Common sense by definition should be something that is…well common amongst all individuals. It basically is but every now and then an interviewer hires someone without a lot of it. You can bet they are very careful with the next person they employ. They will search for people who can use their judgment and can recognize problems and solutions without inquiring constantly for assistance. This is mostly the motivation behind a question like the one below.

Behavioral Interview Query: Give a particular example of a time when you used good judgment and logic in solving an issue.

Hopefully you do this all the time. Logic is perhaps believed to be one of the most significant skills a person can have, and one of the ultimate signs of intelligence. The challenge with this interview query is coming up with an answer that shows that you can use logic in any setting, since showing logic is hard. Logic is common sense, and how do you prove common sense?

• Universal Story – Utilize a story that is universally logical. Meaning that even those without much common sense can comprehend the logic behind why you are explaining the story, and why you are sharing it as an instance of your logic. Make certain it is not opinion, specifically if it is an opinion the interviewers may not share.
• Specific – Boring logic does not prove logic. It does not even actually prove common sense. Whatever problem you solved, it requires being something that not literally something everyone would solve the exact similar way. Particular stories are better than non-specific stories.
• Effective – Of course, it requires being an effective decision. If you are making a logic based decision, then ideally it should have a positive outcome. Make definite that not only was the outcome positive, but also you’ve something positive to say about it that you can share with the employer.

Finally, and here is the tricky part – ideally, the best stories have an “aha” moment; something that wows the interviewer with your logic and problem solving skills. This can be immensely hard in most industries, where even the interviewer is going to identify the logic right away, but can be beneficial in industries like engineering, where problem solving talents are specifically valuable.

“When I first took over Landscaping Company X’s marketing, one of the 1st things I did was complete an audit of their advertising dollars. They were deployed in Sacramento, and did excellent job marketing to the Sacramento area, and still I noticed they spent over $10,000 in advertisements for Stockton – a city over 60 miles away, where they had no internet presence.

I identified that while the $10,000 surely had a payoff, that payoff was muted by the cost of their investment. Yet for $2,000 and a bit of time, I could have a whole new website focused particularly on Stockton (which had a weak market) that would have highly greater appeal to the Stockton Market, and could rank for keywords for free in the long term. If victorious, this strategy could also have long term advantages, involving building a market in Stockton that could be a good source for a satellite office. Even our Advertisements were more effective for the Stockton Market once there was a specific, Stockton oriented website up. Overall it just made a lot more sense.”