How do you react when you are dissatisfied with the quality of your work or the outcome of your work?

Question

Rachelle Enns · Accepted Answer

"I am rarely dissatisfied with my work because I keep very high standards for myself and what I deliver. With that said, should I be dissatisfied with the quality of my work, I would own up to it and try again until I was proud of the work I delivered."

Rachelle Enns · Answer

The interviewer would like to know how you respond to failure in the workplace. There will always be a time when you are not happy with your work environment, but your reaction will determine whether or not you can recover from the disappointment. The goal of your response is to show the interviewer that you have the maturity to respond productively in the face of dissatisfaction.

Rachelle Enns · Answer

Think about a time in the past when you were unsuccessful in your work. Briefly discuss the situation with your interviewer and describe how you reacted. Be sure to include the action steps you took to recover from the situation. Discuss what you learned from the situation at the end of your response. Then, explain how you have applied that lesson to improve the quality of your work.

Rachelle Enns · Answer

Since this question begins with 'How do you...' it is acceptable to use a hypothetical story example, giving a general overview of how you would react in this situation. However, if you want to use a real-life example, try forming a response using the STAR method. STAR is an acronym for Situation, Task, Action, Result. Organizing your response using this framework will ensure that you provide the interviewer with the right amount of information and detail to form a compelling answer.

Rachelle Enns · Answer

Avoid giving a response that implies you're always 100% satisfied with your work. For instance, saying something like 'I put everything I have into my work, so I am never dissatisfied' can sound overconfident. We all have room to grow, and most interviewers will interpret a reply like that to mean you are not a coachable individual.

Rachelle Enns · Answer

"The last time I was dissatisfied with my work, I asked my boss if there was time for me to re-do the components with which I was not happy. The deadline was tight, but I did not believe that it should affect the quality of what I delivered. She agreed and gave me the time to revisit the aspects that I felt were not up to my usual standard."

Rachelle Enns · Answer

"When I am dissatisfied with my work, I will not submit it. There is no room in my line of work to hand in work that is not up to standard. I would not say that I am a perfectionist; however, I know what I am capable of achieving, and as a manager - I have to set a great example at all times."

Rachelle Enns · Answer

"In marketing, there is often room to play around with our work and bounce back from mistakes. I allow myself to make mistakes, tweak my work, and play around with different designs, for instance. A creative mind is always seeking improvements."

Rachelle Enns · Answer

"I like to make a great first impression, so I will rarely be disappointed in the work that I deliver. If I do not deliver to my standard or encounter an unforeseen issue that railroads me, I am quick to assess what I could have done differently and recovered from there."

Rachelle Enns · Answer

"If I am dissatisfied with the quality of my work, I work harder! I believe that the only thing standing between failure and greatness is me. I always put in 100% in everything that I do."

Rachelle Enns · Answer

"I expect a lot from my students, and they expect a lot from me in return. I fully believe in being accountable for my work. So, for that reason, if I am dissatisfied with the work that I produce, I will go back to it and re-do until I am proud of the final product."

Anonymous User · Answer

"I put my all into my work so I cannot think of a time I have been dissatisfied with the quality of my work."

Anonymous User · Answer

"I can be self-critical, but I am working on that. I am a perfectionist, I complete tasks that I begin and finish with the best of my ability. If I were dissatisfied, I would learn from my mistakes and do better next time."

Anonymous User · Answer

"This depends on the root cause of the dissatisfaction that I feel towards my work. If I know for a fact that it is a direct result of a situation or event that I had no control over, then I am more compassionate towards myself and I might give myself a mulligan on this one. On the other hand, if my performance slipped due to a lack of discipline or I wasn't able to perform at a near-top level for no apparent reason, then I will be quite frustrated with myself and will take necessary actions immediately."

Anonymous User · Answer

"I work backwards to identify why I'm unsatisfied with this outcome. By outlining this, allows me to reflect on the event, what went well, and what I want to improve upon or avoid for the next one."

