How To Answer Conflict Resolution Interview Questions

A What The Interviewer Wants To Know

A hiring manager will ask you to describe a challenge and how you overcame it with examples because they want to know if you can actually solve problems and thrive in a team. We cant dispute the fact that the workplace faces different challenges from time to time. These challenges could be amongst employees, with an approach, or furthermore a customer or a companys client.

We face challenges in our everyday lives, but the hiring manager wants to know how you overcome challenges in the workplace. You will need to cite a very good experience you had when it comes to workplace challenges. Then, youll discuss what the challenge was and the role you played in it. The good part of this is that you get to tell them the result of the approach you took, which gives them a very good reason to hire you.

What Not To Say When Answering How Do You Manage Workplace Conflict

• Dont dodge the question by saying that you have never experienced a work conflict because you get along with everyone.
• Similarly, dont evade the question by giving a vague or general answer.
• Dont mention that you dont handle conflict well.
• Avoid using emotional or negative language as this may make you seem unreasonable or difficult to work with.
• Dont blame others or bash past colleagues or bosses.
• Dont spend too much time talking about the conflict, at the expense of explaining the resolution.
• Dont become confrontational when the interview asks follow-up questions.
• Dont waste time describing unnecessary details.

Be Honest About Your Limitations

Talking as if you have been on the job for six months already is not necessarily a good thing in this situation! The reality is that you will not know the specifics of your prospective company culture, and without knowing all the details you wont be able to come up with the perfect response. Dont be afraid to acknowledge as much speak honestly about the limitations of your answer without the experience and context that a real life conflict provides. This is also a great way to force the interviewer to engage with you and really pay attention to what you are saying.

Now that you understand some of the key factors to include and some red flags to avoid, you can start to build an outline of your response that can flex as needed and appropriately build fail safes into your answer. Start by asking questions and gathering information, and really listen to the information you receive. Save the confident bravado and absolute statements for another time. Instead, opt for a conversational tone that is confident but grounded. A successful response will be thoughtful and engaged in the context of your prospective employer, and it will clearly communicate the flexible nature of your answer depending on the situation.

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Ensure You Answer The Question

Avoid the temptation of saying you’ve never encountered any conflict. This is why it’s necessary to prepare because you have enough time to think about and remember the conflicts and how you managed them. Also, avoid mentioning conflict you didn’t handle well as the information serves no purpose either to you or the interviewer. They only want to know how well you can work with people, handle disagreements and find a way to resolve issues and work together again productively.

An Example Answer About A Deadline Conflict

As a finance assistant, Im in charge of putting together reports for potential company investments. One time, my boss asked me to generate a new report on a Wednesday morning and wanted it done by Thursday at 5 PM. Due to the amount of work involved, and wanting the report to be accurate, I knew thered be no way I could finish the report on time. Because Im committed to high-quality work and I wasnt sure my boss fully understood what goes into each report, I knew I needed to speak up. I decided to approach my boss about the impossible timeline.

At her next available opening, I sat down with my boss and explained my concerns, telling her it wouldnt be possible, even if I stayed late that night. But my boss insisted that the deadline was non-negotiable. I knew that the investment committee was meeting on Friday, so I understood the pressure my boss was under. So I decided to switch gears and ask my boss if there was anyone who could help me with the report. She found another assistant who could put in a few hours and we worked together to get the report done on time to the high standard I always deliver.

The committee was really pleased to be able to review the report at the meeting. My boss was happy we got it done, and appreciated my extra efforts to make it happen. I felt good that I hadnt let the quality of the report slip. And once I explained how much time and work goes into each report, my boss was careful to assign them further in advance after that.

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Q5 Tell Us About A Time When You Disagreed With A Team/company Policy Or Rule How Did You Handle The Situation

Disagreeing with a team or company policy can sometimes be distracting and impact performance at work. The important thing to do in a situation like this is to speak your mind out.

In my previous company, my manager often worked late and expected that everyone in the team also stayed and worked long hours, regardless of the workload. This is something that not just me but other team members also disagreed with. We had to make our manager understand that this was taking a toll on us.

We got together, approached our manager, and made our concerns clear. We drove the dialogue through reason and made him understand that staying long hours isnât a direct indication of our commitment to projects. It ended well, with our manager understanding our concern.

