Stumped by tough interview question
I prepared for the interview with an answer to the greatest weakness question since I would basically just point out a general flaw that I've worked on correcting (no solid instance though). But I wasn't prepared for when a variant of the weakness question that my interviewer asked me:
"Tell me about the greatest setback in your life?"
I'm still trying to think of a concrete example of a setback in my life that I could have talked about instead of a general weakness? What sort of concrete setback would be acceptable?
this is where your personality shines. bring something that'll make people remember you. as long as it doesn't involve sex/mental instability/drugs, you're fine.
I have more than one that jump to mind immediately, and I'm sure many others do too. +1 on what @kidflash said. Consider yourself lucky if nothing like this applies to you, and I think it would be ok (in my opinion, at least) to honestly say you feel fortunate to never have experienced anything you'd consider a significant setback, but these other things affected you this way and this is how you reacted..
I don't feel that the interviewer would have taken an answer of me saying I had no setback because there are pretty significant life events on my resume (moving countries). I'm thinking if a college assignment or a situation where I underlevered myself in a trade would sound appropriate?
either way, you'd lose points.
No way college assignment or underlevered in a trade are good answers. He's asking about a personal, probably emotional, setback. You could potentially find a way to say moving countries was a setback but I'd be careful with that too- it really isn't, and you don't want to come across as someone who can't adapt to new environments etc. I've moved countries permanently 3 times. Including moving to new countries for extended periods of time but not permanently the number jumps to 5.
I did actually use the moving countries thing in interviews/coffee chats and it went down well. I'd say just be honest: I said I had trouble initially moving countries because I was very close to my family and I didn't have a support network here. I then tied it into how I built a community for myself here, and how I've subsequently interned in two different countries (one of which where I didn't speak the local language). I'd be hesitant to be dismissive of moving countries if it comes up because you never know how your interviewer has experienced things (this came up when networking for me - I had contacts who said they had initially wanted positions in their home countries) and different things pose problems for different people.
How does one move a country?
OP:
These are three that just spring to mind upon thinking of the question. You must have experienced something like this at some point.
If you haven't, you're either a robot or Patrick Bateman. Actually, this might be why he's asking the question lol...
if you're telling me you can't think of a setback, man, you've had a pretty cush life. i've had cancer, broken jaw, family deaths, layoffs, etc. that probably don't compare to others' stories...
A good answer is one where you successfully bounced back from a real setback that you faced through no fault of your own. Like you were a star football player, tore your ACL junior year of high school, and had to refocus your life away from sports and towards academics. Or an illness in the family really fucked you over freshman year of college and you took a semester off, took care of said family member, and came back with a new perspective on life.
Like, the point of the question is to see how you respond to a real challenge that was totally unexpected and you didn't have control over. Doing badly on a test isn't a "setback." You just fucked up.
also if you can say that you truly haven't experienced any severe setback but have helped x through y setback and learned z etc.
@Kassad Considering emotional stress leading to something getting FUBAR'd then I don't want to show a major black mark that makes me look like I'll cause a big failure at the bank.
@WalMartShopper I've had a lot of personal shit happen. But would it really be relevant to talk about those very personal examples you listed for an interviewer?
Allow me to clarify: they aren't asking "talk about a fucked up time you had," they're asking "how have you developed from a fucked up time you had."
If I was interviewing someone and they told me that their greater setback was either a college assignment or underlevered in a trade then I would be very concerned that you would fold the first time you truly faced a setback on the job. And I would also think you were a tool who was trying way too hard.
These kind of questions are always to show an experience that has helped to form who you are as a person. Whether it is losing a family member at a young age, moving countries at a difficult point in your life, having a severe illness in the family, parents divorcing, or even a tough sports loss, you can always talk about how you overcame it, the lessons you learned from it, and how it has helped shape who you are today.
Unless you are so sheltered/lucky that nothing like this has happened to you (in which case I sure as hell wouldn't want your first major life setback to be in the middle of a deal or mid-day on the trading floor), this question should be so easy because it comes from your experience, not some interview prep book.
tl;dr: Never use a fucking bullshit answer for behavioral questions like this. They are meant to give you a chance to differentiate yourself and show what you bring to the table outside of a 4.0 GPA or an Ivy league degree. Answer accordingly
I don't have an Ivy League degree. I'm not from a well-off family and we didn't have health insurance. Could I have considered these as a setback? Yes. But would it have been appropriate to bring up?