Anonymous User · Answer

"I would take a step back and try to understand the root cause of the quality. Ask for feedback from the team and my executives, analyze the feedback and then repeat the work/task once again."

Anonymous User · Answer

"I always try to learn from my mistakes. I analyze my work from start to finish and try to pinpoint what I could have done better. I use this analysis to deliver better work in my upcoming projects."

Anonymous User · Answer

"The last time when I was dissatisfied with the quality of my work was during a demo of my project. In this demo, I was tasked to show a privacy-preserving mechanism for hiding a person's identity in videos. If a user chooses to hide in the video, the collected video will blur the face of the users. The application worked very well when all the lights were on in the corridors however when the lights turned off due to fewer motions, the application did not do well. I took some time off from my other projects and calibrated my algorithm parameters and the cameras to work in such environments. The application now works very well and is shown in multiple future project demos."

Anonymous User · Answer

"¢	I always hold myself to high standards, so this does not happen often. When it does, I take ownership, analyze why it wasn't to my standard, and improve. I did this a lot, especially on my applied econometrics dissertation."

Anonymous User · Answer

"BoA program, although we improved in every PI, we still missed a key breakout session follow-up on Testing challenges, decided the take every breakout session and have an execution follow up person assigned so each initiative can be taken to its logical conclusion during the execution phase (beyond planning week)."

Anonymous User · Answer

"One of my core values as a person is accountability. I hold myself accountable for my mistakes as well as I hold others for their wrongdoing. Therefore, when I am dissatisfied with my work, I do it over and over until I get it right or make it better. I believe that being accountable does not only refer to me doing my job. It's about the pursuit of excellence in what I do."

Anonymous User · Answer

"I take my job and my performance personally - education means a lot to me, and I am fully invested. If I don't finish a task to my satisfaction, or an outcome isn't right, I will study the results and make changes for the next time I either do the work or encounter something similar - for example, if several students point to an issue in my course in the evaluation, I make changes to (the lecture, the activity, the assignment) until it makes sense."

Anonymous User · Answer

"I take my job and the outcomes of my work very personally. If I am not satisfied with the quality of my results, I take accountability for it and learn from my mistakes so that I don't make them again. I have a lot of pride in a job well done, and by that same token, I appreciate it when my good work gets noticed."

Anonymous User · Answer

"(Situation) When I am not satisfied with my work, I do my best to improve it. One of my research topics is unregistered or undeclared work. The metric that I am interested in is the share of a certain population who work without registration. (Task) At the beginning of my work on this topic, I inferred that number from surveys asking people directly whether they experienced working without a registration or whether they know somebody who worked without registration. Very soon I realized that these metrics are biased and prone to social desirability in the answer behavior. (Action) I did a lot of research on how to improve that measure and found an interesting survey experimental method that was primarily used in political science and health economics to ask sensitive questions on, for example, drug use or racial sentiments. I realized that I could apply this measure to ask for sensitive behavior in the labor market. (Result) I work now on several projects in which I apply this experimental method to reveal the true share of those who experience informal work. Thereby, I made a great contribution in the literature and improved a formerly problematic metric.""

Anonymous User · Answer

"I don't like it. I can get frustrated initially. But then, if I realize I gave it my best attempt, I take the learnings on board and treat it as a positive experience rather than a negative. However, anytime I don't deliver quality work I feel like it undermines my capabilities and damages the reputation I'm trying to build for myself. I definitely try and avoid issuing sub-standard work."

Anonymous User · Answer

"I rarely react if I am dissatisfied with the quality of my work. I just look at the situation and try to learn from it and figure out how I would have done it differently the next time."

Anonymous User · Answer

"I have a high standard, especially when my work will be available for public access. I take pride in it and I will work until I'm satisfied with the quality of the work."

Anonymous User · Answer

"I always try to make sure that my work is up to standard, if I am somehow challenged about the task I researched it and seek inputs from colleagues because I can not afford to fail on my task as that will reflect incompetence and not being serious about my work."

