Question: Describe a time when you paid attention to a particular detail of your work, and this led to a benefit for you or your team.

Alternative Question Phrasing:

Have you ever had an experience in which you were glad you had paid attention to some particular detail? Please describe it.

Follow-up questions:

What did you do? What was the outcome?
How do you pay attention to the details of your work?

Question Details:

Question Type:

Behavioral

Skills:

Basic – Critical Thinking,Basic – Monitoring (Making observations of self and environment)

Abilities:

Cognitive – Flexibility of Closure (Pattern Detection)

Other Factors:

Personality-Job Fit

Work Activity (Task):

Information Input – Estimating Characteristics of Objects, Events, or Information,Information Input – Monitor Processes, Materials, or Surroundings,Mental Processes – Judging the Value of Things, Services, or People,Work Output – Quality Improvement

Work Style (Person-Job Fit):

Analytical Thinking,Attention to Detail

Question Frequency

Question Difficulty

What to look for in an answer:

The candidate’s attention to detail.
The candidate’s ability to identify a problem or issue.

Red Flags to Watch For:

If the candidate has not experienced this before, it is not necessarily a red flag, but the candidate’s inability to identify a problem would be a red flag.

Sample Answer:

As we were preparing for month-end report, I noticed that a particular file was missing, hence the consolidation was incorrect. Good thing we always do back-ups.

Question Source: Unknown