Tell me about a time when you failed.
Oh, what a question?
Why do employers always ask this?
Well, they're typically looking to understand how you
handle stressful situations.
Do you keep a clear head or do you become frazzled
and overwhelmed?
When we're questioned about our previous failures,
and mistakes, and weaknesses, we very well
might sweat, or panic, or shake.
It can be so intimidating to talk about our shortcomings.
But let's face it, we all make mistakes.
So let's discuss genuine answers to these types of interview
questions that show self awareness and personal growth.
I'm Drew, and welcome back to Indeed's Career Tips.
Question 1, what's your biggest failure?
How can you prepare and how should you respond?
First, be honest with yourself and think of a true failure
from your actual past.
Remember to avoid examples associated
with subjective situations like a personal issue
with a coworker that stole your sandwich, that
never got resolved.
Keep your responses focused on skills and processes.
Use a framework like STAR to tell your story.
We have an entire video on the STAR method, which you
can check out right up here.
But in short, STAR stands for situation, task, action,
and result. And is used to give holistic interview answers.
When dealing with negative leading questions,
personally, I like to add additional letters
to the acronym.
That would be L and G. L stands for what you learned,
and G stands for how you've grown.
So here's an example.
As an event coordinator, I planned a conference
with representatives, external vendors, and roughly about
5,000 attendees.
On the actual day of the event, it turns out
that the conference rooms were double booked
and I didn't realize until 20 minutes
before the first session was supposed to begin.
So I nearly panicked, but instead I took a breath,
I quickly weighed all of my options,
and luckily, a conference room became available only just
on our later.
We move locations, we notified the speaker,
and all of the attendees.
And although the session attendance wasn't as high
as we originally anticipated it to be,
we were still able to complete the entire session
successfully.
This was a huge learning experience for me.
Now I know that I have to triple check booking lists and room
reservations for every single new project.
Because of this experience, I'm prepared to ask quickly
and handle obstacles in the future.
There are so many unexpected questions that
are asked in interviews today.
So check out more tricky interview questions
and response strategies in the video right up here.
Also be sure to give this video a big thumbs up, a subscribe,
and hit that notification bell to stay up to date
with Indeed's Career Tips.
Moving right along to question number 2.
Explain a time that you made a mistake at work.
How do we approach this interview question.
So what you want to do here is recognize
that you learn from your mistakes,
but that you don't repeat them.
You can use the same response framework
we mentioned for the failure question, STAR LG.
OK, let's use an example here.
Let's say you're an executive assistant supporting
multiple VPs at your company.
Two of them are both named Jimena,
and they're both traveling to Europe for work
in the same exact month.
You accidentally mix up their names on a reservation.
Your response may sound something a little bit
like this.
It was my first time handling travel
for two VPs with the same first name.
After carefully making all of their reservations,
I began to double check for accuracy.
I realized I had switched the names for one of their train
reservations.
Because of the strict checks and balances system that I already
have in place, I caught this error with enough time
to contact the train station, cancel, rebook the reservation
under the correct name, and leave
the VPs completely unaffected.
Since then, I've completed numerous travel arrangements
for both of them, and I never made the same mistake again.
Question 3, what is one of your weaknesses?
And why is this question that asked?
While weakness questions may feel similar to the failure
and mistake questions, there are some important nuances
to address.
First of all, the purpose for this question is different.
Initially, an employer may be looking for red flags.
Are you able to acknowledge your flaws?
Have you had multiple issues with teammates in the past?
Are you one of those people that resist constructive criticism?
These factors are important to recognize.
So you can choose a response that
removes any potential concerns, but honestly acknowledges
a true weakness that you see in yourself.
How can you prepare?
Avoid the instinct to use a false weakness.
You don't want to say, I'm a perfectionist,
I'm an overachiever, or I'm a workaholic.
These are all obvious strengths that any employer
would be so happy to see in their employees.
Instead, choose a weakness that isn't
detrimental to the job you're interviewing for.
Try to identify weakness that, one, is a true area of haven't
you seen yourself.
Two, you're working to improve.
Three, isn't vital to the role.
And four, isn't associated with your personality.
So for example, maybe your organizational skills
are good enough to get the job done,
but you find yourself feeling slightly more stressed
during the final days before a deadline.
Maybe you're looking to make that process smoother
for yourself.
So you've been researching better practices.
Remember, we want to showcase self awareness
and growth mindset.
How should you respond?
Lead with a positive frame.
Instead of saying, I'm really bad at blah, blah, blah.
You can say, an area of improvement I
see in myself is, blank.
Let's use this scenario for example.
One area of improvement I see in myself
is my tendency to procrastinate.
While I've never missed a deadline
and my work continuously meets or exceeds expectations,
I do tend to focus on projects more as they
approach their deadlines.
This can be feeling stressed, overwhelmed,
and rushed during the final days of the assignment.
So in order to improve my efficiency,
I began reading books on organization and time
management, which has honestly really
helped me implement several new practices.
Now, I create timelines for projects,
I schedule milestones for completion,
and I've already begun to see a major improvement.
I really, really look forward to learning more
on how to strengthen myself in this area.
Want more examples,
This video will give you the four best weaknesses
to share in an interview.
Just see for yourself.
These questions no longer have to be daunting or intimidating.
When we understand their purpose and exactly how
to showcase good attributes in our responses,
our hearts stop racing and we're able to confidently share
all of our experiences.
Be sure to check out more from Indeed
and don't forget to subscribe to our channel
so you never miss out on our weekly career tips I'm Drew.
Thank you so much for watching, and we'll see you next time.