Tuesday 5 July 2016

What Is the Biggest Challenge in Professional career? Know More on This with NetZealous LLC

One of the trickiest questions to answer for a professional is when she is asked what the biggest or the toughest challenge of her professional career has been till now (meaning, till the time of the interview). This is a double-edged question, because it is a way of showing up the candidate as a complete success, or the exact opposite of it. A lot of presence of mind and tact is needed to confront a question such as this.


The motive with which this question is usually asked is to test what mettle the professional is made up of. A deftly handled situation, when explained properly and in the right context at the interview, can give the interviewer the impression of having on hand a candidate who doesn’t run away from a challenge or gets overpowered by it, but rather has the fortitude and resilience to take a challenge head on or handle it with caution, depending on the nature of the challenge.

It is always better to be prepared for questions of this nature. NetZealous LLC is a leading provider of professional trainings in the field of human resources. Through its well-known brand, TrainHR, it offers professional trainings on all areas of HR. With its trainings, many of which are approved by the Human Resources Certification Institute (HRCI), it offers courses that are recognized all over the HR trainings industry.

Some of the ways of answering questions of this nature

The way a candidate answers a question like this is a clear indicator of her ability to deal with tough situations. A positive reply is one in which the candidate, in the process of explaining the situation, gives a fair indicator of the kind of leader or person she is. A positive person with a ken for leadership only mentions that there was a certain challenge that needed addressing, never who created it. Even if the problem had been a colleague’s creation; saying so will show the candidate in poor light, because it will give the impression of being a person who blames otters for a bad situation.



Another very important point that the interviewer assesses in the course of the answer to this question is the extent to which the candidate takes up responsibility and ownership of a situation and the level to which she considers her actions as being accountable. These are prime traits of leadership. An answer which explains the situation vis-à-vis the possibilities of success and failures of her decision-making at the time of the biggest challenge to her career will give a clear indication of these qualities.

A logical flow of the answer to the question should be shown, which gives the impression of how logical the candidate is in approaching challenging situations. The right way of expressing the answer will be to make it linear and interestingly narrated. It should be described as if the candidate is explaining a movie.

How do TrainHR trainings help candidates answer questions of this type?

TrainHR, an HR training portal from NetZealous LLC, has the right answers to delicate and problematic questions a candidate may face during an interview. Its experts are very well known in their professions and have earned a reputation for helping HR professionals scale their professional careers.  TrainHR delivers high quality trainings in the form of short duration web seminars and long duration in person, live seminars, which are usually spread over a couple of days. It is at sessions like this that it helps candidates face issues concerning careers. This is among the many topics of training that it offers.


NetZealous LLC’s human resources training providing portal, TrainHR equips participants with the acumen and skills needed for understanding and presenting answers to questions they face regularly during interviews. Its courses on communication skills improvement, business communications, business ethics and many other related areas are of great help to HR professionals.

In the current situation, NetZealous LLC’s human resources training brand, TrainHR could help with tips like the following:

Be clear about the answer:

When a candidate is asked about the most challenging situation she faced in her professional career; the most appropriate way of getting into the answer would be choose a particular challenge or episode, rather than meander about giving explanations about a number of challenges. The candidate may be under the impression that tackling this question at multiple levels shows her ability to handle different types of challenges, but the fact is that it takes away the clarity of the answer.

Choosing one particular challenge handled in the past is a good way of answering. It is good for the candidate to take up a particular challenge that she felt was a very important one, and one which helped her exercise her abilities of judgment and intuition and leadership. Let the answer be restricted to a particular event to make it appropriate. For example, explaining how the candidate faced a challenge when the organization had to expand to another area of business, or how the candidate was called upon to draw a list of employees to be fired during a particular time such as the recession or during a takeover are all good examples of choosing specific situations that presented challenges.

Absolutely no bullshitting:

A lot of people think that they can get away with smartly constructed lies in interviews which ask questions like this. Nothing could be farther to the truth than this idea. Lies can take you a very short distance, at the most till the next interview round, but never beyond. Are seasoned HR professionals so dumb that they believe everything that a candidate says about her past, nodding their heads, like kids? No matter how neatly packaged, a lie is a lie. Imagine the mortification the candidate will have to face if the interviewer found out during subsequent background checks that everything that the candidate uttered was bullshit. There is no greater disgrace than being exposed this way.

The biggest advantage of speaking the truth is that you don’t have to remember what you have spoken. If you have presented the truth about a challenge you faced and nothing but the truth about it; you have no fear about any crosschecks the HR may make with your organization, because the truth you have uttered at the interview is known to everyone in the organization.

