Tell us about a time you had a conflict at work.

It is worth considering how the question is phrased. A "conflict at work" could indicate a conflict between yourself and another employee or a time you exhibited strong leadership skills to resolve a dispute between two other members of the team. It could also mean you had a personal conflict of interest. In your answer, exhibit grounded decision-making and integrity.

Abbott is looking for interns and employees with 'strong leadership and communication skills.' This is an important consideration when describing any conflict you've experienced at work. Consider sharing a situation in which you exemplified those desirable traits.

"I was working with someone who was going through a hard time. We were working on a project together, and we were supposed to tackle different aspects of our project and then reconvene. Knowing they were distracted, I took the more difficult workload. That made them feel insecure, but they agreed. I finished long before they did. This also contributed to their sensitivity.

So, after a while, I checked in with them. But somehow they misinterpreted my concern as insensitive and accused me of using a tone I didn't intend. After things de-escalated, I explained I was just checking in on their progress on the project. I think this embarrassed them. A couple of days later, they took time off to figure things out. When they returned, they apologized for the incident. I told them there was no need to apologize. We hashed it out and had no trouble working together."