Can you Tell me about a time where you encountered a business challenge

1. Interviewing
2. Interview Question: "What Is the Biggest Challenge You've Faced In Work?"

By Indeed Editorial Team

Updated May 18, 2022 | Published September 25, 2020

Updated May 18, 2022

Published September 25, 2020

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During an interview, a hiring manager may ask you about previous challenges you've faced in the workplace. The most effective answer to this question will highlight your problem-solving skills and professionalism. Preparing for this question ahead of time will provide you with greater confidence and a better chance of impressing the hiring manager. In this article, we discuss why employers ask this question, explain how to answer it and provide you with a list of example answers.

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Why employers ask about your biggest challenges

When employers ask you this interview question, they want to know what struggles you've faced in your previous jobs and how you overcame them. They also want to assess your problem-solving skills, which gives them an idea of how you'd face similar challenges in the role you're interviewing for. To identify challenges you've faced in your previous positions, consider any instances that presented a struggle you were able to solve or overcome.

Related: 125 Common Interview Questions and Answers (With Tips)

How to answer "What is the biggest challenge you've faced in work?"

When a hiring manager asks you about the biggest challenge you've faced in work, provide them with an honest response that shows your strength as an employee. Use these steps for answering this interview question:

1. Consider previous challenges you've faced

To answer this question effectively, consider any work-related situations that presented challenges in your previous roles. This can include any time you faced a struggle or found a solution for a particular problem. While it's important for the anecdote you provide to highlight your problem-solving skills, you can also show your analytical skills if there was ever a time you found a problem that no one else did.

Related: Problem-Solving Skills: Definitions and Examples

2. Tailor your answer to the job description

Make sure the answer you provide aligns with the duties of the job you're interviewing for. For example, if you're applying for a customer-facing job, consider previous instances where you handled a difficult customer with ease.

To tailor your answer to the job description, take the time to review the job posting or job description prior to the interview. Then, determine similar issues you've overcome in your current or previous positions that relate to the job you're interviewing for.

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3. Be specific about why they were challenges

When you start your answer, identify what made it such a big challenge for you. Make sure the answer you provide shows your problem-solving process. Give them as much context as you can so they get a clear idea of how you handle these types of situations. It's also important to let the interviewer know what you learned from the experience and how you can apply it to the role at their company.

4. Be honest

Instead of making it look like you've had an easy career, be honest with the interviewer regarding your previous challenges. Doing this shows you're taking the question seriously and that you have nothing to hide when it comes to your previous struggles.

5. Make sure your answers present you in a positive light

Be careful about the examples and anecdotes you provide in your answer. For example, if you faced a challenge that you caused, avoid mentioning it during your interview. Instead, consider highlighting situations that showed you in a heroic light or that showed you effectively working as part of a team. After all, it's important for your anecdotes to show your strengths rather than your weaknesses as an employee.

6. Use nonprofessional examples if necessary

If you don't have much work experience and therefore no work-related challenges to speak about, use an example from your education, volunteer work or any sports activities you were a part of. If you do this, make sure to tie your previous actions to your professional life and the job description of the job you're applying for. No matter your work experience, make sure to avoid personal anecdotes as they relate to your health or other aspects of your personal life.

Related: 21 Job Interview Tips: How To Make a Great Impression

Example answers

In the event that a hiring manager asks this interview question, it helps to consider example answers. Seeing how you can answer this question effectively can help you determine how you want to answer the question yourself. Consider the following examples for this interview question:

Example: "In my most recent role, a former coworker left her job unexpectedly. During this time, she was the team leader on an important new project. When she left, my manager asked me to take it over. While I had never performed her job duties in the past, I had previous leadership experience. Using my leadership and problem-solving skills, I pushed the project forward, encouraged the rest of the team and completed her responsibilities as well as mine. We were able to complete this project successfully and on deadline."

Example 2: "In one of my recent roles, we had a disgruntled customer who was unhappy with her purchase. I offered to speak with her and took the time to listen to her concerns. Once she was calm, I offered her various options to help resolve the issue. When she decided on the solution that best suited her, she thanked me for my time and ended up making another purchase with us in the future. While I helped rectify this situation, I also ensured we kept her as a customer."

Example 3: "As a college freshman, one of my biggest challenges was keeping up with the volume of work compared to what I was used to in college. When I noticed myself feeling overwhelmed, I worked on my organization and time management skills. I also reached out for help from my professors, joined study groups and worked on creating a structured schedule which helped me focus on the tasks at hand. Everything I learned from this is what I hope to carry into this role with your company."

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An answer to this behavioral question can tell the employer a lot about what type of person you are and provide them with an insight into the way you work.

Giving details of a challenge you faced and overcame can give clarity on:

• What you see as a challenge
• The way you tackle difficult situations
• Your past accomplishments
• Whether you are a problem-solver
• How you cope in adversity
• The strategy you take when tackling a problem
• Your ability to think on your feet
• Whether you are a creative thinker
• Your ability to cope under pressure
• Your level of resilience when facing a challenge

The answer you give will provide the interviewer with a greater sense of the real you.

