Blue Origin Mock Interview
Practice 35 Blue Origin interview questions covering technical aerospace challenges, mission alignment, and safety culture.
Question 32 of 35
Tell us about a time you suffered a setback and how you dealt with it.
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Kevin Downey has an extensive background in business management, recruiting, branding and marketing. He's volunteered his career coaching services at job fairs, lecturing on interview techniques and crafting winning resumes and cover letters.
"I spearheaded a very involved and innovative project and grew invested in it. I craved the glory of delivering it to the finish line. But at one of the most crucial stages of the project, I held my most innovative approach close to the chest, considering it a guarded secret. When it was time to employ it and wow my teams and superiors, I came down with covid and was out of work for three weeks. During that time, my colleagues examined my data, determined where I was heading with the project, and naturally drew similar conclusions leading to another approach to the same innovation I had engineered and not employed. They, therefore, got all the credit for what I'd been working towards. The project was ultimately a great success, and I learned that the only failure was my approach and not wanting to share the success with the rest of our teams. A humbling lesson for sure. One I am today most grateful for."
Kevin Downey has an extensive background in business management, recruiting, branding and marketing. He's volunteered his career coaching services at job fairs, lecturing on interview techniques and crafting winning resumes and cover letters.
Here are a few of Blue Origin's statements on demonstrating leadership despite facing setbacks; "Leaders are owners. Leaders have a habitual drive to correct errors at the root. They take setbacks in stride and know it's not about how they start, but how they finish. They display grit by refusing to stop at the first barrier and constantly looking for a way to make forward progress."
Kevin Downey has an extensive background in business management, recruiting, branding and marketing. He's volunteered his career coaching services at job fairs, lecturing on interview techniques and crafting winning resumes and cover letters.
Taking ownership of your failures, personal or professional, examining what needs to be learned from that failure so as not to repeat that mistake, and staying true to your word that you won't make that mistake again, are signs of leadership. Admitting to it exhibits strength rather than weakness. It shows that you own it and have moved on. However, someone who tries to cover their tracks out of fear of being held accountable for the mistake exhibits a lack of leadership potential and integrity and little regard for the impact that mistake may have on the rest of the team. The interviewer is interested in learning where you fall on the scale.
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