
Ask HN: How to deal with negative "tell me about a time" interview questions? - pinewurst
I have interviews next week that I&#x27;m very nervous about. I&#x27;m excited about the job and know I can do it well. However, I know for a fact that it&#x27;ll be a very long day of &quot;tell me about a time when you failed&quot; and &quot;what&#x27;s the worst thing your previous manager would say about you&quot;. After a day of that, it&#x27;ll take a while to recover from the bad feelings, especially if the result is the usual ghosting.<p>Any advice how to deal best with this awfulness?
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segmondy
The goal is for you to tell them what you did and learned about from that
negative experience.

tell me about a time when you failed.

I was asked if I could do ABC with a certain amount of time, and I said sure I
would get it done, I was sure of A and C but I couldn't figure out B. so I set
out to figure out B, I asked for help and no one knew how to solve B, so I
went through XYZ process to figure out B, it took longer than I thought, I
communicate that I would miss the deadline, I finally figured out B after
taking a crash course, but I missed the deadline and was pretty embarrassed by
that. I learned that I shouldn't promise to deliver on a hard deadline when
there are unknowns, however to my surprise, the client was understanding since
I communicated ahead of time that I might ship late. I also learned to keep an
open communication and communicate progress and expectations while working on
something.

These questions are not traps, they are asked to extract your experience. It's
also a good way to demonstrate your communication skills through story
telling, it needs to be succinct.

------
ThalesX
I’m a bit surprised at the answers you are getting here. I think this touches
on two subjects so I’ll try to give two answers.

First of all, when asked about a time when, it’s perfectly normal to spend
some time to think about it. I always give them a truthful answer and God
knows I have a lot previous fails and / or managerial arguments on my plate.

Seriously, “my old manager thought I was a dumb idiot with attitude issues”
(hint: not true! or maybe it is).

What does this even tell them? That you’re honest (probably) and either you’re
a dumb idiot with attitude issues or your manager was not a nice person.

Do they act on the assumption that your manager was right? This says a lot
more about them than about you.

Remember, it’s a two sided interview. If you can’t be honest, if they rush to
conclusions, if they put you on the spot, you’ll be in for a frustrating
employment.

Secondly, about your dealing with the awfulnes of past deeds, I’ll just copy
paste a nice little story here:

> A senior monk and a junior monk were traveling together. At one point, they
> came to a river with a strong current. As the monks were preparing to cross
> the river, they saw a very young and beautiful woman also attempting to
> cross. The young woman asked if they could help her cross to the other side.

> The two monks glanced at one another because they had taken vows not to
> touch a woman.

> Then, without a word, the older monk picked up the woman, carried her across
> the river, placed her gently on the other side, and carried on his journey.

> The younger monk couldn’t believe what had just happened. After rejoining
> his companion, he was speechless, and an hour passed without a word between
> them.

> Two more hours passed, then three, finally the younger monk could contain
> himself any longer, and blurted out “As monks, we are not permitted a woman,
> how could you then carry that woman on your shoulders?”

> The older monk looked at him and replied, “Brother, I set her down on the
> other side of the river, why are you still carrying her?”

~~~
afarrell
> why are you still carrying?

For me, it is because of the serious concern that I'm going to repeat my
errors until I find a solution for how to avoid them... and for some
longstanding personal problems I don't know how to start finding a solution.

------
vitovito
Practice. You're telling a story, it can be prepared, you don't have to relive
it every time.

Understand why they're asking. It's easy to talk about your success, and to
idealize how we got to an outcome, but in reality it's more like: 1) search
for something on StackOverflow, 2) figure out you should be searching for
different terms, 3) try some off-the-shelf software recommended in a buried
comment, 4) fail to compile it from source, 5) try a buried answer in a
related question; etc. Those are all "failures" in that you weren't born
knowing the correct answer, and being able to describe how you got to an
outcome fully is valuable.

Ask them the value they're getting so you can characterize the experience
appropriately. We were hiring a senior designer to work with a particularly
internally contentious product and development team. We were concerned they
hadn't discussed any grit during the interview process, only happy paths. We
call them up and say, tell us about a time you fought with someone and lost.
They respond, "uh, am I going to have to actually fight people in this job?"
No, your PM might be a real pain in the ass and we can't seem to get them
replaced so you're going to have to stick up for yourself, and we'd like to
hear about a time you did that and it still didn't work out for you, and what
happened next. And, they did, and we hired them, and they worked out well.

~~~
itronitron
props to you for being honest with the candidate about what they should expect
and letting them know that your team wanted to hire someone that would succeed
in the role, knowing it's particular challenges.

------
thinkloop
Take a queue from politicians. Use the opportunity to tell one of your
stories/talking points. You should have at least 3 fun/informative stories
about yourself/life/experience prepared. Make sure not to answer the question
directly and up front like "I failed when...". Instead imply your answer in
the middle of the story.