These answers to commonly asked conflict interview questions will help you get a good idea of what to expect at behavioral interviews. The sample answers will help you understand the best way to answer these conflict interview questions and ace behavioral interviews at top companies.

Have You Ever Had To Deal With An Unhappy Customer Or Client

If the position youre applying for involves interaction with customers or clients, conflict resolution takes on a whole new meaning. While you still have to be concerned with conflict among coworkers, conflict with customers and clients can also become an issue. As an employee, youre effectively a company representative, and your potential employer is going to want to know how well youre going to fulfill that role should an issue arise. Your answer here should reflect your willingness to keep customers and clients happy with their experience being the focus and ultimate end goal of your interaction.

Example: Ive had to deal with quite a few unhappy customers back in my retail days, but one instance that stands out was at my previous company. One of our clients ordered in bulk every two months or so, and they were one of our biggest sources of income at the time. Unfortunately, one order shipped with our product in the wrong color. They called to complain and were extremely dissatisfied obviously. I listened to them explain the situation on the phone and vent about the problem while simultaneously doing a few quick calculations on my end. I discovered that losing them as a client would be far more costly in the long run than sending them a new bulk order free of charge. With my calculations in hand, I cleared the idea with management and offered the new order at no cost plus 10% off their next order. They agreed and stayed on as a client.

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Answering The Right Way

Heres an appropriate answer to the question. Let it soak inwell come back to it soon.

“Once, a co-worker and I disagreed on the way an unsatisfied customer was dealt with. I decided to meet with them one on one to talk and resolve our dispute in a peaceful manner. We both agreed that our goal was to keep the customer happy and came to a compromise that consisted of both of our ideas.”

Job interview questions fall into several different categories. Tell me about a time you disagreed with a co-worker is an example of a behavioral interview questions. Others you mightve encountered in the past include:

• Describe a challenging goal that you set and explain how it was achieved.

• Describe a situation in which you had to work under pressure. How did you navigate and minimize stress?

• Tell me about a mistake that you made how did you handle it?

The reason these are all classified as behavioral is because they ask you to explain how youve behaved in past work situations.

Again, no TMZ account here, but behavioral questions do ask for specificity. Thats why one of the best ways you can build your individual interview skills is by being prepared ahead of time. In other words do your homework. Use our interview question guides to give yourself a sense of what to expect, as well as to start planning your responses.

Expecting these is the perfect way to walk into your interview with confidence and zeal.

Example For A Vendor Manager

Tell me about a time you had a conflict with a third-party vendor.

When I was working as a vendor manager for an e-commerce website, they had suppliers from all over the world. Tracking deliveries and facilitating payments was a huge task and sometimes payments got delayed.

Suppliers often complained about the delayed payments to me, so I talked with my supervisors and the account managers responsible for payment processing. We had meetings with all the affected departments, and everyone realized that payments needed to be completed faster to maintain good supplier relations.

Later, because of our initial meeting, a team was formed to audit the payment process and we found ways to make payments faster.

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Why Recruiters Ask The How Do You Handle Conflict Interview Question

Before we approach crafting the right answer to this question, it is helpful to consider why recruiters ask it in the first place. The reality of any setting where you have different personalities working together towards a goal is that there will be conflict at some point: it is almost inevitable. As a Product Manager, part of your job will be resolving that conflict between stakeholders as you strive to keep your team running smoothly. Occasionally, you may even have to resolve conflict between yourself and another stakeholder.

Most often, the interviewer is asking this question with two goals in mind. First, they are trying to get a handle on how comfortable you are managing conflict. Second, they want a sample of your approach to resolving it. It is a question that will usually show up in round two of a Product Manager interview often when you are talking directly to either a Director or VP of product. That makes this an ideal opportunity to make a strong impression and demonstrate some of the real-world interpersonal skills that make a successful PM.

Conflict Resolution Will Serve You Well

Learning how to peacefully coexist with your colleagues will take you far. Want to learn more expert insights to succeed at work? Monster can send you free career advice and job search tips so you can learn how to stay cool when the pressure inevitably mounts.

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Show Them That You Stay Calm And That You Try To Understand The Other Persons Perspective

Disagreements happen its just a normal part of being in a workplace with other people. But the interviewer wants to see that you dont make the situation worse when it does happen.

