization which is how do you organize yourself there is a tight deadline you have a lot of priorities you you got some extra work how do you manage work how do you manage deadlines timelines and all and third is around business so there would be a
• 03:30 - 04:00 business question let's say there's a business situation either you oversold or there's a hurt there's an impact a factory went on fire you are missing on sales how do you go about managing a business situation so these are the three umbrellas so you'll get situational questions either on people on organization or on business so in this video we will talk about how do we go prepared for each of these sections the idea here is the way you prepare you can handle any situational question so if there is an organization situation
• 04:00 - 04:30 question you know exactly what are the few elements that you need to talk or share as part of your answer if you have them ready if you have them prepared and if you have them written in front of you that is all you need similarly if there is a business question there is a certain formula to answer the business question situation question there's a certain formula to answer people situational questions as long as you have that formula written in front of you you don't even have to memorize and also remember the job of your brain is not to remember things it is to process
• 04:30 - 05:00 so if you use your brain capacity to remember the answers that you have to give then my friend you're not using your brain capacity correctly because your brain capacity should be used to communicate effectively concisely your message as against trying to remember what you have to say now all these formulas that I will give you for each of these situational questions pillars what you need to do is you need to take these formulas put them in bullet format and write them down keep the page in front of you that paper in front of you when you are delivering a virtual interview no one in front of you in
• 05:00 - 05:30 front of the camera will know that you have a page in front of you which has all the notes when they ask you a situational question you pick up a pencil and pretend as if you are writing even if you're scribbling just pretend that you're writing on the same page where you have the notes this gives you permission to look down on the page and use those notes that you've taken to answer the question because the interviewer now thinks or believes that you've taken some notes which gives you the permission that you can refer to
• 05:30 - 06:00 those notes although you didn't take any notes on the spot you already had notes from before the reason we have notes from before is because we don't want to use our brain capacity to remember things so you've written down all the answers that I will share with you the formulas and as soon as the interviewer is asking you the question you look down you pretend as if you're writing and then when they done asking the question you raise your head and then you go one by one looking at those bullets that you've written down from before that formula and answer in that exact form so
• 06:00 - 06:30 this way you don't have to remember anything all you need to do is the answer is written just deliver the answer and formalize the answer and adapt the answer to the situation that is given because the answer is kind of a formula that you can apply to any situation any people's situation however the situation may be slightly different with different names with different complexities so you need to kind of tailor that formula to address the question and that is all you need to do all you need to use your brain capacity for don't use your brain capacity for remembering things now I do understand
• 06:30 - 07:00 if you are having a face to- face interview it would be very difficult for you to have a cheat sheet in front of you in that case yes my friend you'll have to remember the things that you want to say however if it's a virtual interview don't bother your mind by remembering things just keep them in front of you as a cheat sheet now let's take each of the pillars as an example starting with the people pillar now I have my notes in front of me as well so I will use my notes in order to answer the question let's say when they ask you about a conflict so you had a conflict with an individual or you want to
• 07:00 - 07:30 influence an individual who's disagreeing with you or they are not uh accepting your ideas or they are not putting in their weight in the organization or with in the project team that you have so they're not delivering on the task that they were supposed to do what will you do so again situation question will be all about how you Influence People how do you manage conflict so whenever you get a question around influencing people conflict this is the formula you use you say first I understand the perspective I understand what the individual is saying saying so I listen to them I just sit down with
• 07:30 - 08:00 them which means I meet them privately so this is number two and it would be nice if you can talk them in bullet so you go like number one I will understand their perspective for which I will sit down privately with them number two I will clarify the issue so once I understood their perspective I will clarify my perspective where am I coming from number three I will use data because with data there are less opinions rather there are more facts so you will make use of data and number and facts in order to drive your Point next
