Top 25 Tell Me About a Time Behavioral Interview Question And Answers

Tell me about a time behavioural questions are asked during interviews to determine your approach to certain situations and how you use your skills and personal thinking to go through with the solutions. Here are 25 tell me about a time behavioral questions to help you through:

Tell me about a time when you had to show leadership qualities.

Reason: this question is asked to assess your leading skills and how you work along a team.

Answer:

“I was once given the charge of leading the advertisement team in one of my previous roles to promote a new product. I quickly landed team meetings , divided tasks and conducted regular check ins to stay updated on progress.”

Tell me about a time when your turned a customer’s bad experience into a good one.

Reason: to evaluate your knowledge about handling customers and turning their experience over.

Answer:

“A customer was once unhappy with the helper who guided them. I apologised to them and personally assisted them and guided them through the products they needed”.

Tell me about a time when you missed a deadline.

Reason: to evaluate your sense of responsibility and task completion.

Answer:

“I had missed a deadline once by 4 hours due to poor internet connection and power outage. However, as soon as i had power back I contacted my manager and informed them of the situation and submitted my task within the next hour”.

Tell me about a time when you dealt with a difficult customer.

Reason: to assess your problem solving skills and customer service.

Answer:

“In my previous role, i had a customer complaint about delayed assistance and were still waiting. I listened to their concern calmly, apologised and guided them through their needs”.

 

Tell me about a time when you had to solve a conflict between team members.

Reason: to assess your responsibility towards conflict resolution and peace making.

Answer:

“Two of my team members got into a disagreement about a strategy. I listened to both of their perspectives and gave them a solution where both of them compromised “.

Tell me about a time when you had to work under pressure.

Reason: to evaluate your ability to work under pressure efficiently.

Answer:

“In my previous role, i had to give make an elaborate presentation on the stats of our market sales of our products that had to cover all the details. I approached the pressuring situation through professionalism and calm approach. I collected all the relevant info, compiled it into a presentation and submitted it in the given time”.

Tell me about a time when you had to cover another peer’s tasks.

Reason: to understand your dedication and motivation to fulfil company goals.

Answer:

“One of my team member was absent due to calling in sick at the last minute and his tasks were delayed which would impact outcomes largely. I volunteered to take his workload and worked overtime to finish our tasks to keep working smoothly”.

Tell me about a time when you had to call in for a leave.

Reason: to assess your performance even being absent from work.

Answer:

“I had to call in for a leave once due to travelling from one city to another. However, i still managed time to take part in meetings and participate as my usual during that time”.

Tell me about a time when you got in a disagreement with your supervisor’s decision.

Reason: to asses your ability to voice your opinions respectfully in front of your superiors.

Answer:

“I had gotten into a disagreement with my supervisor over the percentage of increments for that month which was less than usual. However, he explained to me in detail about the company’s financial situation and I understood the reason behind the decision”.

Tell me about a time when you were late for work.

Reason: to assess your punctuality and how you overcome it.

Answer:

“I got late to work once due to getting into a minor accident while driving. That day i worked for the amount of hours extra that i was late for to makeup for the work missed”.

Tell me about a time your strategy failed and how you overcame the failure.

Reason: to evaluate your approach to failure and how you rectify the error.

Answer:

“In one of my previous roles i had to come up with a marketing strategy however it was not as successful as i had pictured it. Istepped back to re assess the strategy and made the appropriate changes which made it better than before”.

Tell me about a time you had to work in a team.

Reason: to evaluate your teamwork skills and collaboration

Answer:

“I have thrived in a team environment in many previous projects through effective communication, personal understanding and celebration of individual and team successes”

Tell me about a time when you had to face harsh criticism.

Reason: to understand your approach to criticism and how your work on it.

Answer:

“In my previous company, my supervisor criticised me on taking on too many tasks and not being able complete all of them. I approached the comments positively and worked on task prioritisation and time management to improve the error”.

Tell me about a time when you had to act without managerial supervision.

Reason: to assess your judgment and decision making skills.

Answer:

“In my previous role, my supervisor had to explain to a client why they should broker the ongoing deal and its benefits. However, he got held up and the client was restless so i took over the meeting and presented the entire presentation of the project successfully”.

Tell me about a time when you had to learn something quickly.

Reason: to assess your adaptability towards skills and technology.

Answer:

“In my previous company, they replaced the attendance from manual to portal system. I quickly learnt the interface and how to operate it within a small amount of time”.

Tell me about a time when you felt burnout during your job.

Reason: to assess how you manage your mental and physical well being.

Answer:

“I usually do not work to the point of burnout due to my ability to prioritise tasks and manage time which minimises the risk of work piling up.”

Tell me about a time when you had to raise team morale.

Reason: to evaluate how you positively contribute to team morale.

Answer:

“I raised team morale during a long and tedious shift by dividing tasks among team members and appreciating and acknowledging them for their completed tasks and milestones”.

Tell me about a time when you were personally going through a rough patch during work.

Reason: to evaluate your ability to work in the face of odds.

Answer:

“In my previous job, i had suffered from a viral chest infection that i ended up quarantined by my doctor to avoid contamination. However, during that time i continued working remotely from my home to avoid any workload for later”.

Tell me about a time when you had to achieve a goal.

Reason: to evaluate your discipline and sense of responsibility.

Answer:

“In my previous role, during one of the projects i had to make a certain amount of calls and emails to new leads to broker deals on a daily basis. I set up a goal to close at least 50 calls and 30 emails everyday by staying organised and focused and minimising distractions”.

Tell me about a time when you had to stay productive during distractions.

Reason:  to check your ability to minimise distractions and work efficiently.

Answer:

“I had to work from home once and there was alot of disturbance around. So i isolated myself in my room till i was done with all the meetings and tasks for the day and only necessary breaks”.

Tell me about a time when you had to work with a different department.

Reason: to assess your collaboration with different professions within the workplace.

Answer:

“In my previous role, my designing department was facing an issue with their computer systems. I had to contact the IT department to look into the matter and we worked together to overcome the issue in computers”.

Tell me about a time when you had to work with limited resources.

Reason: to asses your ability to take full advantage of your available resources.

Answer:

“I had to once make a document out of an already published article with only relevant research. However, my internet was down so i had to skim the relevant book that i had and made the document out of that”.

Tell me about a time when you had to do budget management.

Reason: to understand your ability to cut budget without affecting the outcome.

Answer:

“During a project, we were exceeding the budget expectations so i intervened and replaced some components with better and cost friendly alternatives that bought us back into budget and did not affect project quality”.

Tell me about a time when you had to train a new team member.

Reason: to assess your mentorship abilities.

Answer:

“We had an intern in our designing department who i mentored through giving him a detailed overview of his roles, his responsibilities, what the company expects from him and introduced him to all team members. I also used to lend him a helping hand when needed”.

Tell me about a time when you had to resign from a job.

Reason: to evaluate your personal and professional reasoning for quitting your job.

Answer:

“I had resigned from one of my previous roles due to the amount of workload that did not match with the salary package. I had first voiced the opinion in a meeting but it was not looked into which left me no choice but to resign”.

 

We hope this behavioral article helped you understand better about how to answer “tell me about a time “ questions. The answers need to be precise that cover the required information asked in the question in a brief manner.