Tell me about a time you faced a difficult situation at work and how you approached it.
This question is ambiguous with intention. Your interviewer is curious about what you might consider a difficult situation at work. How you answer will tell them what skills you'd employ to find the best path forward and what it might reveal about your performance - whether you are self-managed in your work or require more hand-holding and constant reassurance. It offers you an opportunity to showcase how resourceful you are and that you can think outside of the box when needed. Highlight what you learned from the experience. As they state on their site, "We believe in a growth mindset. We'll give you space to grow."
"Variety keeps the job exciting. When I worked for a tech startup a few years ago, each day presented new challenges. We were developing systems with no blueprint to follow, and onboarding new clients was sometimes challenging. I approached every situation with diligent preparation, performing extensive research and capitalizing on my project management tools. I developed close relationships with my clients by listening closely to their pain points. I approached each situation by identifying customized deliverables to each one."
"Last year's market was particularly volatile for my previous company, and we faced uncertainty daily. Yet I retained all my client relationships through transparent communication, normalizing their uncertainty and pain points. I grew comfortable changing course at a moment's notice, as being flexible was the only way to hold their hand through a client's risk tolerance. We reached their financial goals throughout all those outlying and emerging factors."
"Our professor presented the class with a no-win scenario that required resourceful thinking as the only means of accomplishing our goals. The scenario was designed to test how we faced impending failure, individually and as a group, how we'd deal with knowing we couldn't win, and what we'd learn from such failure. While I watched everyone else in class fight against the odds, I accepted failure immediately and didn't fight the odds. So I completed the simulation before anyone else. The professor smiled and watched me on and off over the next 2 hours. Once the last person was finished, she reviewed our scores and asked me to stand. She then, in front of the class, asked me why I had taken the course of action I had. I said if the goal of the test was to see how we as a group coped with impending failure and what we'd learned from it, then what would be the point of continuing down the wrong path? I explained that to control the damage, I should change course and shut it down right away. I'd evaluate from an outside perspective the results of the rest of the class and determine the best course after adjusting per those findings. I was the only person who received a perfect score."
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