Name: "Describe A Time When You Solved A Difficult Problem" INTERVIEW QUESTION
Uploaded: 2020-03-25T18:35:12.000Z
Duration: 7 min 49 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

Hi there everybody, and welcome to this video tutorial which is about the interview question:

"Describe a time when you have solved a difficult problem?"

To-infinitive

Now, this is a tough interview question to answer.

In this tutorial, I am going to give you some fantastic tips and some sample answers you

That's me there on the right-hand side. My name is Richard McMunn and I have been helping

people like you for about 20 years now to pass interviews.

I have been very successful at it, so please take the time to watch this video.

I am also going to give you the slides to this tutorial so you can download them for

free and then you can use them during your preparation for your interview.

So, like I say, we are going to focus specifically on the interview question:"Describe a time

when you have solved a difficult problem or a difficult sitution?"

So, I am going to give you the slides to download as I say.

I would very much appreciate it if you SUBSCRIBE to the channel because then you'll get notified

as soon as I create other videos and also if you like the content please give the video

a thumbs up because that will motivate me to do more.

OK, let me give you a couple of tips before we get into the sample responses.

4 really important tips for answering this particular interview question, Describe a

time when you solved a difficult problem?

Number 1 - make sure you are specific in your response!

What I mean by that, is many people will tell the interview panel what they would do if

But you have to tell the panel what you have done.

You have to give them an actual situation, and I am going to give you two suggestions

Now, when responding use the STAR technique - I am going to explain quickly what that

But this will make sure you're specific in your response and that you cover all of the

angles required to get the TOP MARKS necessary.

So, what I mean by that, when you are giving them a specific response to this question,

Now it might be a time factor, it might be an aggravating factor.

I will give you a couple of examples in a second of what Imean by this.

But, that basically puts pressure on you, and you manage to solve the problem.

Also, demonstrate in your response and your answer, that you are capable of working on

So, this question is designed to find people who can solve problems themselves.

That they don't have to go and find their boss or their manager to ask them what to

OK, so the STAR technique that you're going to use when responding to this question - first

So, it's SITUATION, TASK, ACTION, RESULT.

Explain to the panel what the situation was, then move on and tell the TASK.

So, this means you need to explain what the task was, actually what needed to be done.

Then, explain what ACTION you took and then tell the interview panel what the result was.

So, you explain to them what the result was following your action and here is a good tip:

make sure the RESULT, the end result, is positive.

So, always remember that when answering this kind of interview question.

It's a situational or behavioural types interview question.

So, follow the situation, task action, result and you won't go far wrong.

OK, sample answer number 1to the interview question: Describe a time when you solved

This is the first one of two, and like Isay, you are going to get these slides to download

Here we go: "In my current job I work as a customer service assistant in a builder’s

merchants store and part of my role is to take payments for customers using our online

One busy Friday afternoon, I was working in the store alone as my manager had taken a

All of a sudden, the in-store payment system went down whilst I had a queue of five people

It was clear they all needed to pay for their goods in order to get their jobs completed

I decided to remain calm and use my initiative to solve the problem.

To begin with, I communicated with all of the customers the issue I was experiencing,

and I reassured them I would resolve the issue as soon as possible.

To begin with, I asked if anyone had cash they could use to pay for their goods.

Two people were willing to pay by cash, so this then reduced the other three customers’

I then decided to telephone the online payment system provider to make sure they were actually

As it transpired, they had a serious problem their end and they informed me it would be

at least an hour before the system was back up and running.

I then relayed this information to the customers.

In order to resolve the issue, I quickly set up company credit accounts for the rest of

the customers which would mean they would get invoiced the following week.

They could then either settle their bills online or come into the store once the payment

By remaining calm and using my initiative, I was able to solve the issue without calling

I feel strongly that I can be relied upon to resolve problems on my own whenever they

So, that's a detailed, in-depth response and it follows Situation, Task, Action and Result.

Now you can use that kind of situation; I've mentioned Builder's Merchants but you can

apply that to kind of situation if you are working for someone where you have to take

payments either over the phone, or in-store.

OK, sample answer number 2 to the interview question: Describe a time when you solved

Here we go: “Whilst at work, it became apparent that two work colleagues were not getting

I could overhear them being disrespectful towards each other and rumours in the office

I felt someone needed to work towards resolving this issue, as the situation could have a

negative impact on the team and the organisation as a whole.

I decided to speak to each person individually, in private, to first of all express my concerns,