The most widely asked job interview questions include ‘how do you handle a difficult situation?‘ and the ‘how do you handle stress?
Employers, as well as reviewing industry related knowledge and experience, also check applicants temperament and qualities during the interview process.
As well as being asked for high stressed job roles, the stress question is common across most job sectors. Therefore, it is important for all interviewees, no matter their job level, to prepare for the ‘stress’ question.
This article will to teach you how to answer the job interview question: ‘how do you handle stress?’
The ‘stress’ interview question come in different forms:
- ‘Tell me about a time a project or task made you stressed ?’
- ‘If X stressful situation happened, what would you do?’
- ‘How do you plan your workload when you have several high important projects with similar deadlines?’
What is important, when answering an interview question on stress, is to cover three key aspects:
- Pre-planning
- Organisation
- Emotional Intelligence
The mistake, that many applicants make, is to discuss how stressed they become in certain situations:
- ‘Managing multiple projects at the same time is very stressful’
- ‘Deadlines make it hard for me to sleep at night’
- ‘I often worry when I am behind on my targets’
The admission of situational stress can give an employer concerns. ‘Behavioral interview questions‘ which is the format the ‘stress’ question comes in, look at past actions to determine future situations.
If an applicant admits to becoming stressed in an environment that will be required in the new job role, it is unlikely that the recruiting manager will want to offer the job role to the interviewee.
A good way to reframe the stress question is to generalise the reason why career professionals can become stressed.
The interview answer should start with an ambiguous statement to creates the authenticity of a specific answer:
‘Stress comes from a lack of planning. An example of this is when a (job role) doesn’t plan for (situation)…’
This example highlight industry related stressful situations without stating how the applicant themselves have been previously stressed.
The second step to answering the stress question is for the candidate to showcase their proactiveness.
‘…When I know about (a new contract, upcoming deadlines, busy periods of the year, etc) I pro-actively plan to ensure that tasks are achieved without becoming stressed. As an example (discuss a planning or time management model or give a real-life example)..’
Next explain why an organised approach reduces stress. There are many approaches to this section of the answer. The key is to pick an explanation to will resonate with the employer.
Interviewees can embed any of the following suggestions into their reply.
- Use of GANNT charts
- Delegating tasks
- Diary management
- Collaboration with stakeholders
- Taking the lead of a team/project
‘…this organised approach I take, reduces stress, not just for me but for the whole team. Even when a unknown or unplanned for event happens I am to calmly organise what is needed to overcome any problem, compared to stressfully charging in without any planning which often leads to an increase in stress and errors. The tools I use include (add tool/technique)…’
The final section of the answer is for the candidate to focus on the answer on their emotional intelligence and how they can recognize the signs of stress:
‘…The key to handling stress, apart from being well-organised is to be aware of the signs of stress. Most people ignore these and only react once they are fully stressed. A better solution is to be aware of stress indicators and then do something to relieve stress. for me, my indicators are (headaches, not sleeping, procrastination, etc) when I feel this I (solution – run, mindfulness, meditation).’