Not a non ivy league degree.
You seem to be missing the point here- yes, financial hardship is definitely something you could bring up if you could speak to specific setbacks and what you learned/how you grew!
Did you/someone in your family ever suffer as a result of a lack of health insurance? Did you escape suffering but did growing up without health insurance scare the shit out of you? YES, all valid points to bring up!
It's frustrating when people forget an interview is, at its heart, a conversation, and that you're not supposed to answer every question based on something you've memorized from a guide.
A memorable answer to a question like this, in my opinion, in many cases will determine who gets the offers.
Not having an Ivy degree is not a setback. What you've listed are circumstances outside your control. What the interviewer wanted was a variant of the weakness question, but on a bigger scale. I'll give you an example: you''re home for the rest of the semester due to some health issues (setback). During this time, you teach yourself Python and Italian online and network with people. Coming back to college, you have new connections, and new skills that kept you busy while your friends were having fun at college (how you resolved setback). These new skills helped you in X, Y, Z. (end)
I was diagnosed with Meniere's disease, and continue to work in investment banking. Every day I am dizzy to the point where my monitors sway by 6 PM. Stories like this are what they are looking for.
@CanDo: Those things on their own aren't remarkable. Something arising out of those circumstances that created a setback, and then you overcoming said setback is what they are looking for.
These questions aren't really that hard if you have a single regret in your life. You should never lie, but you can gussy your story up a little to make it interesting.
The important thing is to be really personable, self-aware, and open (not too open). Maybe I'm in the minority, but I can think of a dozen things that were setbacks initially but that led to good things in my life. (None of the ones I have in mind involve me screwing something up, either. I don't think the "setbacks" question is the same as the "weakness" question).
I agree. I have immediate answers to this question that are genuine setbacks that ended well. OP, if you've really had no setbacks you're a lucky lucky person.
http://www.wallstreetoasis.com/forums/whats-the-hardest-interview-quest…
If was asked the question in an interview today, greatest setback (for interview purposes) would be getting to a point in my career where I realised that I needed and was expected to X, Y and Z, but partly due to inadequate resourcing by the organisation, partly through my underdeveloped skillset in those areas, I wasn't able to do that and was stuck doing A, B and C and only a little X and Y. Hence I am seeking change in role to the job I was being interviewed for - seeking to fix the setback by changing the game rather than just trying to play the same game harder.
If I was asked this as a grad position, I had a fairly easy life and don't have anything particularly traumatising. If you have something which shows you hit a roadblock in your studies or somewhere else and found a way around it or chose a different path as a result, that would be a fairly functional answer.
OP you've never had a death in the family or someone close? If not, I might leverage the not well off family and turn it into a strength that you had determination to be the first to go to college and support them, etc.
In a strange way, I can only sympathize with those who find this a tough interview question...
Is this kid trolling? If not, I recommend that he gets tested to make sure he is not a robot.
Those hardship questions sound tough, but they really aren't because the interviewer knows there isn't a right answer. I think the current events questions are the worst because they're definitely judging your response. I read about that daily newsletter MarketSnacks in a WSO thread and they do an awesome job of explaining the stock market in a quick, clear, really funny way that's worth reading for interview prep.
I would say, my parents are in China and I am the only person in my family that study, work and live in the USA for a long time, would like to persuade them to move from China to USA.
I'm so sorry to hear about that.
I was actually thinking about this question and I have to say that I struggled to think of something. I'm a clear-cut optimist and I believe myself to be very fortunate, so I really don't think I've experienced any huge setbacks in my life.
The one thing I've been thinking about may not work to well. I moved around a lot when I was a kid (about once a year), so I felt that I lost a lot of friends, but in the end it made me appreciate my experiences in different countries even more.
greatest setback...interesting. :) i doubt it can be work/school related. that will only show incompetency. also, everyone goes through those kind of setbacks and overcome them somehow.
i think he was perhaps looking for something where you were connected emotionally and it challenged you immensely. could be a personal loss in the family, illness or a significant economic hardship that came out of the blue. but got to be a solid story and what you learned from that and how it changed the course of your life etc. i was suggested this by a Goldman VP.
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