07: How do you evaluate success ?

Here the interviewer simply wants to know what success means to you in your professional and personal life. Many people view success in terms of power, wealth, or fame. But many of the most enduring and satisfying forms of success have nothing do with acquiring power, wealth, or fame. Success is what you make it. For some people it is just keeping busy, having fun and enjoying life as never before.

TRAPS: Seems like an obvious enough question. Yet many executives, unprepared for it, fumble the ball.

BEST ANSWER: Give a well-accepted definition of success that leads right into your own stellar collection of achievements.

Your answers can be:

* The best definition I’ve come across is that success is the progressive realization of a worthy goal.

* If my contribution has positively benefitted my company, than that’s “Success” for me. From the personal front, success to me is fulfilling my parents dream.

* Success to me is to set a goal, plan the steps to achieve the goal, implement the plan and finally achieve the goal.

* Success to me means satisfaction for whatever I do. If I am at my workplace, positive result gives me the satisfaction and at home happiness in parent’s eyes gives me the satisfaction.

* Success to me means completing a task or assignment in an excellent manner and within the stipulated time. But if it was a group project and say only two people did the work, I wouldn’t call that success. If everyone participated and worked together, then it’s a success. Therefore I believe both the result and the process should be great to call something a success.

* As to how I would measure up to that definition, I would consider myself both successful and fortunate…”(Then summarize your career goals and how your achievements have indeed represented a progressive path toward realization of your goals.)