Monday, February 3 - "How Do I Talk About Failures?"

Happy Monday!

Here’s what’s on the job description for today:

1. New roles from a scaling company in the review industry.

2. Today’s Question: “I regularly get asked about a time I failed and find it an awkward subject. Any tips?”

IN HIRING

Trust Pilot

• A fast growing competitor to massive players like Google reviews, Trust Pilot is aiming to provide some.. trust.. to the world of commerce.

• The company is scaling across Europe mostly with many customer focused roles available as well as more senior roles in other departments.

• Here are a few of the most interesting roles available

  • Senior Financial Analyst - Click here for full details

  • Senior Marketing Manager - Click here for full details

  • Group ESG Reporting Manager - Click here for full details

Click here for the company’s career page

TODAY’S QUESTION

Today’s Question: “I regularly get asked about a time I failed and find it an awkward subject. Any tips?”

Recommendation: this is among the most common behavioral interview questions across all interview stages. Here’s how I’d prepare for it:

• First, have an idea of what they’re looking for.

  • Humility: they want to see you can accept responsibility

  • Action: it’s important to find out if you can work to solve the problem

  • Learning: what do you take away from past mistakes or failures?

• Second, start your story with the failure and spend the remainder talking about how you solved the problem.

  • I often see a 2 minute answer to this question with 1:45 spent talking about the failure. Why spend so much of the time talking about a weakness when you could use that time to talk about the great things you’ve done?

  • Start your story with “this was the situation and here’s how I screwed up” turning the action section to how you resolved the problem you created and your learning from this difficult situation.

• Finally, steer clear of any qualifying words when discussing the failure.

  • Don’t let there be a doubt in the listeners mind that you take full credit for the screw up. They’ll be on the lookout for words like “I thought it was fine but..” and similar types of language.

Conclusion:

Failure stories are a great way to stand out. Everyone finds them awkward so if you prepare accordingly, you can easily make it a differentiator between you and the other candidates.