A question commonly asked in interviews is some version of “tell me about a time you had conflict at work?” While this question is focusing on past conflicts, it doesn’t need to cause a current internal one. Instead of bad mouthing old colleagues or dodging the answer, the right preparation and strategies can be an opportunity to show the skills you can bring to the employer's team if they were to hire you!
Why do interviewers ask this question?
Interviews ask this question in order to learn more about an interviewees soft skills. How a graduate answers this question can be an insight into their personality and interpersonal skills. Soft skills are important to have in the workplace because it means you’re more likely to work better in a team.
The interviewer also is using a behavioural interview question style when asking about your past experiences. Their aim is to see how you reacted to past situations as a way of understanding how you may react in similar situations in the future. Questions in this style are absolutely something you can prepare for - they’re all about you - so you’re able to structure your response in a way that shows your soft skills and how you’ve grown as a result of the experience.
How to use the STAR method to answer this question?
The STAR method is a great way to structure responses to behavioural interview questions because it highlights the example situation in your answer, how you responded to it, and what the outcome of that action was. STAR stands for:
- Situation: describe the conflict you’re referencing in your answer.
- Task: explain what your role in the situation was.
- Action: describe what you did to resolve the conflict, emphasising soft skills you used.
- Result: explain what the outcome of your action was in the conflict, how effective it was, and what you learned from it.
What skills should you focus on in your answer?
Answering this question is a great opportunity to show to the interviewer your soft skills when resolving workplace conflict. This is important because interpersonal skills are key to working well in a team environment (which is likely the surroundings you’ll be in as a recent graduate). While not an exhaustive list, three examples of soft skills you may focus on are below:
Active Listening
Active listening is the skill of not only hearing the words someone says but understanding their verbal and non-verbal body language. An active listener may provide appropriate responses while listening to show they’re following along.
Examples of this skill used when resolving a conflict include engaged body language (for example, facing the other person and nodding as they speak) when talking out a problem and looking at the other person's body language. This is all with the aim of limiting any miscommunication when trying to resolve a conflict.
Empathy
Empathy is the ability to understand and be aware of the emotions of another person. Empathy doesn’t have to mean you relate to their experience, just that you’re sensitive to what they’re feeling and react appropriately.
In conflict resolution empathy might mean being able to understand why someone is upset over a decision when that decision didn’t upset you. It might also look like being able to understand and be sensitive to both sides of a conflict if you’re meditating between two colleagues.
Communication
Communication may seem simple at first, we communicate all the time after all, but it involves verbal and non-verbal communication skills such as speaking and body language. Like a radio tower we’re always communicating to those around us.
An example of communication in conflict resolution can be shown through your reaction to an issue in the workplace. For example, you may have had an unhappy customer at your retail or hospitality job where you used communication, in conjunction with other soft skills, to de-escalate the conflict.
Example Responses
✏️ Example 1
Situation: I was working as a cashier at a fast food company and our ice-cream machine wasn’t working. A customer was frustrated by this saying our machine was always broken. Task: It was my job to serve and help customers get their food and let them know that the machine wasn’t working. My goal was for this customer's experience to be positive to the best of my abilities even though one of our services was down. Action: When the customers responded I maintained friendly body language and explained why myself nor my colleagues weren’t able to fix it without a technician. I also grabbed my manager to help the customer further so I could continue serving as it was very busy. Result: The result was that the customer, while still frustrated, had a better understanding of why it was down and that it wasn’t the staff's incompetence. Communication within the team, and between myself and the customer, made the most out of a bad situation. The customer left with some alternatives we offered. |
✏️ Example 2
Situation: As the captain of my local football team it’s my responsibility to lead them by example. Two of the players were arguing at practice that one wasn’t pulling their weight in the team because they missed practice the week before. Task: It was my job to mediate their conflict and help see them eye to eye. With the game coming up it was important to the team culture and communication that everyone was on the same page. Action: I decided to pull them aside during practice to facilitate each of them talking out their problems. My role was as a silent third party intervening only to encourage constructive communication between the two players. Result: As a result they shook hands at the end of their short conversation and I think by encouraging them to listen to each other's perspectives they were more empathetic of where the other person was coming from. It also helped encourage professional and friendly communication between all members of the team that only helped our teamwork on the field. |