This is the tough question every candidate gets during the interview process. This is a typical question that everyone fumbles to answer as they might think that this can show their inability to the interviewer in any situation.
Do not panic when you get this type of question and always be confident. This is the point where you need to impress the interviewer even when you have to speak on something where you failed.
This is the point where the interviewer wants to know how you react in a stressful situation and if you take accountability of your mistakes or not – what you learn from your mistakes and how do you try to avoid them in the future.
To avoid getting stuck, take an example in which you can present the facts which show you up in a positive way. Everyone does a mistake and never try to say in a way that the mistake is a success. They all know that mistakes happen and try to explain how you tried to avoid and learned from the mistake. They just want to know whether you stand accountable or blame someone for that mistake.
There is a STAR method to answer this type of behavioral questions. STAR stands for:
S – Situation
T – Task
A – Action
R – Result
By using this STAR method find a situation or task that suits the question. Now depending on the situation, describe the actions and the steps that you took to resolve the situation. Then detail the results of your actions. Later explain to them what you learned from the mistake that you committed and how you tried to avoid it in later situations.
So, always say what you learned from that mistake and stand accountable for that as employers always want their employees to take accountability for what mistakes they did and avoid such mistakes in the future by learning from the mistakes you committed in the past.