Anonymous User · Answer

"I take my job and the outcomes of my work very personally. If I am not satisfied with the quality of my results, I take accountability for it and learn from my mistakes so that I don't make them again. I have a lot of pride in a job well done, and by that same token, I appreciate it when my good work gets noticed."

Anonymous User · Answer

"I always deliver top-quality work. If there is a tight deadline, due to which I am compelled to commit lower-than-expected quality work, I give heads-up to the product and engineering managers, make a note in the code and also in the code review request regarding the TODOs and then submit the MVP first and plan on submitting the remaining changes later."

Anonymous User · Answer

"I take pride in the quality of my work. In an instance that I am dissatisfied with my work, I always redo it if there is time. If not, I always make an assessment of what could be done better and work on that improvement."

Anonymous User · Answer

"I take pride in what I do, especially as a pharmacist. I help patient optimize their drug regimen daily. Sometimes I may have missed a potential interaction or overlooked a better formulation, which bums me out later. But I have realized that it may be unrealistic to catch 100% of the drug errors all the time, so I have learned not to be too hard on myself when I do miss them. However, I make a mental note to myself so I will remember to double-check when it comes to the same type of situation again in the future."

Anonymous User · Answer

"One time I built out an entire data pipeline from scratch with a cron job doing SQL retrievals and inserts with pub/sub. However, my boss and I realized that Google cloud already had a service that automates pipelines with data flow. So it was not the best expense of time and energy. In the future now I know to research the various techs beforehand rather than eagerly diving into the problem without planning."

Anonymous User · Answer

"If I have time I will redo areas that I feel dissatisfied with. I have learned not to be a perfectionist though. I have learned that ultimately, substance and accessibility are what count so I make sure it is there."

Anonymous User · Answer

"I am rarely dissatisfied with my work because I keep very high standards for myself and what I deliver. There is no room in my line of work to hand in work that is not up to standard. I would not say that I am a perfectionist; however, I know that I am capable of achieving a good quality of my work and I don't stop until I am proud of the work I delivered."

Anonymous User · Answer

"I set high standards for myself in the workplace, so it's rare for me to submit work that I am not satisfied with. But in the past, when I felt that I could've done a better job, I own up to my mistakes, see where I went wrong, and device a plan to make it better next time. Learning from my mistakes helped me grow and become more efficient over time."

Anonymous User · Answer

"When I submit work that is below my quality standards, I feel disappointed in myself. You are only as good as the last piece of work you do so I feel it reflects badly on me. Even if I'm the only one who feels that way, I try to learn from the situation, and if I feel there are steps I can make to improve next time, I make a note to take those steps either by asking for help or doing some research myself."

Anonymous User · Answer

"I want my work to reflect my attention to detail and if it doesn't meet my expectations then I want a chance to atone for my felt shortfall."

Anonymous User · Answer

"Legal matters are sensitive. I never send out work if I am not satisfied or not sure of the quality. I correct anything that would lessen the quality of my work or research further than I send it out when I'm sure. I have set this example with the Legal officer who reports to me"

Anonymous User · Answer

"I have enough life experience to know that I could not perform at peak proficiency every day. I know that little nuances will creep into my work product. I also know that these days are few and far between. I never let myself get down or worry about my performance because I know that the next day shall bring better results than the day before."

Anonymous User · Answer

"I have very high expectations for my work, so I always try to do it right the first time. If I am dissatisfied with the quality of my work, I would own up to the issue and work as quickly as I can to redo the work."

Anonymous User · Answer

"If I am dissatisfied with the quality of my work, I, at times, may reference other similar material to see how I can improve myself or go to a mentor for their experience and advice on how I can improve my quality of work."

Anonymous User · Answer

"I take my job and the outcomes of my work very personally. If I am not satisfied with the quality of my results, I take accountability for it and learn from my mistakes so that I don't make them again. I have a lot of pride in a job well done, and by that same token, I appreciate when my good work gets noticed."