• 08:00 - 08:30 is you bring them back to the objective so you tell them or clarify to them what is the objective of the team what is the purpose of the company or of the objective of the team or the purpose of the team or the task at hand are we going to deliver that objective by doing what the other individual is asking to do or will we be able to deliver that objective by your suggestion so you kind of put the objective out there that this is what we are trying to achieve and whatever will help us achieve this we will go for that next you find a common
• 08:30 - 09:00 ground so because now you know the objective and you've shared the objective you shared the data and the facts now you find a common ground to deliver the objective and it could be different from what you wanted to do maybe eventually you end up agreeing to that individual but the idea is as long as you have a clear process to follow you have a clear formula which is you talk to them you sit down with them you clarify the issue you use data you you bring them to the objective you find a common ground once that is done then you establish communication with them because you want to to make sure that
• 09:00 - 09:30 going forward you are able to deliver on the task with them and it is not just one off and then you continue following up with them so this these are kind of the steps now imagine if these steps are written in front of you and your interviewer asks you a question around how do you go about influencing people you use the same formula which is I understand their perspective I meet them I clarify the issue I make use of data I bring them back to objective and so on so forth imagine if they ask you a question which is around conflict so you have a conflict how do you can use the
• 09:30 - 10:00 same formula so the idea is this formula if you have written down in front of you as bullets that is all you need now you can tailor the answer and elaboration under each of these bullets Bas is the exact question that has been asked but as long as you have this formula in front of you you don't need to remember all you need to know is where to look on that cheat sheet for the formula which pertains to conflict management or influencing people and then you go there now let me talk about what do you have to say with regards to being organizer or what is the formula so the questions
• 10:00 - 10:30 here would be tell me if you have a priority that you have to deliver in 10 days and it cuts down to by 5 days if you're working on five projects and you have to deliver them on different timelines how do you manage those five projects if you have five six projects and there are another two three projects that come in how do you go about managing so anything to do with how do you go about organizing the tasks so here's the formula number one you prioritize the task you prioritize the task on a grid of let's say urgency and importance so one that is is highly urgent and highly important you put all
• 10:30 - 11:00 your resources there the one that is not important and not urgent you remove all your resources from there second is your recope the project let's say the project was to launch in the entire country and now you don't have time because your timeline has shrunk and deadline has come been pulled forward now what do you do instead of launching the product across the whole country you pick on key cities where you have to launch or key customers where you launch first and see whether it's a success or not and basis that launch you determine whether you want to expand or not so again the second is reprioritizing the project
• 11:00 - 11:30 scope third is breaking down the project into different parts and if you break down the project into different parts you might see that there are certain elements of the projects which are less important there are certain Elements which are more important so can you get rid of the elements which are less important and not do them at all and still deliver on the project number four is is if it's possible to delegate the task so if you have a team you can delegate them so delegating the task number five is having an open communication with your manager so also making sure that your manager is aligned to that priority your manager is aligned
• 11:30 - 12:00 to the res scoping of the project so much so that you also take inputs from the stakeholders and make sure that they are aligned so having an open communication with your manager with the stakeholders and making sure that all of them are aligned to the prioritization that you have called out it's not just that you've decided on the priority everyone else should also be aligned that this is a priority next is avoiding Perfection like you don't have to be perfect and you can agree with the stakeholders and your manager if you can deliver the particular project in a minimal viable way and last is seeking
• 12:00 - 12:30 help so maybe help from other team members not just delegating but help from uh sideways like lateral help or upwards asking your manager to in so again this is the formula you prioritize you res scrope the project you break down the project into tasks you delegate the tasks you communicate effectively with your manager with the stakeholders you avoid Perfection and you seek help if that is needed if you have these bullets written down in front of you and you are given any question pertaining to prioritizing organizing your work there's a line you can just
• 12:30 - 13:00 look into your notes and say all of them and it would be nice if you go about saying them I will do the following seven things because when they are asking you the question you are writing you are writing and they are imagining that you've written down all the bullets that you have to talk once they have theyve stopped talking you go like okay I have seven things that I will do I will prioritize I will recope XY Z now it could be possible that the question is such where they didn't allow you the opportunity to delegate the task because they told you you don't have a team you
