Just realized I was making a basic mistake in job interviews for years

So about three years ago, I was interviewing for a project manager role in Austin. I had prepped all the usual stuff, you know, my strengths, my past work. But I kept getting turned down after the final round. Last month, I was having coffee with a friend who hires people, and she asked me to describe a time I failed. I gave some vague answer about a missed deadline. She stopped me and said, 'No, tell me the story. What exactly went wrong, what did you do next, and what would you change?' I mean, I'd never really broken it down like that before. I tried her advice in an interview last week for a new position. I talked about a website launch that went sideways because I didn't check the developer's timeline close enough. I said how I fixed it by setting up daily check-ins, and that I now ask for proof of progress, not just a verbal okay. The hiring manager actually nodded and said that was a solid example. Has anyone else found that being super specific about a failure works better than just listing your wins?

2 comments

2 Comments

nancy_garcia631mo ago

Oh totally, I read an article about that once. It said interviewers don't really care about the failure itself, they want to see how you handle a mess. The whole point is to show you can learn and adapt. Your story about the website launch is perfect because it shows the exact steps you took to fix it. Being vague just makes it sound like you're hiding something or you didn't actually learn from it. That specific fix you mentioned, asking for proof of progress, that's the kind of detail that makes it real.

jordanm191mo ago

Yeah, that article is on the right track, but in my experience they do care about the failure a little. Picking a real, honest mistake shows you're self-aware. If the failure is too small or fake, it can feel like you're just playing the game.