------
quickthrower2
I feel these type of questions are hazing to make sure you prepared for the
interview. In any case prepare and blast through them.

It’s all about turning the negative into a positive.

The worst thing my manager said about me is my code is sometimes unclear. So I
read code complete and now produce much better code (that’s the outline but
you need details when probed of course.)

My biggest weekness is perfectionism that leads to missing deadlines. Ive been
working on this and now ive reduce the time to deliver and usually meet my
estimates.

Etc.

~~~
scarface74
_My biggest weekness is perfectionism_

I would never give that answer. It’s as trite and predictable as college
entrance essays about how a volunteer trip overseas was the most impactful
thing in your life.

~~~
shoo
you can say essentially the same thing and re-word it in such a way that it is
less trite:

"my biggest weakness is that i prioritise code quality, completeness and long-
term maintainability above all other concerns, without understanding the
broader engineering or business context where sometimes an ugly short-term
hack or ignoring edge cases may be necessary to get a release out the door on
schedule for a marketing campaign, or temporarily mitigate a production issue,
or allow a project to be delivered on budget"

note: this is clearly still a weakness in an engineer, ideally you also need
to talk through how you recognised this issue, what resources you used to
change your behaviour and improve your performance in time or budget
constrained situations, and what the result was...

~~~
scarface74
My current reply would be two fold.

1\. “My biggest weakness is front end UI/UX. If you are expecting a great UI
person, I’m not your guy.”

The purpose of that answer is to both show self awareness and self select out
of jobs I know that I won’t be a good fit for.

2\. “When I was a team lead/architect at the company before my current one, I
realized I had X, Y, Z weaknesses even though I accomplished what they hired
me for before the company changed directions. I ‘self demoted’ and found a
company where I could fill in those skills gaps and strengthen those areas.
Now as I pursue new challenges, I’m sure I will discover new weaknesses, but
just as before, I have a methodical method for learning new soft and hard
skills by doing $X”

~~~
quickthrower2
> 1\. “My biggest weakness is front end UI/UX. If you are expecting a great UI
> person, I’m not your guy.”

Clever, but I assume you've already selected out of such jobs before you hit
the interview. So you are in an interview for a back end job.

Which means it's not much different from saying "My biggest weakness is
Enterprise sales, if you need someone to land you that million dollar
contract, I'm not your guy."

I think my perfectionism example is better because it is a genuine weakness. I
have shown that it leads to things taking too long which is a real issue for
companies, and also that the candidate is working on addressing it (so they
want to improve).

> 2\. “When I was a team lead/architect at the company before my current one,
> I realized I had X, Y, Z weaknesses even though I accomplished what they
> hired me for before the company changed directions. I ‘self demoted’ and
> found a company where I could fill in those skills gaps and strengthen those
> areas. Now as I pursue new challenges, I’m sure I will discover new
> weaknesses, but just as before, I have a methodical method for learning new
> soft and hard skills by doing $X”

This is effective, as long as you can answer the follow up questions about why
you had to leave that company and not move within it, etc.

~~~
scarface74
_Clever, but I assume you 've already selected out of such jobs before you hit
the interview. So you are in an interview for a back end job._

I always use my network of trusted external recruiters. You often see postings
for “full stack developers”, but once you actually talk to the recruiters, you
find out that the hiring company would love that in theory, but they will take
someone who is good on the back end. Also, I have some front end experience
and I can usually get through an interview, but my fear is that I’ll interview
well enough to set false expectations.

 _This is effective, as long as you can answer the follow up questions about
why you had to leave that company and not move within it, etc._

I kind of hinted at it when I said “the company changed direction”. They
decided that they “didn’t want to be a software company” and they were moving
toward trying to fit everything into none custom off the shelf solutions and
hire contractors (like WorkDay contractors) to customize solutions. They
wanted to turn us into a ticket resolving/report writing department.

Even while I was lead we were mostly using software developer contractors.

------
blueadept111
In my experience, its best to drive the discussion into technical areas that
are so interesting that the interviewer runs out of time to ask their dumb
canned questions, including the "tell me about a time" questions (and
hopefully also the whiteboarding questions). For example, if there's a new or
emerging tool or technology that you're familiar with but the interviewer
doesn't know much about, try and drive the discussion in that area. They'll
likely be very curious to know if the new tool/tech can be useful to them, and
will want to know all about your experience with it, giving you a chance to
brag about areas where you're strong (or at least, stronger than them).

------
surewhynat
Look just tell them what they want to hear. Ask stupid questions, get stupid
answers. They're probably not even listening.

They want to know if you're interested in self-improvement, and how well you
get along with people.

> "what's the worst thing your previous manager would say about you"

I have too much free time because I get things done so fast, I am always
asking for more work, or making code comments and improvements.

> "tell me about a time when you failed"

I was building a notification system for my previous company, and began using
RabbitMQ. After my last manager realized what I was building he moved me on to
the team to build out a core internal event driven architecture.

