Every once in a while there is an individual on your staff that you think you can do everything, and on event you offer them too much to do. In few cases, it might be because you misjudged the amount of work, but many times it is because you depend on them to be the rockstar of your group, and find yourself overestimating the rate of work they can complete because you consider that they can manage it.

Behavioral Interview Query: Provide me an instance of a time where you delegated so much work or duty to a member of your team who was not capable to complete the activity. How did you handle this?

There are some keys to success with this response:

• It is never the employee’s mistake (this is implied by the query).
• You’ve to have learned something, so notice that what went wrong.
• In ideal case, the project requires to be completed effectively.

The query implies, rightfully, that this was a case where you made a judgment mistake. It is made to unveil if you are self aware enough to be capable to accept you were wrong and learn from the experience. So make certain that you admit some degree of blame, and then point out on what you did to resolute it. If this condition has never happened to you, briefly explain some ways that you could consider this occurring and then follow up with what you would do.

Sample Answer

“Yes, this has happened to me. Few times, I have felt myself getting too excited about the capabilities of a single member and depending on them too mostly, particularly without remembering that they have other roles in the industry too. One time this happened on 1 of our engineering tasks, where I had one worker completing a high number of activities as she was one of very few workers experienced enough to handle all the different activities.  

She really never told me she was overworked. I pointed out it myself when she began to become easily flustered, and I identified something was wrong. I brought it up to her and she accepted she was working on various projects. I still required her help, so what I did was I involved a few other staff members and had them take over few of the easier more menial activities for her, since they had more time. Then for future tasks, I made certain that I created a list of group strengths and had them daily update the document with their present projects, so in the future when delegating I knew in advance who had not merely the key qualities but the time available.”

For employers, this response is very significant; as overworked workers are most likely to quit which costs them company much money in the long run. So an answer that discusses about fairness and pointing out which workers are stressed is a desirable 1 that indicates good trouble shooting qualities as well.