day 5
prompt type | behavioral | negative
Think about the time you disagreed with your boss. What was it and why? Did you speak up? What did you learn from it?
why | communication & ownership
Theoretically managers do not want “Yes” men. If you start with that assumption, this question is about how you communicate when you’re in a tough situation. The more senior you are, the more this indicates how you might communicate with executives.
Typically, you should be talking to your manager about a space you own, so speaking up shows that you really are owning your space.
hint | practice early and often
Unfortunately, we have to pretend we’ve had great managers at every job, even though we know roughly 82% of managers are deemed to be horrible. Particularly in tech, you can end up with a new manager or somebody who is incentivized to impress, but not to actually do the work.
You need to practice your story without blurting out all the things that frustrated you about the situation. Unfortunately, most people who pass this test are actually making up stories (or part of their story) and they’ve just practiced them until they believe them. Most of us can go by the 80/20 rule and have at least one experience, but there are plenty of people out there who haven’t had an opportunity because speaking up means getting fired, no matter how eloquentlyyou speak up.
other prompts | similar | related
Tell me about a time you had a disagreement with a cross-functional partner.
