Honesty Interview Questions
Practice 15 Honesty interview questions covering ethics, integrity, and past mistakes.
Question 12 of 15
When have you spoken up for cause, knowing that it would directly look unfavorable on you, because it was the right thing to do?
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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.
"Yes, I typically consider the big picture of all situations before I account for myself. If something makes sense for the organization and the people it serves, I will find a way to translate that to the team, even if it goes against the grain. We can then discuss as a group and come to the right conclusion together."
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.
"For the most part, my company abides by all labor regulations. In the case of overtime, they did not abide by the regulations, and I had to speak up for my team. The company was not happy about it because it cost them a lot of money but, in the end, they realized that they were in error."
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 spoke up for a coworker who was unjustly fired after being set up for stealing. The person who was stealing was trying to deflect and pinned it on her. I caused a bit of a fuss, and thankfully head office listened to me. It may not have been the wisest decision, to stick my neck out like that, but it was important to me."
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 head office shorted our entire sales team on homes sold. It was not well received when I collected the data, presented it to corporate, with backing data. They ended up having to pay over 60,000 in past commissions. The sales team was happy, and we received our outstanding commissions. I do not regret putting myself out there for the cause."
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.
"We had a client with a slogan that was so borderline inappropriate that I could not keep my mouth shut about the matter. My boss advised against bringing it up, but I could not, in good conscious, not tell them the ramifications of keeping the slogan. Thankfully they took my advice and changed the slogan, but it was a risk."
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 outwardly stick up for students that I know are being bullied. Many teachers want to stay out of these situations, but morally, I cannot turn a blind eye."
Ryan Brown created and launched MockQuestions in 2008.
Every manager wants a team player who will not resist company policy or argue about every detail of the workload. However; time may come when you need to speak up about something, and it may not look the best on you. Talk to the interviewer about a time that this may have happened to you on the job.
Ryan Brown created and launched MockQuestions in 2008.
"I spoke up to our management team regarding mandatory overtime by the back-of-house staff. I did not believe that the expectations were balanced, so I chose to speak up. I remained respectful, of course, and supported my thoughts with facts and truths. They heard me out, and some significant changes were made afterward."
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My software team lead was not respecting the project manager and instead of doing the project in an organized manner, he was doing it in an impromptu random manner. This was causing delays in the project. So I told the software team lead his expertise is not in project management and that he needs to better compromise with the project manager to get things done. Although it was a tough thing to say to him, he agreed and we had better planning with agile/scrum methods.
Amanda's Feedback
It sounds like this was a tricky team dynamic. You can strengthen it further by talking about how this initially looked unfavorable on you. Did the confrontation upset your colleague or project team? Was your relationship tense for a while? How did the project process improve after your discussion with him? Were your colleagues or project manager appreciative of your willingness to confront him?
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