How would you keep yourself motivated while working under high-stress circumstances?
Your interviewer wants to know how effectively you'll be able to perform in a high-pressure, fast-paced environment or when required to work long hours while facing tight deadlines. How you answer will inform them whether you can maintain your productivity and emotional balance or whether feeling overwhelmed results in task procrastination and burnout syndrome. Additionally, they want to determine how effectively you motivate your teammates toward reaching your mutual goal. As they state on their website, "There is a massive opportunity in front of us."
"I've spent the last two years in the investment banking industry, where my team frequently handled enormous workloads under tight deadlines. Being a person that thrives in a fast-paced work environment, I consider myself confident, able to handle stress, and a calming force with my colleagues and clients. Someone else's stress isn't directed at me, so I don't internalize it. I consider tight deadlines as motivation to work as efficiently as possible. My experience in IB allowed me to grow more comfortable amidst market volatility. Those factors are outside of my control."
"I thrive in such situations. I learned early on that every emotion has power. So if I experience stress, I will look at that energy as fuel I can capitalize on. I just focus that energy and use it as a burst towards productivity, getting me closer to the end goal. Also, when I watch others getting burned out, they often put in more effort avoiding the work at hand. It amazes me how much effort people sometimes put into avoiding doing the work. It is much easier to power through it rather than delay and elongate the stress through task aversion. Not me. Powering through it gives me power and focus. That's a positive."
