What Is The Most Difficult Situation You Faced At Work (With 10 Sample Interview Answers)

The workplace of an organization is challenging, daunting, and progressive. In short, it will not be wrong to say that it’s so fanatic, that it can give you goosebumps as well as butterflies. Almost all the employees working for an organization, experience and undertake some difficult situations arising at their respective workplaces. The level of such difficulties and labor, vary from situation to situation and largely depends upon a person’s perception and attitude. An interviewer wants to know, what in your opinion is termed as difficult so that he or she can understand and evaluate your true personality and approach, which you follow so as to efficiently handle wily and artful work-related situations.

Three Effective Tips To Answer This Question Impressively

1) Deliver What Is Expected

There is a possibility that even a single extra minute of work, which is beyond your contractual time, might bother you, and when you faced such a situation you termed it most difficult. This is an absolutely incorrect interpretation of such a wonderful interview question. You are expected to share those experiences and events, which challenged your wits, shook you to the core, and amazed you to a considerable extent. Hence, take a deep breath and think of the issues that really bothered you and pushed your limits.

2) Stick To The Limit

You might have faced a hundred tough situations at your workplace which really shook you. But, you are not expected to share them all, or even share two of them. This question requires you to choose the best, among all, that affected your personality and wits, the most.

3) Explain The Situation Completely Yet Briefly

Interviews are short and for every interview question, you are expected to give a thoughtful and impactful answer which is brief or an abridged form of a long event. In order to effectively answer this question, initially, you are expected to make your interviewer aware of the situation completely and exhaustively. Post this, inculcate and mention the situation you faced, termed by you as the most difficult.

Ten Best Sample Answers To Study

Sample Answer One

Sure sir. I have faced a difficult situation at my workplace when I was working with ABC Corporation as their accountant, during my previous stint. I was a part of the team alongside two more members. It was the end of the financial year and both my fellow teammates got sick with fever and they were forcibly required to take a week off from the work. Now, it all boiled down to me as I was the only working professional in my team. I was clearly instructed, to perform the tasks and handle the work pressure of my fellow teammates as well. Since it was the closing, the pressure was at its peak. I remember working for more than 16 to 18 hours a day. This was really challenging for me.

Sample Answer Two

Difficulty and uncertainty vary from person to person. I consider myself to be a problem solver, and always follow a positive mindset in a tough situation. Although, I have not faced any such situation till now, yet, I remember, an instance from my training days. I was working as a management trainee with a boiler plant, and being a novice, I accidentally switched off the entire generator system, leading to a production halt of 30 minutes. Being a responsible person, this was really embarrassing and tough for me to handle such a difficult situation.

Sample Answer Three

Being a sales executive working for ABC Sales Corporation during my previous stint, I have faced several such tough experiences. However, in response to this question, I would like to mention one particular situation. I was posted at the branch office, but that day, I was forced to move to the headquarters, to give a presentation relating to forecasting of organization’s revenues. I was really nervous and to be honest, I had not prepared myself proficiently. Still, I presented the facts, and owing to my superior and developed communication skills, I performed nicely.

Sample Answer Four (For Freshers)

I am a fresh college graduate and this is my first job application. Hence, I express my inability to share any real-life practical work experience. However, I have been in a messy situation several times during my college days. There was a time when I was representing my college in a debate competition, but owing to my negligence, I prepared the wrong topic. It would be amazing to hear for you that, I even recited the same topic, in front of my audience, but nobody stopped me, as I had prepared really deep and impactful content concerning it. I remember, how shaky I was the entire time.

Sample Answer Five

People fall into a tricky situation, due to their own negligence and dereliction of duty. I am proud of myself, to never fall into the trap and hence never experience any difficult situation at my workplace. However, still, I can recall a situation, when a long way back, I was completing my internship with TTY Group of Companies. I was really young then, and owing to my mischievous attitude and nature, I accidentally deleted a client’s financial data from the system. This is a secret till now, but I was really in a sticky situation, and as per me the rest of the time spent at that workplace, was really difficult for me.

Sample Answer Six

The most difficult situation, that I faced at work was when I was working during my previous stint, as software developed with a reputed institution. I made a grave mistake then in relation to writing a code. I accidentally surpassed the requirement of the client and wrote the coding of software in an entirely different manner. Upon review, I was utterly embarrassed by my colleagues as well my seniors, as we lost that client.

Sample Answer Seven

I feel proud to say that I have never been a part of any such messy or uncomfortable situation. However, I would still like to give a reply to this answer by mentioning an event that occurred during my training days. It was the very first day at my workplace, and I being a naive and novice child, mistakenly spilled some coffee at the CPU of at least two computer systems. This immediately malfunctioned them and corrupted the entire data. I was forced to eat the humble pie on the very first day of the start of my professional carer. That day, was the toughest for me at my workplace.

Sample Answer Eight

Before working with ABC Corporation, I was employed with another employer in the capacity of junior manager, handling all the purchase-related activities of the organization. I remember making a purchase order based on a wrong purchase requisition slip, which not only inflated the bill by a few hundred dollars but also ordered some unwanted goods. Upon scrutiny, I was really scolded by my boss and I feel really guilty and overwhelmed. I still remember it and term it as the most difficult situation that I have faced till today in my entire professional life.

Sample Answer Nine

During my previous stint, I was a project manager handling advertising campaigns for my employer organization. I remember, once my organization incurred a quarterly loss and immediately all the advertising budget was cut by more than half. Now, I had to give effect to the same level of sales and had to maintain a similar level of impact, with a reduced budget. This was really a tough situation for me and I would like to term it as the most difficult situation faced by me.

Sample Answer Ten

Yes, sir, I have faced a really tough situation during my professional career. It was the summertime and the sale of airconditioning systems was at its peak. Being a digital marketer of an air conditioner manufacturing company, I was given the task to create an effective marketing campaign for my organization. In a quest of performing exceptionally, I thought to use some cartoons related to the then political situation, to create a buzz for the product in the market. I was so adamant about using this type of marketing, that I even superseded the approval from my boss. The result was very poor and there were protests against our products.

References

1. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/peps.12005
2. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/03637750601024156