Usually, the answer people give to this question is more of an extended humblebrag.Īn example of this would be if someone said that their biggest failure was that they “work too hard,” or “care too much,” or some other similar nonsense.Įven when a person has a good story to go along with the answer, it’s usually pretty obvious that the person is actually using the opportunity to brag about themselves rather than using it to actually engage with the question. The biggest mistake people make with this answer isn’t that they lie outright about their biggest failure, but instead it’s that they choose an answer that isn’t really a failure at all.
This goes beyond the obvious dishonesty of making up an answer out of whole cloth, which by itself would be a pretty obvious ploy (unless you’re a very good liar). The first - and perhaps most important - thing to remember when discussing one of your failures is that you have to give an honest answer. Hiring managers understand that you’re only human, and they’re interested in learning how you cope under pressure and how well you internalize lessons learned. These sorts of questions assume you’ve made mistakes because we all have! This question serves a few purposes - mainly, the hiring manager is trying to gauge what rattles you while also trying to get a sense of how honest you are. Why Interviewers Ask “Tell Me About a Time You Failed” We’ll go into each in more detail further down, but first here’s a quick breakdown: We’ve put together a few tips to help you do just that.
Which do you choose? How do you frame it to make yourself look good without seeming dishonest? When it comes to talking about a failure of yours to a potential employer, the fear can be palpable. Having to tell a person you’re actively trying to impress about a time when you made a huge mistake can be daunting, but fortunately, we’ve got some tips to help make your interviewing experience a little easier. Or are you the kind of person who repeats their own history, who over and over again manages to screw up in the same ways every time? But it’s a lot harder than other common interview questions like “ tell me about yourself.”Īre you the kind of person who rises to the occasion and continually finds ways to grow?
Talking about one of your work-related failures can give a hiring manager a lot of insight into what kind of employee you might turn out to be. In this case, an unpleasant situation where you messed up. It’s a behavioral interview question, which means the interviewer wants to see how the interviewee performed in a past situation. This common interview question is a job interviewer’s bread and butter, as it’s a chance for them to learn a lot about you in many different ways at once - from the story you choose to tell to how much responsibility you take on yourself for the mistake. We understand if your heart jumped a little bit even reading that sentence.
#Tell me your story how to