Difficult Coworker Interview Question: Describe the most difficult coworker you’ve worked with
Difficult Coworker Interview Question: Describe the most difficult coworker you’ve worked with and how you dealt with him/her. One of the more common behavioral interview questions is “Tell me about a time you were on a team and team member wasn’t pulling his or her weight and how you addressed the situation.” A similar question is “Tell me about a time you had a conflict with a coworker and how you dealt with it.”
Other Similar interview questions:
- Tell me about someone who has been difficult for you to work with in your job.
- What has been the most difficult situation for you to deal with in your current team?
- How well do you work with people who are different from you?
- Give me an example of working with others where you did not agree.
The first thing you need to know about answering either of these questions is your interviewer will severely penalize you if you respond with: “I’ve never had a conflict with a coworker or team member.”
Contents
Why the interviewer is asking this question?
The interviewer is probing both your definition of a difficult coworker as well as how you interacted with that person. This will give the interviewer an indication of how effectively you are able to work with a wide variety of different people.
This can be particularly relevant if they’re interviewing for a role where the potential for conflict is likely, for example, in a complaints department or in fast-paced, high energy workplaces. Prospective employers will ask about your past to ascertain whether you might be able to handle conflict in the future.
How do you answer Tell me about a time you dealt with a difficult coworker?
The best approach to answering this question: This question needs to be answered carefully by thinking in advance not only about the person you would select, but also why you are selecting him/her. The best selection criteria is to avoid making the selection due to who the person is or personality issues, but select based on specific behavioral actions the person has taken, especially if they have a detrimental effect on others in the department or across the organization. Then you need to talk about a specific example or two of how you successfully dealt with that person.
An example of how to best answer this question: “Did you ever have to collaborate with a difficult coworker? How did you manage the situation?”
Correct answer:
When I was working as a real estate agent at Company Y, we were divided into teams, each covering a specific region. My team was amazing, very hard-working people. There was one coworker however, that was becoming a little problematic. He kept taking on responsibilities and agreeing to help others and then… bailing last minute. The final straw was when he agreed to cover for another agent at a property showing and he ended up 30 minutes late! Suffice to say, the client was very angry. I decided to approach him personally instead of calling for a meeting as I didn’t want this to look aggressive on our part.
I explained to him that he shouldn’t take on responsibilities if he is not certain that he can go through with them. He was actually very understanding and apologized for the previous situations. We agreed to keep him on board, but we’d define very specific goals and KPIs to make sure that he improved. This actually ended up working out, and the person became a valuable member of the team.
Incorrect answer:
Yes, as a real estate agent I once had a coworker that kept letting us down with his tasks. He always agreed to help but never came through. It was becoming an issue and affecting our relationship with clients, so I decided to complain to the manager about this. They transferred him over to another team. I hope he did better there.”
How do you handle working with a difficult coworker?
1. Stay true to yourself and your values
What are your goals? What do you want for yourself? What is your purpose? What are you here to do? Figure that out and then try to create a safe space for yourself so that you can be happy no matter what your job is.
2. Set your conversational boundaries
If your coworker doesn’t take the hint about conversational topics that make you uncomfortable, it’s time to say so. Let them know that this is not a comfortable space for you and not a topic you want to indulge in. If they continue to do it, you can be upfront with them. Say, ‘This is not something that I want to do,’ and remove yourself from the situation.
3. Create physical distance
If you work in an office space together, you can try to literally distance yourself from your difficult co-worker. This could mean reworking your office layout so your desk faces a different direction or capitalizing on an opportunity to relocate to an empty cubicle down the hall.
4. Avoid, if you can
When you find yourself in a spot where people are infecting you with cynicism, criticism, gossip or always wanting to be right, try to protect and insulate yourself by refusing to participate. Try to change the subject. Don’t indulge and don’t commiserate with them.
5. Take care of yourself
Build your coping skills by starting a self-care routine that helps you stay in a healthy mental space. The more serene and secure you feel, the better you’ll be able to manage what you’re experiencing at work.
How to also best answer the Difficult Coworker Interview Question for experienced candidates:
In my current role, we have to get our major purchases approved through the Supply Chain team. In the past, this has caused a timing delay for us due to the person in Supply Chain who is assigned to work for our department. So I first of all took time to go to lunch with him, informally asking him about his workload and workflow. As it turns out, he has an ongoing backlog of work of about 2 weeks at any given point, so often requests just literally sit there in the queue waiting for a response.
I was able to work with him to give him a two week advanced notice of an upcoming purchase request so that we could get slotted into the queue in advance. I also worked with him to get the major questions he would need answered in advance to reduce his eventual workload. It requires some advanced planning on our part, yet the net effect is that we have been able to cut our response time from three weeks down to just one week, which makes our entire team more productive and accountable for our delivery timelines…
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