Answering the job interview question: “What is your greatest failure and what did you learn from it?”
Failures are difficult to experience, handle and move past, which is why so many interviewers will ask you to tell them about a failure in your career and what you learned from it. Answering this question effectively can definitely set you apart as someone who will not only do a great job in the role, but will continue learning and becoming a candidate for greater roles and responsibilities.
Variations of this question
“How have you handled a recent failure?” · “In your current role, what is one big thing you wish you could do over again?” · “Tell me of a time when you failed to achieve something.”
What the hiring manager is looking for
The hiring manager asks about your failures to see if you can learn and improve. They aren’t all that interested in how you failed, but rather what you learned and how you are better as a result of the failure. Remember, they want to hire the best person for the job and someone who will continually get better at doing the job.
What your goal should be
Your goal is to share a story where you tried hard to accomplish something but ultimately came short of achieving it. Your story should also have a happy ending where you learned something from failing to accomplish your goal. Lastly, your story should include a recent success from implementing the lesson you learned.
Preparing for this question
Start by brainstorming stories from your career where you have failed. After listing out your stories, pick out the one that is relevant to the work you will be doing, taught you a valuable lesson, and has been helpful in changing your behavior for the better. Once you pick out the story, be sure you can effectively articulate the lesson you learned.
Answer Structure
Your answer should be no longer than 3 minutes and should contain the following elements:
- Start by stating the lesson you learned from the failure in a positive manner and in one sentence. This should take 10 seconds.
Example: “Last year, I learned the importance of quality over quantity.” - Then, tell the story using the S-T-A-R interview response method, by explaining the Situation, Task, Action and Result of your story. This step should take no longer than 2 minutes.
Example:
Situation- “Last year, we went through a big initiative to improve our product and our product marketing department was responsible to introduce the improvements to the public.” (~15 seconds)
Task- “As a new content marketing manager, I wanted to impress my manager and show her what I could do. So, I volunteered to write up a series of 7 blog posts by a certain date.” (~15 seconds)
Action- “Because I wanted to do a great job, it took me much longer than I had anticipated to write the first three blog posts. I knew meeting my commitment would be difficult to achieve by my deadline if I kept the same standard of quality I set for the first three posts. So I started cutting down on research for the last four articles I was writing. And as you can imagine, the last four articles didn’t do all that well. The first three articles had five times the amount of shares than the last four. I felt like I had let the company down. Thankfully, my manager was very understanding and patient. She taught me a great lesson. She explained that she would have preferred 5 excellent articles to 7 mediocre ones. She challenged me to think about the purpose of content marketing and helped me realize we are going for outcomes not the quantity of work.” (~60–90 seconds)
Result- “My process for content marketing is very different now. Before I agree to a series of articles and a deadline, I always think about her words before I write anything — ‘What is the outcome I want this post to have?’ Then, I break everything down to their smallest elements. How many posts will I need to write to get to my outcome? What is the overall structure of each article? How much time do I need to have the proper research? Only after I do that will I then propose my timeline. Since then, my marketing has been a ton more influential and my articles average the most amount of likes and shares than all my colleagues.” (~30 seconds)
Extra tips
- Do not say you’ve never failed because everyone fails from time to time. If you say this, then it implies you always stay in your comfort zone and never challenge yourself.
- Do not blame other people for failure. This makes you sound like you are not a team player and can’t accept responsibility.
- If they ask for your greatest failure don’t actually give your greatest failure. Give a failure that is work related and that it doesn’t cause the interviewer to question whether you would be a good hire.
- If you don’t have enough work experience, share a failure from school assignments, extra-curricular initiatives or side projects.
- Check out our related articles: Using the S-T-A-R Interview Response Method and Answering the Job Interview Question: “Tell me about a time you made a mistake.”
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