The fact that we have long articles like this on how to game interviews and then interviewers become keen and it becomes a stupid meta back and forth game of cat and mouse. Meanwhile us normal non-career ladder psychopaths want to talk and be treated like regular people.
Every time I’ve been asked about a conflict I’ve had and how I resolved it, I die a little bit inside.
- So, once I interviewed with a company and was asked about a conflict at work.
- The task at hand was to recall (or, for that matter, invent) a situation involving a conflict at work, and convince the interviewer that I handled it with aplomb.
- And so, I proceeded to recalling a situation involving a conflict, explained the Situation to the interviewer in detail, outlined the Tasks I was responsible for, conveyed the Actions I took, and related the Result of my actions.
- Result: I died a little bit inside, but the interviewer was very impressed and offered me a job on the spot.
what's the real expectation for these conflict questions? is it to show that you've encountered it before? that you can manage it? that you're a reasonable person when faced with interpersonal difficulties? that sometimes hard choices have to be made wrt bad actors? that you are some kind of golden Spongebob/Candide that has never experienced being ground up in the gears of office politics?
It depends on the role. IMO the bar is pretty low for many engineering roles. Determining “that you're a reasonable person when faced with interpersonal difficulties” is usually good enough.
Every time I’ve been asked about a conflict I’ve had and how I resolved it, I die a little bit inside.