Q. What is your greatest achievement?

For this question, we asked our friendly careers guru and acclaimed career advisor Claire Leslie for her insights, based on her experiences helping thousands of students prepare for competency and strengths-based interviews. Over to you Claire...

The employer isn’t looking for the marathon running, country representing, top-flight musician who has received an Oscar for acting and single-handedly solved the Greek debt crisis! Instead, it is looking for the person who can demonstrate that they have done something other than just study. The answer can be equally impressive if you have spent a gap year persuading reluctant parents in Africa to allow their children to be inoculated against polio.

Start very simply: “I think my greatest achievement is…/I am most proud of…” and then set out what you did. Use the STAR framework. Describe the circumstances fairly briefly and then focus most of your answer on the action you took, but avoid hyperbole. Finish by highlighting the result and reflecting on the skills you gained. If you attained your achievement whilst working alongside study, then you’ll have demonstrated a great work ethic, resilience and time management skills.

If you have contributed to society, then you’ll want to point out how your efforts have impacted others. If, however, you want to work in a profit-making City organisation, you might want to focus more on the relevant transferable skills you developed. Communication? Teamwork? Persuasion and negotiation?

It’s probably not a good idea to tell an investment bank that following your amazing experience working with the dispossessed, you have decided to work for the bank because you like its corporate social responsibility policy. Remember that the bank is “about” making money. Their staff need to buy into that idea. If they think that you just want to “help”, they’re probably going to wonder if you will be right for them.

Jake Schogger’s tips: make sure you give context when answering this question (don’t assume that the achievement is self-explanatory). Highlight not only the overall achievement, but why it was an achievement. What were the challenges that you overcame? How did you overcome them? Did this require prolonged dedication and resilience? And then don’t forget to include the outcome at the end, for example the amount of money you raised, the attendance you achieved, the feedback you received, or the qualification you were awarded.