Tell me about a time when you experienced conflict in a team setting.

The STAR (situation, task, action, result) method works well for answering behavioral questions like these in an interview. Additionally, it is best to choose a time when you took an active role in resolving the conflict you describe.

Walk your interviewer through the necessary background information and then describe the specific steps you took to help resolve the conflict. Finally, describe any process changes or benefits that resulted from your actions.

"I run into conflict from time to time in my work as a quality control inspector. When I find an issue, I am essentially shining a light on a mistake that was made. Last month I uncovered a significant deviation from the specification that the customer had signed off on. I raised the issue with the engineering team and they were dismissive of it initially. I could have escalated to their director, but I prefer to avoid that when possible.

I let the issue go for a day and then revisited it with them the following day. I outlined the details and the potential risks of not changing the product before large-scale production was set to commence in an email and gave them time to discuss it. I then circled back around in person and we were able to agree as a group that changes were necessary.

Letting people know their work isn't perfect and rework is required can be difficult news to hear sometimes. I have learned that offering them time to think it over gives them a chance to accept the situation and determine a viable path forward."

"A lot of the work I do as a software engineer occurs in a team setting and I have noticed that conflicts come up frequently during estimation and design meetings. Our discussions are theoretical in nature and they require us to make assumptions that we do not always agree upon as a team.

Last week we were in conflict over the approach we should take to design a specific feature. One approach would take more time, but it would allow us to clear some technical debt we had recently incurred. The second approach was faster and would allow us to take on more scope than we had planned initially.

There were two members of the team that were strongly opposed to one another and things were heated. I was able to see both sides and decided to step in to help facilitate the conversation in a more productive manner. I led a discussion around what would happen if we played each of the scenarios out and it ultimately became clear that we could save more time in the end if we addressed the technical debt. The team came to a consensus and we are now working on the solution we agreed to."