Question: Describe a time when your work or project was falling apart but you managed to salvage the situation and recover. What happened and what did you do?

Alternative Question Phrasing:

Describe a situation where things deteriorated quickly. How did you react to recover from that situation?

Follow-up questions:

Question Details:

Question Type:

Behavioral

Skills:

Basic – Critical Thinking,Basic – Monitoring (Making observations of self and environment),Basic – Science and Logic,Systems – Judgment and Decision Making,Systems Analysis,Systems Evaluation

Abilities:

Cognitive – Category Flexibility (Mental Flexibility),Cognitive – Fluency of Ideas (Idea Generation Frequency),Cognitive – Originality,Cognitive – Perceptual Speed,Cognitive – Speed of Closure (Thinking Speed),Cognitive – Visualisation

Other Factors:

Personal Improvement (Growth),Personality-Job Fit,Personality-Organization Fit,Self-Awareness

Work Activity (Task):

Interacting with Others – Coordinating the Work and Activities of Others,Interacting with Others – Innovation Management,Interacting with Others – Performance Management (Guiding, Directing, and Motivating Subordinates),Mental Processes – Developing Objectives and Strategies,Mental Processes – Making Decisions and Solving Problems,Mental Processes – Thinking Creatively (Creativity)

Work Style (Person-Job Fit):

Achievement/Effort (Action/Result Orientation),Adaptability/Flexibility,Analytical Thinking,Attention to Detail,Initiative,Persistence/Perseverance,Self Control,Stress Tolerance

Question Frequency

Question Difficulty

What to look for in an answer:

If the candidate sounds confident about the actions they have taken.
You are looking for the candidate’s stress tolerance level here in addition to resilience.
What strong steps has the candidate taken to turn around the situation.

Red Flags to Watch For:

If the candidate sounds nervous and the answer doesn’t give any hint on their mental strength to handle stressful situations.
If the candidate mentions about the problem too much and takes the answer to what they shouldn’t have done instead of what was required to be done.

Sample Answer:

N/A

Question Source: Unknown