Has fear of getting stumped by an interview question got you breaking into a cold sweat before you even put your new suit on? Our monthly Q&A with HR professionals will help you identify and understand the kind of questions interviewers ask, so you can ace the interview and get on with your new job. This month's pro is Jennifer Russell Ricci, assistant vice-president of global recruitment strategies at Manulife Financial.

Do you consider yourself lucky?
While many may think this is an odd question I find it works extremely well in identifying a lot about your candidate's true nature. I started using this question when I was interviewing up to 100 candidates a week at a high-tech recruitment agency in the mid 90s and it both revealed potentially hidden character traits and added to the enjoyment of the interview process.
Last year, while at a university symposium, I had the opportunity to hear Daniel Pink, author of Free Agent Nation, speak and was pleased to discover that this question was one of his favourite questions for many of the same reasons.
If an interviewer asks you Are you lucky? they are looking for you to define yourself in ways that could be critical to your success as an employee at their firm. For example, your answer may reveal the following:

• Are you an optimist or a pessimist?
• Can you find opportunity in a mistake?
• Are you too focused and narrow-minded to miss identifying chances?
• Do you have a sense of entitlement?

A preferred answer to this question would be to agree that luck has played a part in your success to date and provide examples of situations in which you were able to meet someone who eventually helped you out. Or perhaps where you were in a place or event in which you learned of an opportunity which worked out well for you. To ignore luck or claim that your accomplishments to date were solely the result of hard work may make you come across as naive and non-collaborative.
It is believed that people who consider themselves lucky are good collaborators, listeners, understand the kind of resourceful networkers and innovators and tend to excel at customer-centric roles.
The common misconception is that luck is random, however the reality is; bright people make their own luck by something they are doing. They are open to new experiences, prepared to take risks and seize opportunity.