I have an interview to do tomorrow at work. I’m applying for a higher position in my department and part of the process is an interview. One of the subjects I’ll have to discuss is my capacity to adapt, citing a recent example which demonstrates said capacity. Oh boy.

Is it cheating to say I’d be able to adapt doing the job I’m applying for because I’ve always adapted when I did the job I’m applying for on an interim basis?

What can you do to help yourself adapt at work?

Have a firm grasp of the basics. If you don’t understand how the job works at its core, how will you be able to handle things when they change? The more you know how things are supposed to work, the easier it is to anticipate the impacts of changes and to prepare for them.

Keep yourself open to the idea of change. This one is hard. People like it when things run smooth. When things change, things don’t always run smooth. The important thing is not to decide something is bad simply because it’s different from the way things were before, especially when a final decision has been made that things are going to change. That means…

Let go of the past. Whinging about how things used to be better won’t help you get the job done now. It’s okay to complain to get it out of your system, but once you’ve done so, move on!

Take time to prepare for upcoming changes if you can. You know changes are coming and there’s information available on the changes? Read up on them. Anticipate what impacts a particular change can have and have a plan in place to handle them if they occur.

Don’t take TOO much time to prepare for upcoming changes. Don’t get lost in all the “What ifs?” It’s good to be prepared for any situation, but you have to be able to analyze how likely it is for a situation to occur. Spending hours preparing for something that never happens isn’t a great use of time. Especially if it’s something that you can deal with on the spot using good ol’ common sense. This is easier when you’re able to…

Be confident in your abilities. You were able to do the job before. Why wouldn’t you be able to do the job now?

Don’t be TOO confident in your abilities. That is to say, don’t assume you know better than the person who designed the changes you’re implementing.That can lead to closing yourself off to the possibility that there’s a better way of doing things. You ultimately may be right, but butting heads won’t help. Telling everybody you know better won’t help. Accept things the way they are now and make suggestions later.

DIVE IN. You can’t succeed if you don’t try. After trying something new once, you’ll have a better understanding of how it works and can better prepare for it in the future.

Don’t be afraid to ask questions. The person you’re asking may not know the answer any more than you do, but together maybe you can make sense of things.

Okay, so these are the things I think help me adapt. Am I any more ready for my interview? No…I still have no clue what example to give that shows I do these things. I need to think some more. Take it easy y’all!