Talk about a time you had to handle failure at any point in your career. How did you handle that situation and move forward with confidence?

How to Answer
1st Answer Example
2nd Answer Example

This is a question that is being posed to you that gives you a chance to show your ability to overcome adversity and handle yourself with integrity during a time of failure. Your job in answering this question will be to prove that you can cope with failure in a productive way that leads to making the situation right and learning lessons for the future. As you prepare for a question like this for your interview with Absa Bank, think of a situation where you can highlight both of these things and don't hesitate to tell your interviewer the reasons why the failure occurred. Your interview fully understands that you are a human that makes mistakes and as long as you take a lesson moving forward, you will be in great standing with them.

"A couple of years ago with my current company, my manager asked me if I would consider a promotion into a role as a supervisor for our department. Having not had experience supervising individuals up to that point in my career, I was very hesitant at first. My manager kept telling me that I had the skills necessary to do so. I did accept the offer to become the supervisor and after just three months, I fully realized that the position wasn't for me. I had become very close friends with a lot of the people I was now supervising and that made the real difficult for me. I didn't hesitate to approach my manager to let them know that I wasn't cut out for the role and we worked on a plan for me to transition back my former role. Looking back on the situation, I really learned a lot about myself and who I was as a worker to not put myself in a situation like that again."

"In my current role, I was the person who was informed that we were losing one of our biggest clients to a local competitor. In speaking with the client, they were very unhappy about our customer service and overall pricing. Being responsible for the customer service for our customers, I felt very responsible for losing this client and had to break the news to our leadership team. Right away, our Sales Manager contacted the client to ask a lot of questions on why they were no longer utilizing our services. From there we took a lot of lessons moving forward and I worked through a new customer service policy for my team to follow moving forward."

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How to Answer: Talk about a time you had to handle failure at any point in your career. How did you handle that situation and move forward with confidence?

Advice and answer examples written specifically for an Absa Bank job interview.

1. Talk about a time you had to handle failure at any point in your career. How did you handle that situation and move forward with confidence?

How to Answer

This is a question that is being posed to you that gives you a chance to show your ability to overcome adversity and handle yourself with integrity during a time of failure. Your job in answering this question will be to prove that you can cope with failure in a productive way that leads to making the situation right and learning lessons for the future. As you prepare for a question like this for your interview with Absa Bank, think of a situation where you can highlight both of these things and don't hesitate to tell your interviewer the reasons why the failure occurred. Your interview fully understands that you are a human that makes mistakes and as long as you take a lesson moving forward, you will be in great standing with them.

Written by Ryan Brunner on December 6th, 2020

1st Answer Example

"A couple of years ago with my current company, my manager asked me if I would consider a promotion into a role as a supervisor for our department. Having not had experience supervising individuals up to that point in my career, I was very hesitant at first. My manager kept telling me that I had the skills necessary to do so. I did accept the offer to become the supervisor and after just three months, I fully realized that the position wasn't for me. I had become very close friends with a lot of the people I was now supervising and that made the real difficult for me. I didn't hesitate to approach my manager to let them know that I wasn't cut out for the role and we worked on a plan for me to transition back my former role. Looking back on the situation, I really learned a lot about myself and who I was as a worker to not put myself in a situation like that again."

Written by Ryan Brunner on December 6th, 2020

2nd Answer Example

"In my current role, I was the person who was informed that we were losing one of our biggest clients to a local competitor. In speaking with the client, they were very unhappy about our customer service and overall pricing. Being responsible for the customer service for our customers, I felt very responsible for losing this client and had to break the news to our leadership team. Right away, our Sales Manager contacted the client to ask a lot of questions on why they were no longer utilizing our services. From there we took a lot of lessons moving forward and I worked through a new customer service policy for my team to follow moving forward."

Next Question