Answering "Tell Me About a Time You Failed" - With Sample Answers

"Tell me about a time you failed..."

As soon as you hear this overthinking kicks in.

You might scratch your head thinking uhhh...have I ever actually failed at anything? Should I pretend I'm flawless? Will they see right through that?

Now let me back up - it's perfectly natural to freeze up when asked this. 7 in 10 candidates report drawing a blank.

You might be wondering - Why do interviewers want to know about failures and vulnerabilities anyway? 🤔

And you might start rambling excuses like: 

"Well I'm a huge perfectionist so I don't really fail..."

"Honestly, I can't recall any major mess-ups..."

"I mean little things happen now and then to everyone but..."

Here’s the truth. We ask because how you frame failures reveals a lot about your character.

We're interested in the lessons learned, not the failures themselves.

So where do we start unpacking it all?

The key is to understand:

• What do interviewers want to hear,
• What kind of failure story to pick,
• How to best frame a response using proven answering structures and
• What not to say?

So, let’s start! 👇

Why do interviewers ask this question?

Interviewers ask about times you’ve failed to see what kind of person you are deep down.

👉 How do you handle tough situations?

👉 Do you make excuses or do you take responsibility for mistakes?

They want to get a sense of the real you.

Here are the key things interviewers trying to understand about you when they ask this question: 👇

• Accountability - Do you own up to and face mistakes rather than blaming others? People will appreciate your honesty.

• Mindset - How you view failures matters more than the failure itself. Being positive and resilient even when things get difficult is a great quality.

• Learning - Smart people see every less-than-perfect result as a chance to grow rather than feel ashamed. Interviewers want to know you can reflect on experiences.

• Critical Thinking - How you analyse why something went wrong shows your judgement skills. Understanding all the pieces of a problem is important.

• Maturity - Staying calm and professional even in disappointing moments shows wisdom. It's a great skill to have.

So don't feel nervous if asked about a time you failed.

See it as a chance to show who you are as a person - your character strengths, thinking abilities, and willingness to keep learning.

Interviewers aren't expecting perfection.

What kind of failure point to choose?

Don’t stress too much about which failure story to share. You’re the one in control and defining your failure.

Here are tips on finding a good example: 👇

• Recent situations from college or a job are best.
• Be honest but avoid very personal stuff - like fights with friends. Focus more on not meeting the expectations you had for yourself.
• Define failure broadly – it could be not hitting a project deadline you were striving for despite hard work. It’s not always huge mistakes.
• Find an example where nobody got badly hurt or was put in danger as a result. Safety first!
• Pick a failure that taught you something or changed your behaviour.
• Be ready to share 1-2 key lessons you learned and how they made you better. That’s the heart of this question.

4 Steps to structure your responses (With sample answers + Answer template)

Honestly, talking openly about our less awesome moments can feel uncomfortable!

Once you’ve decided on a story, using a little "structure" will help it flow better and you won’t get tongue-tied.

The best structure is the recruiter's favourite - the STAR method.

It is a simple 4-step framework to plan responses:

1. Situation: Set the scene briefly
2. Task: Explain your role
3. Action: Be honest and share your mistakes
4. Result: Focus on lessons learned

This method helps highlight our strengths while giving context around the failure.

Here’s an in-depth guide if you’d like to read more about the STAR interview method.

Here are some sample answers using STAR method:

🌟 Example 1:

Situation: During my summer internship, I volunteered to take the lead on organising the team activity calendar.

Task: It was my job to schedule team-building events and make sure I wasn't overlapping with any major meetings or deadlines.

Action: Unfortunately, I did not double-check all sources and ended up picking a day that conflicted with an all-day workshop many people had to attend.

Result: Now before setting any big plans in motion, I make sure to coordinate carefully across multiple teammate calendars and our team project management to prevent conflicts.

🌟 Example 2

Situation: Last year while working to update an existing design model, I ran into problems when the prototype errors caused delays.

