If your interviewer asks you to describe a huge mistake or failure from your past, how should you respond? Here are a few tips that can help you navigate this tricky question.
When you sit down with your interview question, you may face a set of direct questions, like “Do you enjoy this kind of work?” and “Are you familiar with this specific type of equipment?”
These are easy to answer with a simple yes or no and then a subsequent explanation.
But you may also be presented with behavioral questions, which interviewers use to assess your general personality, character strengths, and how you act in certain situations.
Behavioral questions tend to be open-ended with no right or wrong answers, and you may be asked to provide your response in the form of a personal story.
One of the most common types of behavioral interview question might sound like this:
- Can you tell me about a time when you made a huge mistake on the Job? What were the circumstances and how did you respond?
- Let’s talk about failure for a minute. Can you describe the worst failure in your career history?
- Have you ever given your all to a project and still failed or come up short? Tell me more about that time.
Here are a few tips that can help you navigate this tricky conversation and use your past failures to showcase your current strengths.
Prepare
Since you already know this question is (probably) coming your way, don’t be caught off guard. Don’t get flustered, and don’t sit in silence for ten minutes while you search your memory and try to shape your response.
Don’t Weasel Out
Acknowledge that you are not a perfect person with an unbroken history of flawless successes. Everyone, including the hiring manager, has made mistakes.
So don’t weasel out of the question by stating that you’ve never failed (or describing an obvious success). Your employer wants to see honesty, self-awareness, personal responsibility, and the ability to reflect on an experience and gain value from it in hindsight.
You’ll win this round by owning your mistakes and thoughtfully articulating what you lost and gained.
If you dodge the question, you might seem obtuse, inexperienced, or emotionally brittle, none of which will help you.
Make sure it ends well.
Of course, your story of failure won’t work if you truly did fail. If you ran your company into the ground with no regrets, no lessons, and no recovery, don’t tell that story.
Choose one that highlights your ability to recognize a mistake, pull out of the downward spiral and ensure it never happens again. If you didn’t pull up and didn’t learn anything, keep that particular story to yourself and choose one with the kinds of nuance that your employer will be looking for.
They ultimately want to make sure you’re someone who takes smart risks, who can acknowledge their own mistakes, and who can recover from failure and move forward.