Talk of an incident of the recent past

HR trainings from TrainHR, a brand of NetZealous LLC, impart understanding of the nitty-gritty of interviewing. Attending training sessions from TrainHR gives professionals the opportunity to understand ways of dealing with questions that are sometimes framed to test the candidate’s ability to steer clear of walking into a trap. When explaining the challenges faced during one’s professional career for instance, TrainHR’s trainings help HR professionals understand that it is better to mention a recent incident when explaining the biggest challenge of her career. Talking about something of the distant past will have left no easy memories with colleagues with whom the interviewing organization may want to call back to verify the veracity of the claims. During such times, it is better to keep in mind a recent incident that the candidate felt tested her abilities.

Learn a lot more than to just handle tough questions

While learning the ways of handling tough questions at interviews is an important aspect of an HR professional’s career; there are a lot more she needs to equip herself with. TrainHR, a leading human resources training providing brand from NetZealous LLC, offers professional trainings on all areas of human resources. These trainings are an invaluable learning tool that HR professionals can use to advance in their careers by staying current with the latest updates and happenings in the HR industry.



As an industry that is in a constant state of flux; human resources needs consistent upgrade all the time. Knowledge gained at one point of time could become outdated very soon, because of which it needs to be gained and implemented all over again and again. HR trainings from TrainHR, a NetZealous LLC brand, are designed to help HR professionals stay updated with these and apply the ways to implement them in their careers.

Professional trainings in all the areas of importance to HR professionals

TrainHR, a brand of NetZealous LLC, offers professional trainings in all the areas of human resources. With a very broad spread of such topics and areas, it is the ideal provider of human resources trainings for HR professionals. Its experts are drawn from around the globe. They impart the most relevant and current trainings on any aspect of human resources. This is just a small list of the areas in which the NetZealous LLC brand, TrainHR offers professional trainings:

o         Affirmative Action
o         Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA)
o         Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) & ADA Accommodation
o         COBRA (Consolidated Omnibus Reconciliation Act)
o         Department of Labor (DOL)
o         Dealing with Errant Employees
o         Dealing with Violence at the Workplace
o         Discrimination – Age, Disability, Gender, Genetic, National Origin, Pregnancy, Race, Religious, Sex & Sexual Orientation 
o         Dress Codes / Uniforms
o         Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA)
o         Employee Benefits Security Administration (EBSA)
o         Employment at Will
o         Employment Contracts
o         Employment Eligibility Verification and E-Verify
o         Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA)
o         Employment Practices Liability Insurance (EPLI)
o         Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC)
o         Equal Pay Act (EPA)
o         Exempt vs. Non-exempt Employees
o         Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act (FACT Act)
o         Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA)
o         Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA)
o         Fair Pay Act
o         Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA)
o         Federal / Government Contractors
o         Firing/Termination
o         Furlough
o         Genetic Discrimination and Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act (GINA)
o         Harassment - Age, Disability, Gender, Genetic, National Origin
o         Pregnancy, Race, Religious, Sex & Sexual Orientation
o         Health Benefits & Health Care Reform
o         Immigration and Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA)
o         Independent Contractors
o         Intermittent FMLA Leave
o         Jury Duty
o         Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act
o         Leave
o         Layoffs, Downsizing & Reduction in Workforce (RIF)
o         Mental Health Parity
o         Military Leave and FMLA
o         Military Service
o         Minimum Wage
o         National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) & Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) & Unions
o         19th Century Civil Rights Act
o         Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA)
o         Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP)  
o         Older Workers Benefit Protection Act (OWBPA)
o         Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC)
o         Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPAC)
o         Pensions Protection Act (PPA)
o         Pregnancy Discrimination Act (PDA)
o         Retirement Plans
o         Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX)
o         Section 1981 of the Civil Rights Act of 1866
o         Sick Leave
o         Substance Abuse
o         Temporary Employees
o         Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964
o         Trade Secrets Protection
o         Uniformed Services Employment Reemployment Rights Act (USERRA)
o         Wage and Hour Labor Laws and Wage and Hour Division (WHD)
o         Whistle-blowing
o         Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act (WARN Act)
o         Worker's Compensation
o         Training & Development
o         Employee Induction
o         Interviewing Skills
o         Professional Etiquette
o         Soft Skills Training
o         Team Building
o         Recruitment
o         Background Checks
o         Motivation and Retention
o         Internal Investigations
o         Layoffs Downsizing & Reduction in Workforce (RIF)
o         Personnel Administration
o         Change Management
o         Crisis Management & Disaster Planning
o         Employment Practices Liability Insurance
o         Ethics
o         Leadership
o         Mergers & Acquisitions
o         Risk Management
o         Succession planning
o         Performance Management
o         Scorecards and Dashboards
o         Strategy Maps
o         Technology in HR
o         Documentation & Document Retention
o         Electronic Data Management & Monitoring
o         Communications and Interpersonal Skills
o         Integrity
o         Foresight
o         Conduct
o         Business Writing and Presentations Skills