The world is changing so fast and one must learn to adapt, most of the organization looks for the candidates when needed they can change their work environment, tools or way of working as per the demand. Therefore, interviewers, these days make sure to ask you some adaptability interview questions and in this article, we will share how to answer them.
Interview questions for adaptability can be tricky and sometimes based on the question it is hard to demonstrate your skills, but as we say practice makes a man perfect thus with the right preparation we can showcase our skills and also share examples of adaptability. Whether you are an interviewer or a candidate for a job interview both can benefit from this article.
Employees who are ready for change and adapt to changes grow themselves by learning new skills and also help the company to grow. These employees stay calm in difficult situations and always ready to learn new tools and technique which let them provide solutions. They are always a team player, accept new team members, and support them to grow.
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Adaptability Interview Questions
How you will respond to a situation where you were asked to do something that you have never done before?
This interview question is asked to check if you are willing to take up new tasks which may require learning and you need to answer this question by sharing your experience from the previous job where you have handled this situation with star technique, to describe the whole situation, explain the task, action done by you, result achieved from it.
You can also share this strategy
- Don’t sit and share excuses.
- Firstly you should understand the task.
- You can take help from the internet about what is required to be done. Google It.
- Get help from other colleagues or mentors.
- Try your best to deliver it even it is not perfect.
- Be upfront and tell your manager that you are doing it the first time.
- Learn more so this situation may not occur in the future.
What is the biggest challenge you faced after joining your last company?
This is the right question to show your positive approach to problem-solving skills and you need to show your proactiveness and being competent for that particular challenge. Share your challenging work environment and you have put everything to meet the deadlines for the project. Focus on the actions you did to overcome the challenge.
Example- I was new to the IT industry and was not having experience in every software, so I have studied, attended training, put weekends to understand everything it took me long but it was worth it and this helped me to understand and deliver the client requirements.
Tell me about where you have to adjust to the different working styles of your colleague to complete the project deadlines?
You can answer this question which a strategy that you took to deal with this kind of situation.
- Understand the role of colleagues in the project.
- Talk to them and know their approach in delivering the project.
- Accept the difference in approach.
- Discover common ground.
- Shift your point of view.
- Get help from other co-workers to adapt the working style.
- Communicate with your colleague face to face.
- Move out from your comfort zone and try to adapt to it.
How will you approach the situation when you have to learn new software at work? How much time did it take you to fully understand and work on the software?
Learning new things is good for your career and the company also, you can answer these questions with following steps which you followed to learn new software.
- You have an open mind to the new software.
- Get help from others and trainers.
- Give up some of the existing activities.
- Focus on the new software and tasks related to it.
- Practice with the new software.
- Have fun while learning.
- Don’t give up.
Rest you can share the time you took to understand the whole software.
Did you ever face such a situation that you were working on a project for some time and overnight your project manager tell you that client have to change the whole requirement for the project?
Answer this honestly and share your experience.
Example: You had some discussion with the project manager and you understood the changed requirements and the business need for it, stayed calm and patient in that situation. Accepted the changed requirement and developed the new plan, deadlines, shared the risk associated with it, and made sure that this is the final requirement.
You did not get demotivated but instead analyzed the previous work done, so it can be reused.
You are finishing for the day and at the same time there is an issue that happened in production which impacted the whole company and you were requested to work on the bug, how you will handle this situation?
It depends on the date that If you can stay to fix the bug and how long you can stay. If you cannot stay then propose an alternative solution (another resource who can fix it) and share why you cannot stay.
How you will adapt if you are assigned to a new project?
It will be best to first ask few questions from the project manager.
- What are the goals of the project?
- What are the key dates for the project?
- What is my role in the project?
- Who is the other stakeholder involved in the project?
Now to start a new project you need to
- Cover basic details in the project.
- Define your goals
- Define your work
- Identify other team members.
- Develop the plan and make your deadlines reasonable.
- Delegate smartly some work if needed.
- Monitor your activities.
- Communicate with the whole team.
How you will adjust to changes in work which you don’t have control over?
Sample Answer: As I am a new joiner and I understand that changes are part of every organization for the betterment and I will try my best to accept it. Once it happened that I was asked to change my report and to add more details overnight, as we have to present it to the client, I revalidated the whole report and accept the necessary change.
To be even better prepared for your interview, check our other articles: Tell me about yourself in an interview and illegal interview questions and how to handle them.
Have you ever been frustrated by a change?
Don’t be afraid to admit that it happened to you, big changes are often difficult and they can cause in beginning frustration, denial. We need proper communication on details of the change so everyone can understand and accept it.
How would you readjust your day schedule if the manager asks you to provide a report in the next one hour?
You will recheck all the tasks and their priority with delivery date and if some of the tasks are low priority and you have weeks to deliver them then you will move them to another day. Also if there was some meeting scheduled you to need to inform them and change the date/time.
If you are unable to adjust your schedule then be upfront and communicate with your manager about it and ask the manager to help you to reprioritize your activities.
How you balance quality and efficiency in work?
It depends on the project or a task, it is better to deliver small pieces of work but regularly, even if they are not perfect.
How to explain to the end-user/ customer that what he is asking for cannot be delivered?
To explain to the customer that the requirement cannot be delivered you need to have justification and which can be a tool constraint or the deadlines for the project is impossible to meet or it can be budget allocated for this project is not sufficient.
Describe a situation in your career where you have to adopt new ways of working, new system, new technology, new management and you have to stop doing the work old ways?
You can answer this if you have some experience in it but as an example, we can share our experience. Our company was working on the BMC remedy tool and then it was decided that we need to switch to ServiceNow as our ticketing tool and thus we have to learn and hands-on experience to start working on it. I was lucky that our company started training resourcing in the tool and completed some basic certification to evaluate myself.
It was tough but to migrate the whole process flows and data but in the end, it was worth it to spent time to learn it and developed skills on it. The tool was very much user-friendly and a lot of work which we were doing manually like some reporting etc was automated this with this new ServiceNow tool we were more productive and the outcome of the situation that changes are good if you are open and ready to move on.
Share some experiences where you need to change in life and how did you adapt to it and executed it?
You can answer based on your experience but as an example let me share an experience, there was a project which I have delivered and the customer asked me to come onsite to a different country as that time I was not prepared and was having many questions about my career and lifestyle but I took courage and accepted the offer and because of that I got firsthand experience in living in a new country and make new friend, learned a new culture, traveled many places.
How I adapt to this new situation, so before coming to this new country I researched about the place and some basic words which will help me to get through, then while working I make some friends which helped me to learn more about culture and slowly and steady I adapted this change in my life.
You can also check our free guide How to prepare for the first job interview Tips & Checklist.
For more read this importance of adaptability
Please share your experiences and how you have answered these kinds of questions in your job interview.