There are several questions asked in an interview process. All of them are designed in a way to explore your behavioral aspects, your areas of focus, your mindset in tough situations, etc. This is one of those interview questions, the responses of which, allow an interviewer to take a glance at your values, ethics, and principles. Hence, proper preparation is pivotal and necessary to succeed and secure your dream job.
How To Answer This Question Effectively?
1) Explain Your Learnings and Not School’s Infrastructure
It is a common habit of the candidates to get diverted to some other unique things about their school, like the huge and big school building, extremely green fenced playground or maybe an updated library. Just don’t wander and stick to the question by maintaining your focus and concentration level. This helps you to generate an impressive response.
2) Be Honest
Honesty is the best policy. This must be followed in practicality too, instead of just preaching it by mouth. A false and common answer, won’t help you to ace your interview. Rather, you would only be perceived as a diplomatic person, who has not prepared well enough for the interview questions.
3) Don’t Get Carried Away
We all love our schools and get nostalgic while remembering our school days. But it is recommended, that you don’t get carried away and strictly stick to the topic. It is recommended that you manage your emotions properly and answer in a logical and structured manner. A well-designed and sequential answer impresses an interviewer to a great extent.
4) Keep It Simple
You are being asked to answer the most important thing and not all the things that you learned during your school days. So analyze, and pick one or two major learnings, that have helped you to change your approach towards work or have influenced your mindset in a positive way. You can also pick one or two special abilities that you learned during your school days.
5) Based On Job Description
The ability that you are planning to pick, or the skill that you are planning to answer for this question, must be directly or indirectly related to the job description issued by your employer. Such an alignment can work wonders and will improve your chances of selection to a great extent.
Ten Sample Interview Answers
Answer No. One
There are various things that I have learned during my time at school. The best thing I have learned is discipline and punctuality. There is no shame, in my acceptance of the fact that in the initial years of my life, I was a lazy and lethargic person, who always wanted to avoid things. Such a nonchalant attitude of mine was completely eradicated only because of my school. I would love to apply this acquired skill of mine while working for your organization too.
Answer No. Two
I owe my alma-mater to teach me so many valuable things in life. But there was one thing, which was really unique and enticing. The culture of taking extra care of sensitive students. I was a sensitive student in my primary years. Due to the school’s policy of paying extra attention to students like us, I groomed and grew in confidence considerably. I have also learned soft skills from my school, giving me an edge in this vacancy.
Answer No. Three
In our school there were constant seminars and debate competitions wherein every student was motivated to participate, no matter you are good at that particular thing or not. Due to this, I have learned superior communication skills and fluency in speech from my alma mater. Due to regular encouragement of participating in seminars and competitions, my fear of public speaking was removed immensely.
Answer No. Four
A school teaches us so many things, yet there are some things, that stand out and help you throughout your life. The best thing I learned was to assume responsibility for your actions and deeds instead of passing the blame to others and just play blame games. This developed a sense of leadership in me, and this trait immensely helped me during my previous employment wherein I was working as a team leader.
Answer No. Five
School influences our foundation years so greatly, that we cherish its impact our whole life. The best thing I learned from my alma-mater is time management. I remember, our school used to organize, regular examinations and a plethora of extracurricular activities along with it. We were all encouraged to manage our studies along with taking an active part in sports and drama competitions. This enabled me to manage my time, by focusing on both aspects.
Answer No. Six
The learning and knowledge that an educational institute imparts is exceptional and influences our future considerably. Among a pack of several valuable things, I would pick the presentation ability, that I acquired and honed during my school days. We were always instructed to prepare projects and then explain them in front of the entire class. This slowly and steadily, eliminated our fear of public speaking and improved our presentation skills.
Answer No. Seven
Our school always laid a special focus on learning new technologies. As a consequence, we were probably the first ones in the city, to learn MS Excel and MS PowerPoint. This helped us greatly in opening up our minds and increasing our imagination. This helped us to eliminate our obscure attitude and we as a group were motivated to learn new technologies constantly.
Answer No. Eight
There are so many things, but I would certainly pick one. From such a young age, we were taught forecasting. The projects allotted to us were not simply based on facts and figures, rather we were instructed to use charts, graphs, and diagrams to interpret the future. The topics and subjects varied, but forecasting was a common requirement from us. Hence, I owe my alma mater to give us such a key corporate skill.
Answer No. Nine
I remember, we were overburdened in our school days and were kept utterly busy. Initially, I never liked this way of studying and always wanted to change my school. But after my parents persisted, I stayed with the same school. This persistence paid off, I ended up with the valuable skill of adaptability. Slowly I adapted to the conditions, terms, and guidelines of my school, and steadily I was a perfect fit in the culture. Due to adaptability, I became a perfect match from being a misfit.
Answer No. Ten
There were always loads of activities going in our school apart from regular assessments and examinations like you had to choose a sport compulsorily, you had to mandatory learn a foreign language and so on. Such an environment required us to be on our toes at all times and be super vigilant. This allowed me to learn, how to handle and focus on one thing at a time, instead of thinking about another one.
Conclusion
There are several tricky interview questions asked in order to evaluate your personality and approach towards tough situations. School life is a memorable period in everyone’s life which influences our personality in a major way. Hence, proper preparation is necessary to answer this question effectively. If you like our articles then don’t forget to share them with your family and friends. Also, do let us know through the comments section below, how much you like our articles.
References
- https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=6sN7MHM_8nYC&oi=fnd&pg=PR9&dq=What+Is+The+Most+Important+Thing+You+Learned+At+School%3F&ots=Ci36ZK7WuL&sig=KDhY-O1E2Jt6SYGmSaBm3WOvhzo
- https://heinonline.org/hol-cgi-bin/get_pdf.cgi?handle=hein.journals/scal70§ion=29
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Sandeep Bhandari is the founder of PrepMyCareer.com website.
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