Entry Level or Junior CRAs: Even if you are fresh out of college you should be able to come up with a scenario to describe your time management and organizational capabilities. Hiring managers will learn a lot just by listening to how you were able to break down that large project into manageable tasks.

It is also important to show how you prioritized those tasks in order to perform the duties needed to meet your timeline.

Experienced CRAs:  Consider discussing how you organize yourself when it comes to being assigned to a new study. In other words, how do you take a large, multi-site study and organize yourself in order to successfully execute your monitoring responsibilities?

Everyone. 

You have forgotten your mother’s (your brother’s, your sister’s, you father’s) birthday. You were late to a doctor’s appointment. You hit the snooze too many times and overslept. You got stuck in traffic and didn’t arrive somewhere on time. The point of the question isn’t to necessarily describe a serious situation where you caused the earth to stop spinning.

The point of the question is to exhibit your professionalism such as:

• How you communicated (hopefully proactively) that you were going to be late (to the appointment, on meeting an objective, or turning in a deliverable).
• How you reprioritized your workload in order to address the most urgent or most important tasks.
• Or – if you were overwhelmed with tasks and all of them were urgent or important, how you asked for help or delegated to someone else.
• And – the most important point is to explain what you learned from the missed deadline. Said differently, what have you put into place to ensure you don’t make the same mistake again?

While the entry level candidate may not have a specific work-related example, anyone with work experience should be prepared with a real work-related example rather than a personal one.

A side note from Ang: When someone tells me they have never missed a deadline, it leaves me with the impression that either they don’t commit, they don’t worry about missing a commitment, or they don’t self-assess. Everyone has missed a deadline (everyone).

A side note from Ang: It is absolutely appropriate to discuss how you prioritize in a balanced way…family, personal, and work priorities.

• How you reprioritize on the fly.
• How you ask for help in identifying the most urgent tasks if you feel all of the tasks are urgent and you know you can’t get to them all.
• How you ask for help.

A side note from Ang: The best answer isn’t that you just worked more. Pulling all-nighters may work in college, but it isn’t going to sustain you as a professional for long. Think of problem solving, delegating, and working smarter rather than just working longer hours.

A side note from Ang: You may use a different methodology for remote visits vs onsite visits.  Consider pointing any differences out during this discussion.

Instead, consider answering this question in this way:

• Describe a specific situation where you experienced this scenario.
• Detail your behavior or the actions you took to resolve the situation.
• Share the outcome or the results of the situation.
• Be sure to use terms like “I” instead of “We” because you want to be clear of your personal role in the resolution of the issue.

A side note from Ang: For more information on how to prepare for Behavioral Interviews including several examples that will help with your preparation, check out this resource.

Even if the hiring manager doesn’t ask this question, preparing for it will make you a much stronger interviewer because it will enable you to have examples which will articulate the following skills:

• How you handle difficult situations.
• How you prioritize or reprioritize on the fly.
• How you solve problems in spite of the situation presented.
• How you communicate and escalate.
• How you delegate or ask for help.
• And in some cases, how you learn. Meaning, is there anything you will be able to proactively do on future projects to avoid a similar situation?

Be prepared to discuss how you came to the decision, how you communicated the decision, and what the ultimate outcome was.

When I worked with IBM, I was interviewing interns for an upcoming Hardware Engineering program. The program was intended for Senior level students within Computer and Electrical Engineering university programs. Some of the responses I received to this question were phenomenal. Folks had built robots for competitions, set up intranets in school settings…they knocked my socks off.

One candidate, however, answered that his most difficult project had been setting up his sister’s home computer. In the whole scheme of things, his ‘difficult project’ just didn’t seem to measure up when compared to other students’ examples.

Maybe what made this project difficult to him was working with his sister. The problem was that he didn’t articulate that to me…and at the time, I was a novice interviewer and didn’t think to ask.

A side note from Ang: Always (always always) explain what made the project difficult and how you tackled it anyway.

Explain the example first. It could be as simple as an argument that you have had with a family member.

Then describe how you dealt with it. Be clear on your role in coming up with the solution, using terms like “I” instead of “We”.

Also importantly, this response will show how you communicated your concerns.  Were you too passive?  Too aggressive?  Too passive / aggressive (ha)?

A side note from Ang: This answer will also exhibit your negotiation as well as your critical thinking and problem-solving skills!

And she disliked me.  But I hung in there because I knew that the experience I was gaining in that job would further my career.

Provide that type of example. Be sure to discuss how you specifically handled the situation. Note any obstacles or difficulties you had to face and how you dealt with them.

For example, as a CRA perhaps you notice a certain trend of issues at several of your sites.  You may therefore consider proactively communicating your findings to other sites in order to help them avoid the same issue.

CRAs at all levels can also use examples of adapting to your manager’s working or management style.

In all cases, the interviewer is looking for you to be thoughtful in your approach.  Were you adaptable?  Flexible? Did you consider the other team members’ motivations?

Or did you take the disagreement personally?

Were you able to keep focused on the project including what needed to be done in order to meet the project’s objectives?

For the entry level candidate, any situation where you have leveraged facts to help sway someone’s opinion will translate nicely.

• Be sure to have researched the company prior to your interview.
• Know the typical Do’s and Don’ts when it comes to interview etiquette.
• Nervous? Overcome the fear of interviewing by going through the exercises provided in this linked article.

• Understand how to make eye contact and why it is important (it is tricky with video interviews)
• Ensure your background is organized.
• Understand the limitations of technology and how to prepare for what could go wrong.

• Know the basic expectations of any Face-to-Face interview.
• Ah…and I love this one…don’t make these fatal mistakes during your interview!