~~~
4ec0755f5522
This is the worst possible advice.

It shows you are a narcissist, incapable of learning from experience,
incapable of accurate self-analysis (identifying weaknesses or areas of
improvement).

It also shows you struggle with soft skills, because you have completely
misunderstood the point of these questions and are treating them as an
opportunity to 'win' the question or 'beat' the interviewer. You are showing
that appearing clever is more important than being smart.

You think the questions are beneath you, you think honesty is beneath you, and
that interactions between people are defined only by the letter of the law and
not its spirit. You know very well the intent of the questions, but you play
games with your answers?

No one is looking for an answer here that says "I have no weaknesses and have
never failed". Which would be a better and more honest answer than the
"clever" answers you are suggesting.

You might as well be saying "I decline to answer because I am too smart to
answer this question. Where's my signing bonus, will I be receiving it today,
before the end of this interview? Because I have won, yes? I won the question
by giving a non answer that makes me look great, so I am the cleverest!
Therefore you must make me an offer immediately, yes? Because I am so clever!
I beat the test! I beat YOU!"

a/k/a "no hire".

Follow this advice if you wish to remain unemployed or (arguably worse) hired
by an idiot, into a team of fellow idiots. Which if you answer this way is
where you belong.

~~~
surewhynat
literally the second thing I said summarized your entire rant.

Paraphrased again: > They want to know you are interested in self improvement

I am merely helping the guy out, to point out that the super negative question
shouldn't get to his head.

You, my numeric friend, 4ec0755f5522, should try being less negative. You just
made a lot of super negative assumptions:

> "idiot this, idiot that"

what's the saying, there's a million ways to skin a cat? Morbid as it may be,
there's many ways to solve a problem and answer a question, and some ways may
resonate better with some people. You have no idea what company or role the
guy is applying for, or what they are looking for. Maybe they are looking for
a super douche sales guy, in which case they need someone who is pure ego and
arrogance. Everyone has a place in society.

Life isn't about being perfect all the time. Sometimes if someone is giving
you a bs question, they might know it, and they might expect a bs answer back,
simply because it's fun.

------
sloaken
1 Everybody fails. Not everybody learns from failure.

2 A manager will say at least one negative thing about you. Not everyone grows
from criticism.

Your goals: 1) You can recognize your failures, take responsibility for your
failures, fix your failures, and learn from them

2) You can take constructive criticism, recognize that criticism is not
personal, and use it to improve yourself.

The person you do NOT want to be is the one who blames others, sees not fault
in themselves, and never grows.

------
bjourne
I have no idea how to deal with it but I sympathize with your problem. It
almost feels like the interviewer is trying to tilt you just to measure how
you will react. Like if you're on a date and the girl says "So bjourne, what
is the worst thing your previous girlfriend would say about you?" You'd
probably think that she is a psycho and stay away but if an recruiter asks it,
it's ok.

~~~
itronitron
Also, there are a number of responses you could say to your date that would
not be okay in a job interview.

------
karmakaze
Don't take it too literally. If the worst isn't easy to talk about, choose
your second worst.

When I get this question, my problem is I'm too optimistic (possibly
righteous, narcissistic, idk?). I think this is because I go easy on myself
and others for mistakes and just try to avoid creating or being in the
situation.

------
Trias11
Answer in a way to turn things in your advantage.

"tell me about a time when you failed"

Failed to meet deadline (which you never do) that one time where you take
initiative to rewrite spagetti legacy code from scratch. Later on everyone
thanked you for that. But yes - first time it looked like a failure.

"what's the worst thing your previous manager would say about you"

Manager was pedantic asshole and insisted on doing thing his way. You did it
your way and succeeded making manager unhappy because you took a risk and
challenged the stigma jeopardizing his role.

------
factorialboy
Sound genuine. Or better yet be genuine. Share openly. Everybody has setbacks
at some point, so don't get defensive about it.

Remember in the long run, the hard times are best because that's when you
grow.

------
ziddoap
There is probably much better advice out there, but if they are throwing an
oldie "time you failed" or "tell me about your weaknesses" question at me, I
generally just reply with the (equally as old) "Once I failed to hit a
deadline because Im a perfectionist and X wasn't quite right. I've since
learned to better manage my efforts on key priority areas".

The "perfectionist" route is a fairly adaptable answer for any of the "state a
negative about yourself" trap cards.

~~~
psv1
The general approach can be okay but don't call yourself a perfectionist at a
job interview.

~~~
ziddoap
Hasn't had any negative impact in any of the interviews I have said it in
after they ask for a weakness, but sure. What would you say instead?

------
brandonlc
Just tell the truth, and don't complain about your old boss or your former
colleagues.

------
Havoc
No comment beyond that's a terrible title that tells me nothing about what
you're asking

~~~
pinewurst
Fixed - thanks!

