How to Answer the Common Interview Question "How Do You Deal with Conflict?"

“How do you deal with conflict?” is an interview question you will likely come across in any position as a job seeker. It’s important to understand what the interviewer is looking for when you answer and choose your response carefully to match the position you are interviewing for. Here are some ways you can prepare to answer this question, so it doesn’t take you by surprise in an interview. 

Understanding Your Audience

This interview question is aimed towards finding your style of conflict resolution in the workplace. As a candidate, you would want to display signs of effective communication skills during conflict resolution, such as empathy, compromise, or collaboration. There are different conflict resolution skills you can display depending on the situation at hand. 

Poor communication can lead to missed deadlines, loss of revenue, and increased workplace stress. Being an effective communicator helps to avoid these issues from arising or assess them at the source. As an interview candidate, you should aim to express your ability to confidently handle difficult situations in your answer.

The STAR Method

The STAR (situation, task, action, result) method is an effective technique to answer behavioral questions in an interview. Using this method, you can give a structured and thoughtful answer to this interview question using a specific example. Each part of your answer will be broken down into sections: 

Situation:
Situation refers to the context of the encounter or example you’re providing. You should describe information relevant to the example. Your goal is to provide simple, straightforward information that helps the interviewer understand the rest of the answer. 

For example, you could state what you were doing at the time, or where the situation occurred.

“During my time at x company, I was assigned to a team leading a large marketing campaign. The company wanted us to develop a campaign that would bring in an older target market and boost sales.”

Task:
The task highlights what your role in the situation was, and your goal to resolve the situation. 

“As the project manager, I was responsible for keeping team members on track to meet deadlines and stay on budget. But we ran into a roadblock. The team couldn’t decide whether to use digital or traditional marketing: some thought it was worth the extra money to advertise physically, and some thought digital adverts would be just as effective. We were at an impasse, and tensions were high as the deadline came closer.”

Action:
You should show how you, as an individual, addressed the conflict. What steps did you take? Who did you talk to? What was your decision or thinking process?

“After giving the conflict some thought, I decided to help the team test their ideas. We assembled two small mock campaigns and tested them on a sample audience to gather more data on reactions and engagement. The whole team worked together and heard feedback from the audience, who acted as a third party to give them more insight. I showed them what was effective with both campaign styles and encouraged them to gather more research.”

Result:
Explain the outcome of your actions, and how they resulted in a positive change. Make sure your answers are quantified and specific. 

“Using their research, the team unanimously agreed to focus on traditional marketing tactics and allocate most of the budget towards it. They also decided to polish the mock digital campaign and launch it as a smaller portion of the entire campaign. They effectively resolved their conflict and worked together to launch on time. The campaign boosted traffic to our company website, increased sales by 40 percent, and drew in an older audience!”

 Other Helpful Tips

Preparing an answer in advance or practicing your response with a friend will help you feel confident if you are feeling nervous before the interview. Having more than one example in mind is great as well. You’ll be more ready to adapt if one example makes more sense than another in your interview. 

If you can, think of situations that are relevant to the position you are applying for. For example, it makes more sense to talk about resolving conflict in a team setting in some settings and resolving conflict with a client in others.

Saying you aren’t good at handling conflict, or saying you try to avoid it when you can, can be a red flag for the interviewer. Instead, consider using positive, active language to show you are engaged and open to managing conflict.