How to Answer “What Is Your Greatest Achievement?” Interview Question!

What is your greatest achievement? This is one of the hardest interview questions to answer in any job interview. If you have an interview coming up soon in any role or for any organization/company, make sure you read this article to learn how to answer it correctly.

In this article, you will learn the reason why the interviewer is asking you this question;  two(2) essential tips for answering it with confidence; four(4) brilliant answers you can use in your job interview.

Tips to Answer “What Is Your Greatest Achievement?” Interview Question

  • Where possible, give an answer that explains something you achieved with a previous employer.
  • Perhaps you helped a previous employer successfully launch a new product, or even break previous company sales figures for a particular year.
  • If this is your first job, talk about either your educational qualifications, something you did for charity, or how you won a team event.

What’s Your Greatest Achievement? The PERFECT ANSWER to this Tough Job Interview Question

So let’s get into it. Why is the interviewer asking you the question, what is your greatest achievement? Well, if you have a track record of achieving things, it means you are far more likely to replicate the same success in your new job role

So we have to give them a specific situation you were in where you achieved something brilliant. So here’s two really important tips for answering this question with confidence what is your greatest achievement,

  • Tip number one: Where possible, give an achievement that is related to your work. This is important, now within the three answers that are going to come very soon. The first two are work related and the last one is something relevant to your personal life. So if you haven’t got a work related achievement, make sure you stay tuned for answer number three.
  • Tip number two: This is very important. Use the star technique to structure your answer. The star technique is situation, task, action and result. So you start off and you explain the situation you were in. You then briefly outline the task that needed doing. You then go into detail about the action that you took and you finish off with the result of your actions. Within the answers that are coming, you will learn how to use the star technique to great effect.

So let’s get into those three answers to the interview question. What is your greatest achievement? Here’s example.

Question: What Is Your Greatest Achievement?

Example Answer #1

  • a) SITUATION: My greatest achievement is when I helped my team achieve record sales for the year.
  • b) TASK: As a team, it was our responsibility to improve sales each year by providing great customer service and coming up with innovative ways to promote our company products to a wider audience.
  • c) ACTION: At the start of the year, we got together as a team to brainstorm ideas. I suggested we should give all new customers a 20% discount code they could ever pass on to their friends or use against future purchases.
  • d) RESULT: In total, all the team’s promotion ideas, and the improvement in customer service, meant we were able to achieve a 17% increase in sales compared to the previous year.

That’s a really good answer. And you can see there that by using situation, task, action and result the star technique, you can structure a brilliant answer.

Question: What Is Your Greatest Achievement?

Example Answer #2

This is another work related too. What is your greatest achievement answer. Here we go.

  • a) SITUATION: In my previous job, my manager asked for a volunteer to give everybody in the team a twenty-minutes presentation about a new company product we were about to launch. I’d never given a presentation before, but I saw this as an opportunity to overcome one of my greatest fears, and so I volunteered.
  • b) TASK: It was my job to research the product carefully and create a presentation that was clear, concise and fit for purpose.
  • c) ACTION: Now i spent a week learning about the product before creating the presentation that covered the product details, its benefits and how we, as a team could sell it to our customers once it was launched.
  • d) ACTION: After practicing the presentation no fewer than five times in front of my partner, I went ahead and delivered it near perfect. This was my greatest achievement because I overcame a lifelong fear of public speaking.

That is another really good answer. And again, you can see how by using situation to task, action and result, you can create a brilliant response.

Question: What is your greatest achievement?

Example Answer #3

Now, here’s the third sample answer that is not work related. What is your greatest achievement? Here we go.

  • a) SITUATION: A friend of mine wanted to raise some money for a local charity because their funding had been cut.
  • b) TASK: I agreed it was a great idea, and so we both decided to arrange a charity five kilometer (5km) fun run the people in the local community could get involved in.
  • c) ACTION: We gave each other specific tasks to complete and I was responsible for arranging sponsorship and also speaking to the local press to try and get some free publicity. My friend was responsible for getting as many local people as possible to sign up to the fun run at a cost of five dollars ($5) per person. The proceeds of which would go to the charity.
  • d) RESULT: After weeks of hard work arranging the event, we managed to get 120 people to take part and we raised a total of six hundred dollars ($600) for the charity.

That’s another brilliant answer. And again, using the star technique, you can see how effective it really is.

Question: What is your greatest achievement?

Example Answer #4

“My greatest achievement has to be in my previous role when I worked as part of a team that managed to increase company sales 25% on a year.

We achieved this by successfully launching new company products online and by upspelling to previous customers.

They shift to marketing our products online made a massive difference to our sales figures, and I was very proud to be a part of the team that had so much success in that particular year.

These are some good and perfect answers to this Interview Question, “What Is Your Greatest Achievement?”

Now, there are other top interview questions that I recommend you to prepare for also, for all job interviews. Please CLICK HERE TO READ THIS ARTICLE to get the full detailed answers to these Interview Questions and more.

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