Tackling tricky interview topics requires more than just quick thinking, according to Madeline Mann, founder of career coaching business Self Made Millennial.
Candidates also need to demonstrate a capacity for self-reflection, she says.
Before going into a job interview, you should always be ready to share “specific examples from your professional career,” Mann says.
Most of these examples should reflect your professional achievements and positive qualities, but it’s equally important to have a couple “negative” scenarios in your back pocket, Mann says.
Two major questions that job seekers should prepare for are ‘Tell me about a time you had an interpersonal conflict’ and ‘Tell me about a time you failed,’ she says.
Here’s how Mann recommends tackling the latter question.
How to answer ‘Tell me about a time you failed’
The prospect of telling an interviewer about a career misstep can be intimidating, Mann says, but the ‘failure’ you describe doesn’t have to be catastrophic.
“It could also be considered a mistake,” she says — for example, “If you missed a data point or you accidentally misunderstood a direction, that could be a failure.”
When describing a time you failed, your answer should include three key elements, Mann says: context, action and result.
In Mann’s view, the best approach to providing context is to plainly state the facts of the incident without glossing over your mistake or dwelling on it. Seeming defensive about your error or attempting to pass blame onto others could raise red flags.
The “action” refers to your approach to solving the problem, Mann says. Ask yourself what the core issue was, and identify the steps you took to resolve it.
For instance, you might bring up a time you made a data analysis error and what systems you put in place afterward to check your work before submitting it.
The most important part of your answer is the result, she says: what you learned from the experience, and how you changed your approach to prevent future errors.
A candidate who made a major data analysis mistake could say: “What I learned from that is I always need to double-check my data sources, because I can’t always trust that they’re going to be accurate,” she says.
From a hirer’s perspective, the purpose of this question isn’t to trick you or figure out “whether or not you’re perfect,” Mann says.
Instead, they’re looking for qualities like honesty, adaptability and resilience.
“What they’re trying to understand is when things go wrong, how do you handle it? How do you learn from it? That’s really what they want to see,” she says.
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