Youll see this in the example answers above the sample responses we covered are designed to show employers that as soon as you recognize a conflict has occurred, you try to understand the other persons perspective, act logically and reasonably, and deal with the conflict quickly before it becomes worse.

Show an ability to compromise and an ability to stay clear-headed when you deal with conflict, and youll get more job offers.

That brings me to my next key point

Sample Answers To Discuss Conflict Resolution Questions

Below you can find some examples of answers to conflict-resolution interview questions. Some of these questions require you to provide the job experience you had in a previous job. These behavioral interview questions are already written in STAR format so that you see how you can structure your answer.

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Conflict Resolution Interview Questions

The Indeed Editorial Team comprises a diverse and talented team of writers, researchers and subject matter experts equipped with Indeed’s data and insights to deliver useful tips to help guide your career journey.

Preparing how to answer interview questions is one of the steps to getting a job. During interviews, the hiring manager can ask you questions relating to conflict resolution in the workplace. Learning how to answer these questions can make you feel calm and in control during the interview. In this article, we consider different conflict resolution interview questions and how to answer them, along with sample answers.

How To Handle Workplace Conflict

Jennifer Herrity is a seasoned career services professional with 12+ years of experience in career coaching, recruiting and leadership roles with the purpose of helping others to find their best-fit jobs. She helps people navigate the job search process through one-on-one career coaching, webinars, workshops, articles and career advice videos on Indeed’s YouTube channel.

It’s common to experience conflict in an office setting when you are interacting with a variety of personalities and roles. How you manage conflict is important in being an effective team player and how you convey your conflict management skills can help you during job interviews.

In this article, we discuss how to handle conflict in the workplace and then list common interview questions and answers about conflict.

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Describe A Situation In Which You Disagreed With A Rule Or Policy And How You Handled It

In previous positions, you may have encountered guidelines that you didnt feel comfortable following. This question allows you to explain why or why not you would perform assigned tasks even when you disagree with the rule or policy related to the duty.

To answer this question, provide an example of a rule or policy that you disagreed with, how you expressed your disagreement and how you reconciled the disagreement to ensure you could perform your duties as assigned.

Example: In one of my previous jobs, the human resources director wanted to capture personal identifying informationsuch as social security numberson job applications. He was insistent that the information would be secure, and though I believed him, I still disagreed with this practice. I understood that human resources needed to collect this information at the point of hire to verify employment eligibility, but I did not agree with collecting it from every applicant.

I expressed my opinion that requiring this information on the application could negatively impact our talent pool, but also acknowledged that I was not a human resources professional and it was not my decision. The human resources director acknowledged my opinion, but believed it was the best practice. I trusted him as the experienced professional to make the correct choice.

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Tips For Answering Tell Me About A Challenge Or Conflict Youve Faced At Work

That said, dont try so hard to seem non-combative that you pretend like youve never had a workplace conflict. The most common interview questions are common because they lend insight into what youre like, and they apply broadly to most professions and people.

So dont get so caught up in trying to be the perfect candidate that you fail to answer the question, or come up with a weak example. If you went out to lunch each week as an office, dont cite the time that you proposed Asian fusion when Ryan chose Mexican but Drew really wanted Thai.

I mean, real talk thats a good solution, but unless your interviewer takes food as seriously as I do then its not likely to reflect upon your conflict resolution skills as effectively as resolving a dispute about the direction of a work project.

In summary, use follow these three tips when answering questions about conflict in the workplace:

Keep those in mind, and youll have a job offer in no time. Or at least you can get on to more fun topics, like your career goals.

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Tell Me About A Time You Dealt With A Difficult Co

In one of my previous roles, I had a colleague who never finished her work on time. Given the fast-paced nature of the work, this led to backlogs and delays. I often found myself picking up the slack and working harder and later to cover for her. This carried on for about two months and I realised that my co-worker would never change her ways if I kept covering for her.

So, I booked a meeting room so we could discreetly hash out the issue and find solutions. It eventually became clear that she was agreeing to more work than her job description had actually specified. In order to resolve this, we agreed that she needed to have a frank discussion with her line manager in order to clarify expectations.

In the end, her manager agreed to reassign some of her workload to more relevant people. This really helped to alleviate pressure on me, my colleague and our team and we no longer struggled to meet deadlines.