Navigating Tough Interview Questions: "Tell Me About a Time You Failed?"

University courses Physical Sciences
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Interviews can be nerve-wracking, especially when faced with tough questions like “Tell me about a time you failed.” While it may seem like a daunting inquiry, it’s actually an opportunity to showcase your resilience, problem-solving skills, and self-awareness. Here’s how you might go about tackling it:

  1. Choose the Right Example: Select a relevant and genuine example of a setback or failure you encountered. It could be from academics, extracurricular activities, or a previous job/internship.
  2. Focus on Growth: Instead of dwelling on the failure itself, emphasise what you learned from the experience. Highlight how you addressed the challenge, adapted your approach, and grew personally or professionally as a result.
  3. Demonstrate Accountability: Take ownership of your mistake or failure without making excuses. Acknowledge your role in the situation and discuss the steps you took to rectify it or prevent similar issues in the future.
  4. Highlight Resilience: Showcase your resilience and ability to bounce back from setbacks. Discuss how you remained positive, persevered, and emerged stronger from the experience.
  5. Discuss Lessons Learned: Reflect on the valuable insights or skills you gained from the failure. Whether it’s improved problem-solving abilities, enhanced communication skills, or a greater appreciation for teamwork, illustrate how you turned a negative experience into a positive learning opportunity.

Remember, interviewers aren’t expecting perfection—they’re assessing your ability to learn, grow, and handle adversity. By approaching this question with honesty, and a focus on personal development, you can turn a challenging moment into an example of resilience and growth.

What’s your approach to handling tough interview questions?

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I think what is the most important when it comes to these this kind of questions is to really show that you have grown since then. Thus, if it is applicable, try to choose a recent example where you applied what you had learnt and thrived on that occasion.

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exactly! do you have a recent example that you could share?

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I remember during my placement year that I was pretty bad at taking notes during client calls and there was one call in particular that was bad. So my supervisor told me that I needed to step up my game pretty much. My problem then was that people were speaking so fast that I could not keep up. So what I did was I started abbreviating more words so I would not waste so much time as I could always go back and review what I wrote after the calls and swap the abbreviations with the full form. This really proved to be quite effective as I did not struggle anymore and I asked my supervisor whether I made any progress and they told me that I was doing significantly better!

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amazing! sounds like a really good opportunity to work on your weaknesses, and sounds like you’d nailed it by the end of your placement!

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this along with ‘what is your biggest weakness’ are such hard questions to navigate

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Agree. All the employes want to know, is that you took some learning from that bad experience. I always have a few situations ready that i know will fit answering such competency-based questions. If you go to your interview ready, showcasing that you do make mistakes, that you learn from them, and you’ll be just fine😁

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