Anonymous User · Answer

"Normally, colleagues are quite happy with the services I provided. Every week, I receive thank you emails and notes, sometimes accompanied by little gestures like offering a coffee, or leaving a little chocolate box on my desk, etc. Nonetheless, sometime it happens that the outcome of the work isn't really satisfying, and I feel disappointed. The first thing I do, I try to improve the quality of work, as fix the situation, for what is possible. Then, I try to analyze all the steps, to understand what went wrong, and take "mental notes," kind of lessons learned that I will apply next time I deal with a situation of the same sort."

Anonymous User · Answer

"If I'm not happy with my work, then I will start over. I need to lead by example, so if I'm not producing good work and setting an example that shows mediocre is ok to other employees, that is not ok. I pride myself on my attention to detail and sometimes a bit OCD about it."

Anonymous User · Answer

"I am disappointed in myself and will make changes to ensure a better outcome in the future."

Anonymous User · Answer

"I am rarely dissatisfied with the quality of my work. I always try my best to deliver the result with all the resources I have been given by my employers and everything else useful I can locate to support the process. I take ownership for even the slightest mistake I make and take immediate action to stop bad consequences from happening to the business. I reflect on any work or life events in my spare time to help me to keep doing a good job or a better job in the future."

Anonymous User · Answer

"I try really hard to deliver great quality, but no one is perfect, and in those times, it's good to reflect on how you will fix the quality issue going forward.For example, a customer had asked for 6" fitting, and when the warehouse pulls the order, I am supposed to double-check the paperwork to make sure they loaded the correct material, and I oversaw it. I just need to take my time in those situations."

Anonymous User · Answer

"I set goals for myself and set my standards high for my work. So when I make mistakes or am dissatisfied with my work, I can be too critical of myself. However, I remind myself that everyone makes mistakes, even people with years of experience. I choose to learn from my mistakes and failures rather than dwell on them."

Anonymous User · Answer

"I try to improve upon the quality of my work by getting feedback from my superior. The last time I had a performance review, I was not happy with certain comments, but I asked my manager if I can get feedback more often than a quarterly review."

Anonymous User · Answer

"First and foremost, I always set high standards for myself so that I am hardly ever dissatisfied with my work. But I would be dishonest if I told you that I've never made a mistake. I consider myself to be a resilient person, so I can bounce back quickly and recover from bad outcomes."

Anonymous User · Answer

"If I am not satisfied, I will first try to find the mistake and then learn from it. I will try to improve by asking for help or by doing research."

Anonymous User · Answer

"I take my job and the outcomes of my work very personally. If I am not satisfied with the quality of my results, I take accountability for it and learn from my mistakes so that I don't make them again. I have a lot of pride in a job well done, and by the same token, I appreciate it when my good work gets noticed."

Anonymous User · Answer

"When my work is unsatisfactory, I make sure to reflect on what happened and what I should've done in order to reach the correct quality. This is a great time to reflect and learn from the unsatisfactory outcome."

Anonymous User · Answer

"I would not want to show my dissatisfaction with the quality of my work to my coworkers, as this may negatively affect their mood and enjoyment in their work environment. I would want to seek to understand how to improve my work by first critically analyzing what I am doing and seeking advice from colleagues and superiors. Then, I would implement changes with small goals to track my improvement."

Anonymous User · Answer

"Whenever I am dissatisfied, I tend to work even harder at making sure I do not replicate the outcome into another opportunity. We are our own worst enemy, and if we don't overcome our own challenges, we will find ourselves in a never-ending cycle of dissatisfaction."

Anonymous User · Answer

"How I react is by first, a little disappointment. I always strive to have the highest quality of work. Then I start to analyze the situation. I look at all my steps and learn from those that made me fail. If I mess up once, I won't make the same mistake twice."

Anonymous User · Answer

"I take a lot of pride in the quality of my work. If the quality of work is unsatisfactory to me, I like to reflect on what caused my dissatisfaction and what I can work on next time to improve the outcome."

How do you react when you are dissatisfied with the quality of your work or the outcome of your work?

How to Answer: How do you react when you are dissatisfied with the quality of your work or the outcome of your work?

29. How do you react when you are dissatisfied with the quality of your work or the outcome of your work?

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