Cardinal Health Mock Interview
Master 40 Cardinal Health interview questions covering healthcare distribution, supply chain operations, and regulatory compliance.
Question 31 of 40
What is your first reaction when you make an error on the job?
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Example Answer
How to Answer
Entry Level
Community Answers
Krista Wenz has been on thousands of interview panels hiring EMS professionals and firefighters for public and private agencies.
How you react to an error made in your work will tell your interviewer a great deal about you and the integrity you would bring to their team. As integrity is Cardinal Health's top core value, your interviewer must ensure that any new team member they hire has the highest degree of honesty and integrity.
Rachelle Enns is an interview coach and job search expert. She works with candidates to perform their best in employment, medical, and post-secondary admission interviews.
"My first reaction when I do something wrong at work is to own it. How can anything be repaired if nobody even has a chance to fix it on time? That would be my line of thinking if a mistake were to occur here on the job at Cardinal Health. Last year, I had a customer contact me that had the wrong product delivered. I immediately went into our CSR to confirm that the correct product was entered by me. Looking back at email conversations, I had put in the wrong product. I assured the customer that I would next day airship the correct package, talked to my manager, and made it happen that day."
Krista Wenz has been on thousands of interview panels hiring EMS professionals and firefighters for public and private agencies.
First and foremost, your interviewer is looking to hear that you have accountability for your actions and that you can own up to a mistake. Since they know any person they interview for the role is human and has undoubtedly made a mistake on the job, it would be great if you could give an example of a time when you took accountability for your actions. While you briefly describe your error, focus your answer on the actions you took to rectify the problem and focus on how you communicated to others while taking action. Then, let the interviewer know what you learned from your experience so as not to make the same mistake in the future.
Krista Wenz has been on thousands of interview panels hiring EMS professionals and firefighters for public and private agencies.
"My first reaction when I make a mistake is disbelief. I pride myself on my attention to detail and on producing error-free work. If I do make a mistake, I own up to it and immediately fix the error. If my error impacts any of my colleagues, managers, or customers, I let them know what happened and how I will resolve the error. Everyone is human and makes mistakes, it is just being honest about it that I find to be the most important."
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Anonymous Answer
As a liaison, my goal is always a smooth hand-off from patient discharge to admission. My Director brought to my attention that I did not inform the clinical team the arrival time. I quickly apologized and wrote down the cause and effect and I created a workflow diagram, that way no steps would ever be missed. I shared my diagram with my director and guaranteed him that from this point on problem solved.
Stephanie's Feedback
Excellent response! It sounds like you owned your mistake and used feedback from your Director to improve your quality of work going forward. Good for you!
Anonymous Answer
When I make an error on the job in the lab, my first reaction is to take responsibility for it immediately and proactively work on finding a solution or rectifying the mistake if possible. Depending on the nature of the error, this may involve repeating the experiment, recalibrating equipment, or taking corrective actions to minimize its impact.
Throughout this process, I maintain open and transparent communication with my colleagues and supervisors, keeping them informed about the situation and the steps being taken to address the error. I believe that it's important to learn from each mistake and use it as an opportunity for growth and learning. By doing so, I aim to continuously improve my skills and performance in the lab.
Marcie's Feedback
Nice! The interviewer will appreciate that you own your mistakes and work to fix them and learn from them. Great reply!
Anonymous Answer
Well, my immediate reaction is a brick in the pit of my stomach, haha. Realistically what I do is take immediate action to assess the impact of my mistake and address it as needed to mitigate the damage. For example, once I was pressured to go outside of our system to get an item ordered for a customer who had an immediate need. Meanwhile, the customer was working on sending their PO to customer service, I authorized the manufacturing team to make the product and gave them the information about the product they were to make. The purpose of this was to save the customer time and get the product to them in time to meet their expedited needs. Well, the product was made and we received the PO but guess what? The product I asked the lab to make was a slightly different variant of what ended up being on the customer's PO. In my efforts to go above and beyond for this customer and accommodate them, I hadn't asked the right questions to them and made an assumption that was wrong. So now we had 100 Liters of product and half a day of manufacturing wasted and this customer didn't have the product. As soon as I saw the error, I conferenced in the sales rep and the manufacturing supervisor to inform them of the error. I asked the supervisor to prepare for another rush manufacture of the same product but minus one component (phenol red, a pH indicator). In this case, the saving grace was that when the sales rep contacted the customer, they said the research they were doing did not involve estrogen so the phenol red wouldn't be an issue and they were happy to take the product we made. What I learned from this experience is that even though it feels good to say yes to helping customers, it's never a good idea to go outside of the system to accomplish what customers want. From there forward I learned to work within the system to accomplish similar goals.
Jaymie's Feedback
This is a great example to use. You took ownership, didn't make excuses, worked to resolve the problem quickly, and, most importantly, learned from the mistake. Good job!
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