Behavior based interview

[ahill11]

Can you guys answer this question for me

tell me about a time you made a mistake at work

its a behavior based question so they wanna see that your willing to admit to your mistakes corrected it and learned from it

im not saying im perfect but I can't come up with examples

[buderflyz]

Bump..

[llg, PhD, RN]

You mean you have been perfect 100% of the time? That is hard to believe -- and frankly, a sign that you are not being honest with yourself. We all make mistakes, or at least, do things that are less than perfectly. Having the ability to recognize our imperfections, reflect on them, and learn from them is an important skill.

For example, I have been a nurse for 40 years. Yesterday, I taught a class for some new employees at my hospital. Thinking back on it, I can identify things I could have done better. I could/should have been a little more prepared in some ways -- double-checked some of my information to be sure it was up-to-date, made sure the websites that I used were up-to-date, etc. That doesn't mean I did a bad job. Nothing terrible happened. But I could/should have done better -- and the process of reflecting back on our practice and learning from those experiences should be a routine thing we all do on a daily basis. Don't limit your examples to only times when you made a big mistake and something really bad happened. Think about your routine practice and things you could do better.

Discussing my class yesterday in an interview, I could say: "Yesterday I taught a class that involved using a website. I hadn't checked the website recently, and when I opened it, the links I was looking for weren't in the same places that they had been in the past. I was able to find them and everything was OK ... but fumbling around as I looked for those links made me feel unprepared and probably made me look unprepared in the eyes of the students. Next time, I'll be sure to check the websites shortly before class so that I will be aware of any changes to the web page."