A general interview question: how do I answer to experiences I never really had?

[Rvting]

A few times I have been asked these kind of questions through school or interviews. Questions like "name a time where you had to do X" and usually I either never really feel like I had that kind of experience or the experience I had was very bland.

I feel like these questions are really bad because character development isn't like in the movies or tv shows where the main character needs one or two big moment(s) to open their mind, or one doesn't need the experience as their character may already honed in some manner; such as "name an experience that lead you to be X", and I'm just like " I just am X naturally". I see it far more as a long process that I can't just say as a single event or a small period.

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[Mr.Smile12]

It is hard to generalize for every possible X. Do you have examples?

It is a measure of your maturity and self-reflection. Behavioral questions are par for the course. Practice, practice, practice.

 

[Rvting]

like "consider a time when you learned to be open minded" or "Name a time when you had to do something you didn't want to do"

Yeah, I have had plenty of situations to answer these but they seem so uninspiring to answer. For the first prompt: In all honesty, I tend to hear people out before I rush to assumptions and even when I disagree I consider steelman-ing the idea/argument to understand where a person is coming from. I just don't really make a mental note of these events and just go on with my day. For the second prompt: something like this was asked on Altus Suite and the first thing that came off the top of head was participating in carrying a distant relative's (whom I didn't know and never met) coffin at their funeral. I mentioned it because it seemed to have been the only real note worthy thing to do other than being peer pressured into doing sibling chores.

These kind of questions I find to be very broad in nature and I don't think a single event can really attribute to a character trait or proper reflection. My problem is when I am asked a question like this how do I answer if I can't think of a single time throughout my life, off the top of my head, to give?

 

[Mr.Smile12]

Yes, they are very broad questions, but they do reveal a level of self-reflection which you may not have done but will likely do once you are in training. I wouldn't worry at first about how mundane the answers seem to be. Just answer the question to show you have understood the prompt and provide an answer you felt would be appropriate to answer.

I'm guessing as a young adult you had several opportunities to avoid "must do" tasks even if you knew it was something you needed to do. Something as mundane as cleaning dishes over doing something fun. It can be from a time when you were a child.

 

[Patrick Miller]

It is a difficult question to answer, as it can be hard to talk about experiences you have never had. However, there are a few ways that you can approach this question. One way to answer this question is to talk about what you would do in the situation that you are asked. For example, if you are asked how you would handle a demanding customer, you could talk about the steps you would take to diffuse the situation and make the customer happy.

Yours truly,

Patrick of West Mill Smiles