Have you ever had a problem with your manager ?



  • Alternately, the interviewer may also ask about a problem with your boss, manager, subordinate, or customer.

Reason for asking this question:

  • This question is not to get gossip or interfere in your personal life, though it may feel like that at times.
  • Instead, the interview wants to see how you deal with conflict, and how adept is you at handling a difficult situation.

The way in which we should not answer this question:

  • Your answer should not reveal that you left your previous job because you did not get along with your peers, or boss, manager, subordinate, customer, etc.
  • This conveys them that you cannot handle these types of situations like an adult and may be the right way to deal with a situation, an interview is not the place to discuss this.

The way in which we should answer this question:

  • This question can answered in such a way that you never had a problem with your peer.
  • Your peers are basically people with whom you have been forced to work with, so there are bound to be disagreements, or problems.
  • Give a real example of a situation where you and a colleague disagreed about something, but you didn’t let that affect your working situation.

Sample answers:

  • Yes, it happened once. I was quite friendly with a colleague of mine from the other department. While talking to him during the lunch hour, I casually told him about the new marketing strategy that the marketing team was thinking about. He mentioned it to his boss and that caused a lot of confusion between the two departments. This taught me a lesson that you must not discuss any departmental strategies with anyone from other department unless you have been authorised by your boss.
  • When you are working with someone in a stressful environment, problems are likely to arise. However, it is up to us not to let these smaller problems grow and make things difficult in the workplace. I remember this one time when a couple of colleagues and I went out after work for a few drinks. Things were going well, small talk and all; however, suddenly the topic directed towards politics. Disagreements were bound to happen. Things were said. The next day at work, the situation continued to be tense. After a couple of days, I realized that things cannot continue this way. I asked them to meet and me and told them that even though I might disagree with their politics, I had nothing against them as people. In fact, I even liked them, which is why we were hanging out after work in the first place. They all agreed as well. Even though things were still tense, our discussion allowed us to openly talk about the situation, and over the next couple of days things became cordial once again.

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