Answering "Tell Me About A Time You Failed" | Big Interview Resources (2023)

As part of our continuing series on answering the most common behavioral interview questions, today we will discuss how to answer interview questions such as “Tell me about a time you failed,” “Tell me about a time you made a mistake,” and “What is your biggest failure?”

Tell Me About a Time You Failed

What’s the toughest behavioral interview question of them all? For many, it’s this one: Tell me about a time you failed.

More and more recruiters and hiring managers are including this question in their standard behavioral interviews. Some recruiters will even tell you that this is the most important interview question to ask a candidate.

Obviously, you can’t afford to FAIL to answer this question well. However, experience shows that most candidates are terrible at answering this question.

Why is it so difficult? Typical behavioral interview questions are tricky enough — but the “Tell me about a time you failed” question asks specifically about a negative experience. Negative experiences are tough to talk about in job interviews because your focus is on trying to present yourself in the best possible light.

You want to be candid, but not TOO candid. How do you talk about failure without sabotaging your chance of landing a job offer?

Let’s start by taking a look at what behavioral interview questions are in general first.

NOTE: This is Lesson 10 from the Big Interview training system. Take a quick look here if you want to learn more about it.

Read on for advice on how to prepare for and answer these critical questions about failure.

What Are Behavioral Interview Questions?

Companies ask behavioral interview questions, such as “Tell me about a time when you failed” to learn more about your past job performance. According to studies tracking years of hiring and firing at companies around the world, behavioral interviewing is the most effective way to predict future job performance and pick the right candidates.

Behavioral interview questions tend to begin with “Tell me about a time…” or “Give me an example of…,” such as “Tell me about a time you failed” or “Give me an example of a mistake you made at work.” Each question focuses on a desired competency area such as communication skills, time management, or creativity.

Read our Behavioral Interview Questions 101 Guide for a more detailed overview of behavioral interview questions, how to best prepare for them, and how to best approach them in your interview.

Why Interviewers Ask About Your Biggest Failure

“It’s fine to celebrate success but it is more important to heed the lessons of failure.” — Bill Gates

You might assume that hiring managers ask this question to torture candidates — to dig for any evidence of a flaw, any excuse to reject you. When you look at it this way, it’s no wonder that many candidates freeze up and have trouble coming up with a good example of a failure.

It may reassure you to know that hiring managers don’t expect you to be perfect. They know that everybody fails.

They ask “Tell me about a time you failed” to understand:

• Are you someone who can learn from failure?
• Are you self-aware enough to acknowledge failure and weakness?
• Do you take smart risks?
• How do you view success, failure, and risk in general?

After all, if you’ve never failed, you’ve probably never succeeded on any significant level either.

Prospective employers want to know: Do you know how to fail smart and learn from your mistakes?

The most common phrasing of this question is the simple, “Tell me about a time you failed” or “Tell me about a time you made a mistake.” There are some other variations on this theme as well:

• What’s your greatest professional failure?
• Tell me about a mistake that you made.
• What was your biggest mistake and what did you learn from it?
• Tell me about a decision that you regret.
• What’s your greatest professional regret?
• Tell me about your biggest failure.

How NOT to AnswerBehavioral Questions About Failure

The most common mistake when an interviewer asks “Tell me about a time you failed” or “What is your biggest failure?” is to NOT answer the question. It is understandable why a candidate might freeze up if asked about failure. If you haven’t prepared to address this topic, it can be daunting to try to instantly think of a good example and then describe it in a diplomatic way that shows you are both honest and a smart hire.

Many candidates will “um” and “uh” for a while and finally say something like: “Well, I can’t think of any serious failures. I guess I’ve been fortunate to be pretty successful in most of my positions so far…”

That might seem like a safe way to answer. However, from the interviewer’s perspective, you’re not answering the question at all.

This non-answer will be interpreted in one (or more) of four ways:

1. You think you are perfect and thus have no self-awareness or ability to grow.
2. You’re hiding a history of tragic failures that you don’t want them to know about.
3. You don’t hold yourself to a very high standard, so you never fail.
4. You always play it safe and never take any risks or make any bold moves.

None of these interpretations are particularly flattering.

The other common way to mess up this question is to blurt out something without thinking it through. Some candidates get flustered and put their foot in their mouth. They share something that makes them look bad.

Watch this brief video to learn a little more about Big Interview.

How to Answer “Tell Me About a Time You Failed” and Similar Behavioral Questions About Failure

We strongly recommend that every job candidate prepare a story for the “Tell me about a time you failed” interview question. As we’ve mentioned earlier, this question has become extremely common, and according to our corporate clients, it is very effective in separating the B.S. artists from the solid candidates.

It’s also a question that can really bite you if you mess it up. Maybe you’ll get lucky and your interviewers will stick to questions you’ve prepared well for. However, it is always better to be prepared for every kind of question.

As usual, when it comes to preparing for behavioral questions, I encourage you to use the STAR approach to behavioral questions to prepare your failure story.

With the STAR framework, you simply write down a few bullet points for each of the key aspects of your story (Situation/Task, Approach, and Results). This method allows you to hit all of your key points while keeping your answer concise (this is very hard to do without focused preparation).

Note: Big Interview has step-by-step instructions for creating powerful STAR stories — and our Answer Builder tool will walk you through the process quickly and easily. Learn more.

How to Pick a Good Failure Story

Before you jump into the STAR format, you must choose the right example to talk about. It is very important to select a failure example that will serve you well in job interviews.

Everybody fails — in big and small ways. The tricky part is to craft a failure example that highlights your strengths and smarts.

Here are some guidelines for selecting the right example:

1. Choose a real failure. You must answer the question. Don’t go with something like: “We only improved sales by 35%, but I wanted to do more, so I felt like a failure. I guess I’m just a perfectionist.” (insert a humblebrag shrug)
2. Don’t raise red flags. At the same time, you don’t have to confess your deepest and darkest secrets. Don’t choose a failure that was the result of a serious personal mistake (totally forgot to attend the meeting) or character flaw (probably shouldn’t have called the client “Sweetcheeks”). A team failure can work well because you share responsibility with others (just make sure you acknowledge your role and don’t try to pass the buck completely)
3. Focus on learning. Pick a story that ends with a compelling example of a lesson learned. Ideally, you should be able to point to applying your hard-won knowledge/skills successfully on a subsequent project. (Read our sample answers below for inspiration).

“Tell Me About Your Biggest Professional Failure.” – Sample Answer

The sample answer below uses the STAR format to tell a failure story. You’ll notice that this example is more scripted than your own STAR bullet points will be. We took this approach to try to illustrate how the answers might sound in an interview.

When preparing your own STAR stories, there’s no need to write full sentences with detailed transitions. You can just write down rough bullet points to create a framework — your delivery should be a little bit different each time.

Don’t Forget to Practice

If you’re a regular reader, you know how much we emphasize practice. Just like for any other interview questions, practicing your answers to behavioral interview questions like “Tell me about a time you failed” or “What is your biggest failure?” will not only leave you well-prepared, but also alleviate the nerves and tackle the question with confidence.

We know interview practice may not be exciting, but it is incredibly effective. We have seen the difference that practice had makes for thousands of job seekers, especially when it comes to answering difficult behavioral questions (including questions about failures).

The truth is undeniable: candidates who prepare and practice land more job offers. To paraphrase the old saying: Don’t fail to prepare, prepare to discuss your failure.

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