During a job interview, you may be asked challenging questions about your prior work experiences and how you handled different situations. While it’s not possible to prepare for every potential interview prompt, one the hiring manager may ask is, “What is your biggest failure?” Understanding how to answer this question can impress upon interviewers your resiliency and ability to turn failure into a learning opportunity. In this article, we discuss why interviewers ask about failure, as well as examples of how to answer effectively.




Why employers ask questions about failure

Interviewers understand that no one is perfect. What they want to understand is whether you are self-aware enough to acknowledge your shortcomings and whether you are someone who can learn from your missteps. Failures also tell a lot about who you are as an employee and whether you are comfortable taking smart risks and pushing beyond your comfort zone to achieve goals. This question also tells them how you view risk, failure and success in general. If you have never failed, you may have never taken risks or succeeded either.

How to answer “What is your biggest failure?”

Here are some steps you can take to prepare a strong answer to this interview question:

1. Choose a specific failure

Pick a real failure that happened in the workplace, specifically a failure related to the work you’re doing now. Look for a story where something didn’t go as planned. Choosing the right story is important, as you want to explain a situation where only one thing went wrong. This will help keep the story brief and make it easy to articulate what you learned and what you can do differently next time. A team failure can also be a great choice to share with your interviewer because you share responsibility with others. It’s just important to take responsibility for your role in why it was a failure.

2. Share your story

Share with the interviewer the story you chose. Keep in mind that the purpose of asking this question is to evaluate how you handle setbacks, so try to rapidly move to the part of the story where you talk about how you managed the failure. You may want to discuss what made the situation challenging and what you did to try to rectify it. Be open about the fact that the situation did not go as planned.

3. Focus on what you learned

Talk about what you believe went wrong and caused the failure, what you would have done differently and what changes you made moving forward. For example, let’s say your failure was the result of assuming what your customers wanted. Your takeaway from the experience could be that you will never make an assumption again, and in the future, you will perform more market research and survey your customer base—even testing the product with a small sample of people before fully investing in a new product or service.

Example answers for “What is your biggest failure?”

Here are some ways you could answer questions about your past failures:

Example 1

“I was managing a project where a new client wanted a large number of unique product descriptions written to improve the SEO ranking of their site. Because they were a new client and I wanted to impress them with the kind of results we could produce, I assured them we could have it back to them in two weeks. I thought this was doable with multiple writers working on the project, but in the end, it took an extra week, and they were not happy.

We apologized and reassured them that the mistake wouldn’t happen again. I realized that it’s far better to under-promise and over-deliver. The client isn’t going to be upset when you are clear about what the timeline is from the beginning. Problems arise when you can’t meet promised deadlines. I used this experience to be more cautious in managing client expectations. For the next client project I worked on, I made sure to include extra time for unforeseen circumstances and told them we would deliver in four weeks. We delivered in three, and they couldn’t have been more thrilled.”

Example 2

“I took a job where I was responsible for building a sales team that would fix the major revenue problems the company was having. I was overly confident in my abilities and certain I would be able to accomplish the goal. After arriving, though, I realized the problems were not just in revenue but in the way the company was organized. I knew within one month that I wouldn’t be able to make the impact I anticipated.

I briefly considered quitting when I knew I wouldn’t come close to the sales goals I promised, but instead, I decided to focus on the things I could control. I met with the company’s executives and altered our sales goals for the year. We also decided to scale back the size of my team and bring on a consultant to fix some of the company’s deeper problems. Being in this situation reminded me of the importance of focusing on what you can control and collaborating to find solutions to complex problems. I also learned a hard lesson in humility and of not jumping in and making promises before fully understanding the scope of the problem.”

Example 3

“Several years ago, my supervisor tasked me with interviewing, hiring and training an entry-level person to join our customer service team. I chose to hire someone who seemed eager to learn and, based on past work experiences, seemed to have a lot of potential. I did have a few concerns after checking their social media sites but chose to hire them anyway. I quickly learned it was a mistake and that their social media activity was a strong indication of their behavior at work. They were highly dramatic, had a poor attitude and impacted the entire team until I had to fire them.

The experience taught me how important every hiring decision is, from senior staff to interns. Each person impacts company morale and culture. It also taught me not to rush to make any hiring decisions and get feedback if I have concerns about a candidate. I’ve learned to trust my intuition more. However, it’s a lesson I’m glad I learned earlier in my career.”