Tell us about a time when you faced major change and needed to adapt.
Change is prevalent in the workplace, and the hiring managers at Bank of America want to know that you can embrace change. The goal of your response should be to help the decision-makers feel confident in your ability to adapt to unexpected changes in a workplace setting.
Avoid focusing on a negative change. For example, 'When my company hired a new manager with a horrible temper, my entire work environment changed.' Also, avoid examples that could easily sound like you are blaming others. For example, 'I recently had to do an entire project by myself because my co-worker quit unexpectedly.'
Behavioral-based interview questions that begin with 'Tell us about a time when...' are best answered using the STAR method. STAR is an acronym for Situation, Task, Action, Result. Organizing your response using this framework will ensure that you provide the hiring managers with the right amount of information and detail.
Pick an example of a time you faced a change in the workplace, and your response was constructive. Explain how the change directly impacted your job and talk about how you maintained a positive approach during the transition. Perhaps your job duties shifted, there was a significant revision in policy, you had to welcome a new manager, or your company was acquired. These situations make excellent examples to draw on when you form your story-based response.
In your Bank of America HireVue interview, you may be given interview questions in the form of text or the form of a pre-recorded video by a Bank of America hiring manager. The average HireVue interview takes approximately 30 minutes to complete. This one-way video interview typically includes 3-5 questions. Depending on the parameters set by Bank of America, the HireVue platform will generally give you 30 seconds to prepare a response and up to 2 minutes to answer each question. It's important to note that HireVue stops recording as soon as your time limit is up, so it's better to run under time than overtime.
"(Situation) Last year, my company shuffled around a lot of our team members with no notice. (Task) This shuffle meant that, overnight, the team of 40 that I was leading became a team of 60. (Action) I had a great rapport with the current 40 and needed to develop a fast strategy for connecting with the additional 20. I chose to throw a team-wide after-work event so that everyone could get to know each other and make meaningful connections. (Result) My idea worked like a charm, and everyone clicked right away, making the best of an abrupt situation."
Community answers are written by other candidates practicing this set. Reading how others frame the same question is one of the fastest ways to sharpen your own.
Anonymous Answer
One major change I faced where I needed to adapt was when I was a senior consultant at ________, working with a non-profit organization that focused on providing transitional living support for young adults. Within the project, I was tasked with developing a plan to optimize the firm’s donor targeting but this plan heavily changed when the organization experienced a significant budget cut due to external funding challenges.
Such a big change meant that we had to completely redo our consulting approach to meet the company’s financial constraints. The team I was leading and I adapted to this by firstly prioritizing resource allocation: here we worked closely with the non-profit's leadership to prioritize programs and initiatives. And we identified areas where the organization could streamline its activities and reallocate resources to maximize impact within the budget constraints.
Secondly, we explored potential partnerships and collaborations with other non-profit organizations, government agencies, and private sector entities. By leveraging shared resources and expertise, the non-profit could tap into additional support without relying solely on its reduced budget.
Overall, despite the change we were able to successfully adapt and built a donor targeting plan/funding plan that met the nonprofit’s financial constraints.
Jaymie's Feedback
Excellent answer! You used the STAR method, which is ideal here. It was easy to understand the situation, your role and what tasks you completed, and the results of your efforts.
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