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I had this question come up once this week on a job search, and it stumped me to no end. I had never had it asked of me before, nor do I expect to have it asked again.

Two days later I had the EXACT same question asked of me!

The question went something like this: "tell me about a time when you were forced to make a quick decision without access to all the information necessary, but you had to act quickly." different followup questions included "what would you do differently", "what did you learn from the outcome".

Is this a trap question? Am I required to show them I can be persistent in conducting my investigation to receive all the information? Or do they want to know exactly what the question asked, and how can I properly showoff my adaptation skills?

I do have the interviewing series, just purchased today, but have not gotten to the pertinent episode.

Thank you for your input.

jhack's picture

This is a classic behavioral interview question.

The preparation you do in the interview series will prepare you to answer any variation on these types of questions, as you will be quite familiar with your personal "stories."

John

thaGUma's picture

If I don’t have the info, I make judgement call. Because it is an interview, 99% of judgement calls are correct. “fortunately my gut instinct was correct.” :twisted:
They are looking for strong leadership. Perhaps have one aside “I wish I had asked XYZ, but in reality my decision was made and I was prepared to ride it out.”

asteriskrntt1's picture

Given that no manager EVER has all the information required, they are looking to see how you go about your decision making.

So ask yourself, how do I go about making decisions on how I allocate resources or people or $$$.

The nuts and bolts of it better come down to ... I evaluated the requirements of this project vs my priorities, my bosses priorities etc to make sure they were in line with what we need to do.

After determining that they were in line, I did A, B and C, with the outcome D.

After determining they were NOT in line, I did E, F and G with the outcome H.

*RNTT