Discuss about a time when you worked with a colleague who was not doing their share of work. How did you manage it?

Most of us have at one time or another found ourselves implementing and doing more than our fair share of work to make up for the less than astonishing effort put in by one of our colleagues. It is a general issue in most work atmospheres and that is why the query above is a Common Behavioral Interview Query many interviewers inquire.

In order to formulate a good response to this query, you have to first think exactly what this query is NOT about.

• It is not a chance to say anything negative about the slacker.
• It is not a chance to laugh at how much better you were.
• It is not a chance to vent that you did not get credit.

In fact, this is clearly a query about your capability to issue solve. There are three types of issue solvers and the interviewer desires to assure themselves that you can be all three types when required. Most people mistake this query as the interviewer testing to analyze if you are a hard worker. But this query is more about conflict resolution. What did you do to manage it? Did you cry in front of your boss or did you discuss to the employee?

It can be very hard to answer this query. A simple answer is the following:

“I discussed my uncertainties to our mutual supervisor, but honestly I was conveniently fine helping them with their work. You never know what may be going on in someone’s life, and I did not find the additional work overwhelming, so while I did let our supervisor know that I figured out one of my colleagues found to be distracted at work, I did not push the problem because I was still completely capable of managing their workload and my own.”

This is issue solving. You highlighted your uncertainties, but you also completed the work yourself.  You demonstrated compassion to colleague, but you did not mention anything negative about them other than they were distracted. It is a simple response that works well.

If you did deal the problem straightly, then share that story. Talk about:

• How you dealt it with the employee.
• How they took it.
• What steps did you take next.

Just make certain that you do not make it sound like you were trying to get the colleague in trouble. Be forgiving of your colleague’s issues, and concentrate solely on trying to be an issue solver, not an issue creator.