• 13:00 - 13:30 are a solar so player you don't have people reporting to you in that case you only have six things to talk about but it would be nice for you to have those seven things written down and all you need to do is just put a tick on number one number two number three in the sequence that you will talk about those points that's all now let's talk about the last umbrella which is business challenge so business challenge could be that there is an instance where you were supposed to deliver a particular business to a particular customer and now you're you're short on Supply you don't have the supply of that prod project which was supposed to be
• 13:30 - 14:00 launched with the with the customer the customer has already put in the the promotional plan for that particular product launch and that product is not available what do you do or you were expecting to sell 100,000 units and you are only able to sell 10,000 units and now there's a gap what do you do or you there was a damage in the factory or the product was damaged anything which is related to business how do you solve a business problem again there is a particular formula so we'll go Bullet by Bullet so f one is you define the problem what is the problem and what is going wrong what is the
• 14:00 - 14:30 issue second is you gather all the information and then identify the root cause so in defining the problem you also understand what is the impact like what is the dollar impact what is the timing impact resource impact what has gone wrong and what is the impact let's say what has gone wrong is that you're not able to ship to the customer what is the impact of that is it $100,000 million 2 million 3 million just understanding the size or the magnitude of the issue second is you gather the information which is again you need to estimate the size of the issue so you
• 14:30 - 15:00 gather the information third is you root cause the issue so why is the issue happening you understand the magnitude of the issue but why is the issue happening then you involve the key stakeholders like you are the finance individual let's say in the team but there is sales marketing and other members in the team as well you bring all of them together and make sure that they understand and they are part of the solution as well because you won't be able to solve the solution alone let's say the customer was not able to get the product that was being launched you not not responsible for it alone there is a
• 15:00 - 15:30 sales individual who will communicate to the customer there's a marketing team who also needs to decide whether they continue marketing the product or not because the product is not available anymore and so on so forth so you involve all the stakeholders then you brainstorm Solutions with them again you're not an individual who will come up with an idea yourself you brainstorm Solutions with them the idea here is not for you to come up with the solution so if for the situational question you give the solution to the interviewer saying I will do this that is wrong because they don't want you to come up with the
• 15:30 - 16:00 solution because you might be able to come up with the solution now but maybe when the real thing happens and you are in that particular problem or situation maybe your ideas are not good but as long as you have the formula you have the process to solve it where you bring in the experts bring in the stakeholders and then do a brainstorming session that is the way to do even if your ideas are bad now you have a team working towards it now you have a team engaged in it then you evaluate the solutions so you have a brainstorming session you evaluate different options you select
• 16:00 - 16:30 the best options based on different criterias of the size of impact the Strategic impact of fit the long-term impact of it and so on so forth and then you develop an action plan you say okay we've selected this solution now this is the action plan so here as part of the valuate solution it would also be nice to do sensitivity analysis to see which option is less risky which option is more risky which option has bigger Financial or long-term impact and then you select the best solution once you selected the best solution you develop the action plan so what will be the action plan to execute that particular
• 16:30 - 17:00 solution then you communicate that action plan and the the choice you've made not just with the stakeholder but with everyone who is involved and who has to execute the plan and then you implement the solution and once the solution is implemented you evaluate the results and then you document the process you document the process to make sure that this is not repeated again or if it's repeated again there is a Formula that exists and people can refer to that experience that has happened before and learn from it anyways Guys these were the three
• 17:00 - 17:30 umbrellas you should expect in terms of situational questions and I gave you the formula for each make sure you have it written down in front of you kept in front of you as well and when the interviewer asks you the question refer to your notes and answer them thank you for watching this video in case you found value from this video I'm sure you'll find Value from another video where I talk about how you should go about introducing yourself very important part of the interview you can check it out here other than that there is another video where I talk about what are the reverse interview questions that you should be asking this is when the interviewer ask you what questions do
• 17:30 - 18:00 you have for me you can check out that video here thank you