Talk about a time when you disagreed with a coworker.
The hiring managers at EY want to gain an understanding of your conflict resolution skills. The goal of your response is to provide evidence that you can handle and resolve conflict in a professional manner that aligns with EY's team and company culture.
Conflict happens in any workplace, so the goal of your response is not to deny conflict. Instead, it's to show that you can move through conflict in a constructive way.
Finding common ground with a coworker, despite disagreeing with them, shows hiring managers that your desire to collaborate is stronger than your need to be correct. Overcoming disagreements in the workplace also highlights your ability to problem-solve while facing a difference of opinion.
Even though you may have great relationships with your coworkers, there will be times when you don't 100% agree. Think of a conflict or disagreement you had with a coworker where you responded professionally and worked toward a solution.
When asked to "Talk about a time when...," it's important to remember that the hiring managers at EY are looking for a specific story-based example that highlights your professional behavior in challenging interpersonal situations. Using the STAR interview method (Situation, Task, Action, Result), you can form an easy-to-follow and engaging story-based response.
The average HireVue interview takes approximately 30 minutes to complete. This one-way video interview typically includes 3-5 questions. Depending on the HireVue parameters set by EY, the asynchronous interview 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 Account Director and I disagreed on the pending termination of one of my team members. (Task) As a manager, my philosophy is to ensure that I have trained and coached my team members to the best of my ability before I ever consider terminating them. (Action) I expressed my desire to spend additional time training this team member. I mentioned that it would be more costly for the company to replace this person than invest in additional training. The Account Director finally agreed that if the team member missed their targets for another 30 days, we would move forward with termination. After coming to a middle ground, I created a plan to spend five additional hours per week training this team member for three weeks. (Result) Remarkably, his performance improved by over 40%! This team member is still with us and often lands on our divisions' monthly Top 10 list for client satisfaction and performance. Because I respectfully disagreed with the Account Director and stated my case with facts rather than emotion, we were able to move past the disagreement with ease."