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While non the most common job interview question, the failure question—should you get it—is rather perplexing. How practice you answer this honestly while also not scaring away your potential future employer past bringing up that time you lost your company a lot of money?

It'south a tricky state of affairs to be in. Y'all desire to print, but you're explicitly being asked to talk nigh something you lot failed at. So, what do you do?

First things commencement, stay at-home. Take a deep breath and say something similar, "Wow, that's a great question. I'yard going to have to think most that for a second." Then, think nigh it for a second and follow these four steps.

1. Pick a Real Failure

Step one is to choice a failure. Don't try to weasel your mode out of this by talking most that in one case you lot got a B in a college grade. You're non fooling anyone. At the same time, you lot probably besides want to shy away from any colossal failures related to the kind of work you're applying for. If the interviewer specifically asks for something related to piece of work, try to at least pull the story from something that happened a long time agone. Choose a story in which something fairly important didn't go right due to your personal actions (or lack of deportment).

Note that I said "something" and not "everything"—the reason people so frequently trip up on this question is because they're looking for a situation in which everything went wrong. You only demand one thing to go wrong for your answer to work.

2. Define Failure in Your Ain Words

The reason why yous don't need to talk about some immense failure in which everything goes catastrophically and comically wrong is considering you're going to spell out why you felt this situation was a failure.

After you lot've picked your story, define failure in a way that works for it. Once failure is defined, your story no longer needs to be an obvious failure; it just has to be whatever you define failure to exist.

What This Sounds Similar

To me, failure is well-nigh not meeting expectations—others' as well as my own.

As a manager, I consider it a failure whenever I'm defenseless by surprise. I strive to know what'southward going on with my team and their work.

I think failure is more than just not meeting a goal, it's about non meeting a goal with the resources you're given. If I stop up taking more than time or supplies than I was originally allotted, that feels like a failure to me.

3. Tell Your Story

Now that you've established how yous evaluate failure, tell the story that you lot chose. Attempt not to spend too much time setting the stage, and become to the dial line quickly. Interviewers don't enquire this question to meet you squirm, they desire to know how you handle setbacks—so get to the part where you're dealing with the failure as quickly every bit possible.

Showtime with the state of affairs, and explain why it was challenging. Then get into what you lot specifically did to effort and rectify it. Presumably, since this is most failure, you volition not exist successful or will only be partially successful. That's fine. Practise not endeavour to cover upward the fact that things didn't all go as planned. It'due south impossible to do well in an interview if the interviewer doesn't believe what you lot're maxim, so don't endeavour to sugar coat things.

4. Share What You Learned

Finally, at the end of your response, afterwards yous relay the atrocious outcome of your story, you become to the proficient stuff. Y'all want to wrap upwards with your lessons learned.

Talk about why you think things went desperately, maybe what you would take done in retrospect, and, of class, what you'll exist doing going forwards.

What This Sounds Like

Our big problem was bold that we would be able to get clean information from users. It'southward one of my biggest takeaways from the feel: Never brand assumptions most the data. I haven't made that mistake again.

If I had but communicated the first few bumps in the road, we could have managed our customer'south expectations, but because we didn't, we damaged the relationship. Now, I never let an uncomfortable conversation preclude me from communicating the status of a projection transparently.

The failure question frequently takes people by surprise. Fifty-fifty if you're prepared for it, talking nigh failure is difficult. The cardinal to answering this question well is start framing the way y'all evaluate failure and then finishing with your key takeaways from the feel. If you sandwich your story with these two components, you'll definitely have a strong respond.

Read More: The STAR Method: The Secret to Acing Your Next Job Interview

Lily Zhang is a career counselor at the MIT Media Lab, where she works with a range of students from AI experts to interaction designers on crafting their own unique career paths. When she's not indulging in a new book or video game, she's thinking about, talking about, or writing near careers. You tin find her on LinkedIn, Twitter, and her website.

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Source: https://www.themuse.com/advice/4-steps-for-answering-tell-me-about-a-time-you-failed

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