Tell us about a time you encountered conflict in the workplace and how you handled it.
You will inevitably encounter conflict with a supervisor or colleague in every profession. The interviewer asks this question to see how you handle conflict and ensure that you have the conflict resolution skills they are seeking. In the FBI Intelligence Analyst Candidate Information Packet, problem detection and problem resolution are two skills required to work in this role. The interviewer wants to hear that you identify and resolve workplace conflict calmly and professionally. Give an example of when you encountered conflict in the workplace and how you handled the situation.
The interviewer wants to hire an FBI Intelligence Analyst who acts professionally, works well under pressure, and has exceptional conflict resolution skills. The interviewer does not want to hear that you ignore conflict or act aggressively when having a dispute or disagreement with someone in the workplace. You should also avoid speaking poorly of the person you had an issue with.
"I had a coworker who was always late, leaving me to pick up the slack. She never apologized for being tardy or thanked me for doing her part of the work. At first, I did not mind because I was new to the job, but it started to irritate me after a few weeks. I asked her if we could speak in private, and I calmly told her how her tardiness affected me. I asked if she could be on time so I would not have to continue doing her work, and she apologized and said she did not realize how I was feeling. It was a very cordial discussion, and she was mostly on time after that."
"I am a direct and honest person, so if there is conflict in the workplace, I address it immediately. I had a supervisor who refused to hire additional staff after two coworkers took maternity leave. He consistently called me and asked me to work overtime on my days off. When I told him that I was unavailable, he tried to manipulate me to work. I politely told him that while I would be happy to help the company when needed, I could not be expected to work overtime every day. I suggested he hire two temp employees to cover my colleagues on maternity leave, which would take care of the overtime issue. He thanked me for the suggestion and called a temp service and took care of our staffing needs."
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
I'm a direct and honest person. I also think it's important to understand the situation and the person and what their intentions are before deciding how to handle it. Covid-19 put a tremendous strain on the customer service industry and its workers, but some of my coworkers were neglecting their cleaning duties which meant I had to do their work. Morning and night shifts have different duties. Night shift duties include sweeping, mopping, cleaning the counters and display, and emptying and refilling the water tank which was the most important because we weren’t connected to the main water supply; so if you didn’t manually fill it, we had no water for anything. If none of those duties were done, I would have to do it which affected my opening time. I was also still recovering from surgery at the time so couldn’t handle the tank frequently because it often weighed up to 50 lbs. Because of the pandemic, some of my co-workers were from different stores, so I understood why the tank duties weren’t done, but cleaning is a basic skill in customer service. Unfortunately, multiple people were consistently not doing most of the duties, so politely but firmly confronting the entire group was the best course of action after multiple previous conversations with the manager.
Marcie's Feedback
Can you talk more about what kind of cleaning duties your coworkers were disregarding? Was their lack of cleaning impacting you in some way? Be careful not to sound like someone who oversteps their boundaries; make it clear how their negative behavior impacted you and then don't forget to explain what the end result was too. Good job!