Task: I needed to expand the model to simulate more functions, allowing review of options before production. My goal was to broaden what we could test.

Action: I focused on adding new code quickly without step-by-step checks. This resulted in crashes when the interactions failed.

Result: Looking back, I realised you just can't skip steps to speed things up without small checks on stability.

Now I always build in extra review points, even if I feel hurried and advise the same.

🌟 Example 3

Situation: When I led my first big product beta launch, I was eager to deliver what I assumed were the features users wanted. Looking back, my solution missed solving some core needs real prospective customers had talked about.

Task: As a product manager, I had to interview a diverse user panel to understand what features would actually help our target audience.

Action: But in my enthusiasm to push the product out quickly, I didn't interview enough real prospective customers and failed many assumptions.

Result: Now when scoping any new concepts, structured user research panels are step one before I dive into any prototyping or strategy framing.

It grounds my perspective on how target users think about managing the needs my solutions aim to address.

Just taking that extra care to gather external insights has led to way higher alignment in both internal teams and customer satisfaction metrics when releases do go live.

Huge lesson - and well worth the patience to not race too far ahead of the voice of the customer!

*Note: These are just sample answers. The answers will be comprehensive depending on your situation. 

On that note, here's an Answer Template to save and structure your own responses:

When I was working on [SITUATION], I strived to achieve [TASK]. In my eagerness to deliver results quickly, I [ACTION]. This resulted in [NEGATIVE OUTCOME].

Reflecting on what created that setback, I realised [NEW PERSPECTIVE]. The experience taught me just how crucial [KEY LEARNING] is to prevent oversights going forward.

Now whenever I approach [SIMILAR WORK], I make sure to [CHANGED BEHAVIOR] early on. [POSITIVE RESULT] since adopting that lesson on [RELEVANT IMPACT METRIC].

How not to answer this question?

More than negative, discussing your failures should have a positive impact on your character. Hence avoid answers that might leave a bad impression.

Here are some tips on what not to do when sharing a failure: 👇

📌 Don't make excuses -

Admit honestly what you did or didn't do to cause things to go wrong. Explain respectfully without blaming others.

❌"I arrived late to that client meeting because the traffic was so heavy and my alarm didn't go off."

✅ "I should have planned for rush hour traffic and set multiple alarms. My lack of preparation led me to be late."

📌 Don't overshare -

While honesty about failures is great, don't discuss sensitive stuff that could get others in trouble or reveal private details about a company.

❌ "I got fired from XYZ Company because I didn't get along with my manager there who had a bad temper."

✅ "My work quality at XYZ Company suffered when communication with my manager broke down."

📌 Don't act defensive -

It's normal to feel disappointed when things go wrong. But getting worked up or negative during the interview won't help. Stay calm.

❌ "The campaign completely failed but it wasn't really my fault since upper management didn't let me make key decisions."

✅ "The campaign did not succeed though I could have addressed concerns more professionally vs getting emotional."

📌 Don't ramble -

Failing at something can be complicated, but don't go on and on. Share key details but focus more on what you learned.

📌 Don't fake perfection -

“I honestly can't think of a time I've failed at anything,” trust me you’re not fooling anyone with this.

Everyone makes mistakes - that's just being human! Interviewers aren't expecting you to never fail at anything.

The tone you use matters more than the actual failure you discuss.

Be mature in how you talk about the situation and what you took away from it. That will leave interviewers with a positive impression of you!

Wrapping it Up

100% perfect is impossible, and that’s perfectly ok! Because the beauty lies in self-awareness to course correct. 🌻

If you want to take your STAR responses to the next level, I encourage grabbing a friendly mentor who can offer warm feedback through practice rounds.

Check out these top HR and Behavioural mentors who can help you clear the behavioural rounds like a pro. 👇

Also read:

How to answer "What are your salary expectations?" (With Scripts)