Adaptability Mock Interview

Practice 15 Adaptability interview questions covering change management, learning agility, and resilience.

Question 6 of 15

When have you faced an unexpected difficulty?

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Rachelle Enns is an interview coach and job search expert. She works with candidates to perform their best in employment, medical, and post-secondary admission interviews.

"One of the biggest unexpected difficulties came when both my boss and my direct report left within the same week for a new opportunity. I had half of my team but the same amount of workload to bear. I was able to use my leadership skills to pull another teammate on board for our project, and worked extra hours at home to pick up the slack. I was able to bootstrap the client proposal in the same amount of time with fewer hands on deck and land one of our largest clients to date. It was certainly a learning experience and proved that I could, in fact, do anything I set my mind to, with a bit of help from my team."

Rachelle Enns

Rachelle Enns is an interview coach and job search expert. She works with candidates to perform their best in employment, medical, and post-secondary admission interviews.

"Just last week, one of our most popular products was put on backorder. As an account manager, it was my responsibility to call all 80 of our clients to let them know that their expected shipment was, in fact, not delivered as expected. To make this task easier, I wrote a script which I followed and also came up with an incentive to soften the blow."

Rachelle Enns

Rachelle Enns is an interview coach and job search expert. She works with candidates to perform their best in employment, medical, and post-secondary admission interviews.

"Unexpected situations happen very often in my current position. For instance, just last week, we had major changes in industry regulations which changed how we could invoice our clients. I worked overtime with the Accounts Receivable department to ensure we complied with the change. It was stressful, but we made it happen."

Rachelle Enns

Rachelle Enns is an interview coach and job search expert. She works with candidates to perform their best in employment, medical, and post-secondary admission interviews.

"A few months ago, when our latest product design failed its endurance test, I had to quickly establish a cause analysis and put my team on corrective alert. This incident was one of those times when I was especially thankful for a responsive team. We all banned together to make the necessary amends to the product design with a minimal financial loss."

Rachelle Enns

Rachelle Enns is an interview coach and job search expert. She works with candidates to perform their best in employment, medical, and post-secondary admission interviews.

"I face unexpected difficulties every day, as a teacher. These difficulties can include a struggling student, an upset parent, or even an unexpected transfer. Part of being a teacher is being resistant to the stress associated with change."

Rachelle Enns

Rachelle Enns is an interview coach and job search expert. She works with candidates to perform their best in employment, medical, and post-secondary admission interviews.

"Our company was recently acquired by another department store. Nearly our entire group of staff left. I was lucky enough to keep my job; however, morale was low. I tried to keep my head high through it all and remain positive."

Rachelle Enns

Rachelle Enns is an interview coach and job search expert. She works with candidates to perform their best in employment, medical, and post-secondary admission interviews.

How you face unexpected difficulty can say a lot about your character. Talk to the interviewer about a time when you have encountered stress in the workplace. Show that you are capable of professionally handling the unexpected!

Rachelle Enns

Rachelle Enns is an interview coach and job search expert. She works with candidates to perform their best in employment, medical, and post-secondary admission interviews.

"The biggest unexpected difficulty that I have faced was my unexpected lay off during the last recession. I had to adapt to a new economy and search deeply for other skills and opportunities. I was able to earn enough to avoid financial strain and am quite proud of my ability to be versatile when required."

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Anonymous Answer

One of my major job duties is managing adjunct faculty. I have been approached about a specific adjunct faculty and their behavior in the classroom or within our community. Many times an investigation begins to follow up with the situation. Unfortunately, after the investigation, the decision is to terminate their employment. I am responsible for the communication of the decision and to follow up with all appropriate departments.

Marcie's Feedback

Wow. This doesn't sound easy at all! Perhaps include some additional details about how exactly you communicate this decision and what steps you take to ensure that you handle this challenging task professionally, tactfully, and calmly.

Anonymous Answer

I faced unexpected difficulties every day, as a teacher. These difficulties can include a struggling student, an upset parent, or even an unexpected transfer. Part of being a teacher is being resistant to the stress associated with change.

Marcie's Feedback

Good response! Can you pick one example, in particular, to talk more specifically about? Emphasize how you successfully handled the difficulties. This will further strengthen your answer.

Anonymous Answer

I was upgrading one of the client systems after testing the process in Dev and QA, and surprisingly the production upgrade failed in the middle of the process at 2 am, so I immediately contacted the vendor, took online support, and found the root cause that the client is running antivirus on their production systems, which took almost an hour to troubleshoot the issue, and finally corrected it. We were able to finish the upgrade within the timeframe. The process was documented, and in the checklist, new antivirus issues were added so that we can check them beforehand in the future.

Marcie's Feedback

Excellent! You have used the STAR method beautifully here to describe the situation, your task/actions, and the result. It sounds like you went above and beyond to resolve the issue, which will no doubt impress the interviewer. Great job!

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Adaptability Mock Interview

When have you faced an unexpected difficulty?

15Adaptability Interview Questions & Answers

1.When have you had to adapt to change in the workplace?

2.When have you had to change a major component of your project due to new information being presented?

3.What was the biggest change you have had to deal with in your career?

4.When have you been asked to perform a function or complete a task in which you had little or no experience in doing?

5.When have you had to think quickly in response to sudden change?

6.When have you faced an unexpected difficulty?

7.When have you shown a willingness to learn a new method?

8.Tell me about a time when you made a suggestion requesting change in an organization.

9.When change occurs in the workplace, do you naturally adjust or do you first think of the worst?

10.When have you had to shift your priorities in response to sudden changes?

11.When you suffer a setback, how does that emotionally affect you and your work?

12.How do you react to an increase in your workload?

13.Do you prefer doing work on a routine day-to-day basis or do you prefer mixing up your routine?

14.When planning, how often do you create alternative scenarios to help you adjust to changing situations?

15.If your current company shut down today, what would you do to quickly adapt?