Do you shy away from difficult situations and only face a challenge when you absolutely have to? Or do you seek out challenges to keep yourself motivated, gain new skills, and boost your knowledge and experience?

Answers to this question can also raise red flags to the employer. For example, an answer that begins: ‘Seeing something as a challenge is a sign of weakness’ says a great deal about the interviewee's likely work personality.

How to Choose Your Challenge

The best starting point for choosing a challenge is to go through the job description.

Focus on the personal attributes the company requires the candidate to have, the nature of challenges they are likely to face in the position and the essential requirements for the job.

Try to find a challenge example that will clearly demonstrate your competency in relation to the job you are applying for and which draws parallels between this one and past positions you have held.

Make sure it’s a significant challenge and doesn’t clash with the job description – for example, if you are going for a job that requires you to manage many different clients at once, don’t choose a challenge that involved not being able to manage the number of clients you had.

The challenge you choose will depend on your situation. If you are applying for a job in the same sector, it should be straightforward to think of a challenge that relates to the role you are applying for.

If you are changing career or this is your first job in the sector, focus on the transferable skills you can bring to the role from Saturday jobs, student life or other employment.

Students with no career history are likely to have a challenge involving a university deadline or a difficult project.

If you really can’t think of any examples, you could go down the personal route for this one; moving away from home and having to make new friends is a challenge in itself.

Example Answers using the STAR Technique

Every answer you give to this question should follow the STAR technique to keep your response focused and ensure it ticks all the boxes for the employer.

If you follow the STAR technique, you won’t have to go into huge amounts of detail – you don’t want to bore the employer before you get to the good bit.

Remember, the employer is mainly interested in how that challenge has shaped you professionally and what you took away from the experience.

The STAR technique is:

• Situation – Give context to your answer so that the employer has a good overview of the circumstances surrounding the problem, and how the challenge arose.

• Task – Give details of the task in hand, so that the employer knows exactly where you fitted into the team or situation and what you were responsible for.

• Action – Talk about the actions involved to overcome the challenge. Here you can discuss your thought process and the approach you took to solve the problem.

• Result – Make sure you end on a very positive note, demonstrating that your involvement and proactive approach resulted in the problem being overcome. Quantify your answer if it’s possible to do so.

See our dedicated article for a full overview of the STAR technique

Here are some biggest challenge interview question examples, using the STAR technique.

We have provided you with three different answers based on an individual who has some career history to draw on, an individual who has limited career history to draw on and a student with no job history.

Example Answer 1: Individual With Career History

Situation

In my previous job, I was tasked with organizing a one-day business networking event in a conference center. A few days before the event, the conference center had a fire which meant the event could not go ahead in that location.

Task

I had to establish whether the event could still go ahead, or whether we should cancel. In my position as Event Manager, I called an emergency meeting soon after I heard the news. With the support of my assistant, the Marketing Manager and the Operations team, we decided to try and find another venue for the conference. This was challenging because we only had two days to re-organize everything.

Action

I overcame the challenge by creating a spreadsheet that listed all of the stakeholders we would need to communicate with, so no one was forgotten – contractors, businesses, delegates and media. I assigned a member of the team to each stakeholder group and tasked them with contacting them to relay the new information and make sure they were happy.

Result

As a team, we managed to contact everyone in good time. We dealt with all of the issues surrounding the venue move and the event was a great success. Attendance rates were up 23% on the previous year.

Example Answer 2: Individual With Little Job Experience

Situation

I started working in a café at the age of 16 and was trained by older waiters who had been there for several years. After a few months, I was informed I was being promoted to supervisor, which would mean me being in charge of those who had trained me.

Task

I needed to ensure the older waiters understood why the promotion had been given and ensure they were going to be respectful to me in my new role.

Action

I asked the two members of staff if they could stay behind for an hour when our shift had finished. I bought them both a coffee and asked them how they felt about my promotion. I talked through their concerns and reassured them that I respected their experience at the café and would need their support.

Result

The two members of staff were pleased that I had taken the time to speak to them and valued their opinions and support. They were very respectful of me in my new position and supported me brilliantly.

Example Answer 3: Student or Individual With No Past Job Experience

Situation

As part of my English degree, we had to cover three novels every week. Despite having had the reading list over the summer, I hadn’t managed to read all of the books and soon found it difficult to keep up. I began to realize that other people were in the same situation.

Task

I knew that if I was going to be able to complete essays on time I would need to find a way of managing the workload. I invited the others on my course who were struggling to attend a meeting in the kitchen of my halls of residence.

Action

I created a study plan for each week, blocking out time between lectures to concentrate as a group on each book. We used this time to research the book, looking at plot summaries, Cliff notes and critiques. Between us, we downloaded the audiobooks and film adaptations and listened/watched in the evenings.

Result

Despite feeling uncomfortable with the method I was taking to keep up with the pace of the course, I was able to contribute in lectures and felt I had enough of an understanding of each book to be able to complete the required essays. The other students were the same, and we all graduated with a 2:1 or above.