Give me an example of a time when you had to be extra diligent in order to meet a deadline.

"I am always diligent when it comes to deadlines. However, once I remember having an abnormally large order from a regular client once. I was a little stressed about making sure it was perfect, so I put in four overtime hours to meet the expectation. It felt great to deliver high-quality service."

"My company gave me a deadline of December 24th to hire three new production line workers. After that, we were going to be meeting a hiring freeze with an undetermined end date. I used a service called Zip Recruiter and was able to make three excellent hires within two weeks."

"I had a client last month who put in a last-minute order for a software update. He needed to upgrade some equipment as well. To meet his expectations, I had to expedite the equipment to him and beg my IT team to put my project to the top of the list. It pays to be nice to your coworkers because the IT team was able to deliver! My client was thrilled with our ability to hustle."

"Marketing is always about last minute changes and tight deadlines! Recently I worked until 4 AM to deliver an updated proposal for a very particular client. You do what you have to, to make your clients happy."

"I was recently running behind on marking and comments for report cards. We had a field trip and a soccer tournament that week so my timing was off. I took the work home and was able to delegate some of it to my TA as well. Everything was delivered on time, but lesson learned!"

The interviewer would like to know that you are a diligent individual when it comes to work-related deadlines. Are you determined to complete your tasks on time or do you frequently miss deadlines? Talk to the interviewer about your ability to act diligently on the job.

"Last month I had a client who made a lot of additional and last minute changes to our project. Despite the changes, our deadline remained the same. Our project lead was becoming stressed that we would not meet our deadline so I agreed to stay late three nights that week to ensure that we met all expectations."