Answers to the Main Questions / Prepare for an interview

How do you answer “Tell me about a failure or mistake”?

InsightGuidanceAI amplification

Insight

Pick a real, recoverable failure you owned, what you changed, and later evidence of the change. Do not blame the team. Do not pick a trivial miss. Do not pick a failure that is disqualifying for this role. Use STAR+LAI. About 2–3 minutes.

Guidance

  1. State what went wrong and your part in it, without a long defense.
  2. Lesson and what you changed must be specific (“I was more careful” is not enough).
  3. If you have a later example where the new approach worked, include it as Impact.

AI amplification

Optional. Copy this into ChatGPT or a similar tool if you want a first draft. Replace the [PASTE] sections with your own material. The work stays in that tool; we do not save it here.

Prompt to copy

Rules: Do not invent employers, job titles, dates, metrics, team sizes, or outcomes. If something is missing, ask me or write [unknown]. Keep hedges such as "approximately" and "more than" exactly as I stated them. Never turn a qualitative result into a number.

Write this failure as STAR+LAI, 2–3 minutes spoken. I own my part. Do not make others the villain. Do not invent a later success.

Incident:
[PASTE]

Role (optional, so we avoid a disqualifying story):
[PASTE]

All answers · Glossary