Many of our projects have very strict timelines. Tell me about a time you missed a deadline or deliverable and how you handled it.

"We had a new leader start recently. She asked for several different reports in a two-day turnaround time. She needed them for an executive meeting she was going to. One of the reports was very manual, and with my other responsibilities, I couldn't get it done in time. I went to her office and told her that I could have this complete tomorrow, but I couldn't finish it for her meeting this morning. She asked what I was working on, and I explained my competing priority. She recommended that I come to check with her to get help prioritizing in the future. I learned a big lesson that day about using your leader as an advocate for you. I should have gone to her first. I've kept this in mind in other scenarios when I've had competing deadlines."

"In college, I had a huge project due in my economics class at the end of the semester. I made a schedule that would help me get all of the pieces of this project done in time, but part of my project required outside data that I needed from a different university. There was a delay in getting this data, and it delayed some of the subsequent steps of my project. I ended up getting it just a few days before the deadline. As hard as I tried, I couldn't get it submitted on time. I was devastated. I called my professor, who understood, but I got a reduced grade because it was late. I learned that I should have chosen a data source that was more readily available and that I could have looped in my professor, who might have had another idea."