Site Coordinator isn’t an obvious job title, such as a bank teller, a pharmacist, or a store manager. All kinds of companies and public institutions advertise this job, and your place of work can vary from a construction site to a classroom, or even a city hall.
In each case, however, you will coordinate things on site. Regardless of your exact place of work, you need certain skills and abilities, and hiring managers will test them with some targeted questions. Let’s have a look at them right now.
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Why do you want to work as a site coordinator?
Regardless of your future place of work, say that you enjoy coordinating things, and excel in doing that. You find it easy to communicate with a variety of bodies, to organize and plan things, to follow instructions and coordinate that everything on site goes smoothly, and according to the plan.
Second thing you should refer to is their organization, or the exact “thing” you will coordinate. Be it an after school activity for children, installation of kitchen unit on client sites, or operations in a psychiatric ward, you should find and identify some meaningful purpose in that activity. Name it as a reason why you apply for a job with them, and not with some other organization which advertises a job opening for site coordinator.
Tell us about a situation when you struggled to coordinate something.
Your attitude matters more than the situation you narrate. The most important thing is to not blame someone else for your failures. Maybe children didn’t listen to your instructions when you coordinated an event at school. And you didn’t have any assistants to help you. Do not blame the children though, or the organization (that they left the event understaffed).
Say that it was your mistake. You were the coordinator after all, you were on the site, and saw how things were going. If you acted promptly, called the organization at the start of an event and asked for a helping hand, they’d send someone. You didn’t do so, struggled heavily with the coordination on site, but you learned your lesson, and won’t repeat the same mistake again.
Do not get discouraged if you have no professional experience with coordinating things. You for sure coordinated something in your personal life–your own birthday party, a football match, anything. The exact situation you narrate does not matter for the interviewers.
* May also interest you: Recruiting coordinator interview questions.
Tell us about a time when you struggled to communicate something to someone.
Another tricky behavioral question. Excellent communication skills are super important for each good site coordinator. But it doesn’t mean that you will never struggle. It means that you know how to solve communication issues, and eventually get your message over. You have two options for a good answer.
First one is narrating a situation when your audience simply didn’t understand you. Maybe the message was technical for them, or they were simple or tired and did not get your point. Such things happen to everyone. Ensure the interviewers that you didn’t give up. You simplified your language, patiently repeated the message again and again, used demonstration and practical examples, and basically did all you could to get your message over–and eventually succeeded.
Second scenario is when they didn’t want to understand, because they did not like your words. Tell the hiring managers that you didn’t give up. The message had to be communicated, and so you persisted, and continued explaining things until they eventually got your point, and accepted what you tried to convey to them.
This job involves a lot of traveling. How do you feel about that?
This isn’t necessarily the case with all site coordinator jobs. But when you will respond for coordinating some installation or operation on client sites, you will certainly travel to different places, even daily.
It’s not enough saying that you are okay with traveling. You should elaborate on your answer. Do you drive? How many miles have you covered in the last ten years? And are you okay with traveling early or returning home late? Because that may be the case when you travel to different sites in your work…
Show the interviewers that you read the job description carefully, considered everything before applying, know what they will expect from you (for example traveling to client sites daily), and feel ready to handle your duties. If you had any problems with traveling, you would not apply for a job and waste their time. If you’re still not sure what to say, check 7 sample answers to “Are you willing to travel?”
Do you prefer to work independently, or on a team?
This one is a bit tricky. As a site coordinator, you will be responsible for a lot of things alone. And you should not rely on others when it comes to micromanagement and your work directly on site.
You will have your plan or instructions, and should follow them, ideally without asking additional question, or calling to the headquarters of the company.
On the other hand, you will coordinate people, and you may have colleagues to help you on the site–with the tasks you assign to them. It would be tough to do this effectively if you were a lonely wolf and hated company of others.
I’d suggest you to say that you enjoy teamwork, and always try to be attentive to the needs and problems of your colleagues. At the same time, however, you do not mind working on your own, taking the responsibility for the final result, or basically being alone on the site.
Reading the job description carefully can also help you find the best possible answer to this question–depending on whether you’ll work alone or in a group.
What do you consider your greatest weakness when we talk about a job of a site coordinator?
You can say that you are not aware of any major weakness in this regard. If you were aware of some big weakness, you’d apply for another job, one in which your weakness doesn’t matter. But you should always add something to this answer, to not sound overconfident.
Maybe a weakness or two you have outside of the job. Perhaps you struggle with strategic planning or aren’t tech savvy. These things may play a big role in some jobs, but won’t impact you much in a site coordinator position–simply because you won’t respond for any long term plans or strategies, and won’t do any difficult stuff with computers.
Another option is picking a weakness which matters. Can be your negotiation skills, problem solving skills, or communication skills in general, or lack of experience in the field.
It is completely fine admitting such a weakness, especially if it is obvious from the way you talk and act in an interview, but you should ensure the interviewers that you try your best to get rid of this weakness…
Other questions you may face in your site coordinator job interview
- What do you want to accomplish in this job?
- What gets you up in the morning?
- Tell me about the most complex event or operation you coordinated in your life. How did you deal with the challenges?
- Tell me one thing about yourself you wouldn’t want me to know.
- Imagine that you arrive to the client site two hours before the workers. You see that the site is not ready for the installation, and needs at least other six hours to get ready. What will you do in this situation?
- What is most important to you in your next position?
- Tell me about a time when you felt overwhelmed with work.
- When you had to work on multiple project simultaneously, how did you prioritize?
- What are your salary expectations?
- Why shouldn’t we hire you?
* Special Tip: If you experience anxiety, or do not feel ready for the questions from my list, have a look at our Interview Success Package. Up to ten sample answers to each tricky interview question (including 31 dreaded scenario-based questions) will help you streamline your interview preparation, and outclass your competitors–since you will know something they won’t know… Thank you for checking it out!
Final thoughts, next steps
Interview for a job of a site coordinator belongs to tricky interviews. It is not always easy to predict what questions they will ask you, since it depends a lot on the exact job duties and job location, as well as on the person who will lead your interviews.
Try to learn as much as you can about the job and your future employer. It will help you to come up with right answers to many questions. At the end of the day, the more time you spend preparing, the better your chances to succeed. Check the following articles to continue your interview preparation:
- How to overcome interview nerves – Do not let the anxiety to kill your chances. Get rid of stress and show them your very best on the big day.
- Office Manager interview questions.
- 15 most common interview questions – What motivates you? Where do you see yourself in five years time? What are your strengths? Learn how to deal with some questions you can get in any interview.
