Professionalism in Interviews: How to Tackle Mistakes, Failures, and Weaknesses

In today’s episode, Pierre leads a discussion on how to effectively respond to the common interview question about past mistakes. Information discussed includes why employers ask these types of questions, how to approach your response with honesty and strategy, and how to use the STAR Method to highlight growth, professionalism, and resilience. But first, Rebecca starts the episode by exploring the NACE competency of Professionalism—specifically what it means to be present, prepared, and dependable during the interview process. After listening to this episode, we hope you have a better understanding of how to thoughtfully address questions about mistakes in an interview. 

Full episode transcript can be found on the episode page. Below is a general timestamp summary.  

00:00–01:00 — Introduction & Episode Overview 
The hosts welcome listeners to the Career Ready Podcast and introduce today’s topics: professionalism in interviewing and how to answer questions about past mistakes. 

01:00–04:00 — NACE Competency: Professionalism 
Rebecca explains the NACE definition of Professionalism, emphasizing being present, prepared, and dependable. She connects these behaviors to interview success, discussing timing, avoiding distractions, and bringing essential materials. 

04:00–07:00 — Interview Behavior & Preparation 
The conversation highlights how interviews begin the moment a candidate arrives. Tips include appropriate arrival times, minimizing phone use, and preparing resumes, references, and questions. Follow‑up actions such as timely responses and thank‑you emails are also discussed. 

07:00–12:00 — Understanding Mistake‑Based Interview Questions 
Pierre transitions into why employers ask about mistakes, failures, or weaknesses. The hosts stress honesty, self‑awareness, ownership, and growth. They outline how candidates should choose examples from work, academics, or volunteering. 

12:00–16:00 — Using the STAR Method & Example Answers 
Pierre explains the STAR Method and provides model responses to mistake and weakness questions. The hosts emphasize focusing on actions and results rather than the negative event itself. The episode closes with reminders about professionalism, resilience, and continual improvement. 

Resources Discussed: 

The Career Ready Podcast, Episode 28: Interview Prep - Answering Behavioral Questions 

Listeners in the College of DuPage community can visit our website. All other listeners are encouraged to view the resources of their local community college, WIOA training programs, or other local support centers.

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Transcript

Welcome to the career podcast. Learn about resumes, cover letters, LinkedIn, interviewing, and all things newbie. Career. Ready with the Career Service Center at college DuPage. I'm one of your host, Pierre Michiels. Later in today's episode, I'm going to lead the conversation on responding to an interview question about a previous mistake. And I'm here with our host, Rebecca Harrington. I'm going to start our episode today with some information about the NACE competency. Professionalism. In case you haven't listened to us talk about them before. These competencies are skills that employers value in new grad hires. Professionalism is defined by NACE, the National Association of Colleges and Employers, as knowing work environments differ greatly. Understand and demonstrate effective work habits and act in the interests of the larger community and workplace. That's a lot of words. So to help us understand that definition, NACE shares a list of behaviors associated with this competency. So today we're going to explore one of those behaviors. Being present prepared and dependable. These behaviors apply to a lot of different areas. But today let's talk about them in relation to interviewing since that's kind of our main topic for today's episode. So to begin, I'll give a basic definition of what we mean by being present, prepared, and dependable at work. So being present means that you listen and focus on your work while keeping distractions to a minimum. Being prepared means that you think ahead and bring what you need to meetings or to start a project. And being dependable means that you get the job done in or at the time requested, or if you can't. Letting them know with plenty of time Being dependable means you're the one they can trust to go to when they have something important to get done. Getting hired for the job means showcasing these important professionalism skills in the interview. We often think of interviewing as starting when they ask us the first question. But this is not when the interview starts. It starts the moment you show up to the business. When you show up, your behavior is noticed as well as what you bring with you. We've talked before about when you should arrive for your interview. You should arrive 15 to 20 minutes before your interview starts to park or be at the building. You should arrive at the lobby or the front desk of the business no more than ten minutes before your interview starts, but also not less than five minutes. This shows that you can manage your time and know how to prepare and be present. While you're waiting for the interviewer. Avoid being on your phone so that you're present in the moment. Nothing more awkward than being on your phone and having to, like, put it away, or they're standing in front of you and you've been looking at YouTube. Oh my goodness. Don't do that. Another part of preparing is bringing copies of your resume and references, as well as pen and paper, to take short notes during the interview. Having questions prepared that you're going to ask them at the end of the interview shows that you're ready. We can even go further back and talk about responding to interview requests in a timely manner and going forward by talking about sending appropriate thank you emails after the interview. Lastly, but certainly as important as everything else is during the interview itself when we're answering questions, keep in mind that how you answer questions, i.e. what you say should showcase your professionalism in addition to the job specific skills that they're asking for. So as a new college graduate, you may not always have all the experience in doing this particular job before, but you can show them how you're someone that is present, prepared, and dependable on the job. By talking about how you've been those things at other jobs and in your classes, you can convince them that you're someone who will be present on the job and listen and ask questions. When needed. That you'll be the person who comes prepared for work, and you'll be the one they can depend on to get the work done on time and correctly. Then, if you can do all that, you'll be the one they choose to hire. Okay, Pierre, it's time for you to take us on a deep dive into a very common interview question. Thanks for Becca. And I just got to say, I really like how you showcase that idea of professionalism being demonstrated here through the interview, because that's what employers really looking for. And, you know, we all love interviewing for free. It's our favorite. Of course. Maybe not, but it is something really important. It could be intimidating. But we want to always be excited for interviews, because that means there's opportunity ahead. Yeah, right. But that still doesn't mean we're not going to be nervous for it. But as I like to say, it's okay to be nervous for an interview. I actually prefer you to be nervous for an interview, because if you're not nervous at all, to me, that means you don't care. Yeah. We just want to be able to control those nerves and not be a nervous wreck. Yes. Good point. Today I want to break down a question that causes a lot of that anxiety. Oh, yes. Tell me about a mistake you've made in the past. So as we break this down, we're going to think about why the employer's asking this question. We're going to go through some things you should be considering as you respond to this question. I'm going to help you structure your answer, and then we'll give you some stronger examples as you try to respond to this. So first, why do employers ask about mistakes? It's not that they're trying to embarrass you or dig deep into your flaws. Employers know you're human and they expect you to be making mistakes. What they want to know is, are you aware of your mistakes? Are you taking ownership of those mistakes and are you growing from those mistakes? So as you respond, they're looking to see if you recognize your mistakes or your weaknesses. And if you've been taking responsibility for them with that, how did you recover and or improve yourself? now I know, I said we will be talking about when the employer asked for a mistake, but these concepts can be applied to different questions as well, such as when the employer is asking about a failure or a weakness. Because all this is about self understanding, handling adversity and learning from those areas. Absolutely. Yeah. I was gonna say this kind of applies to any of those like negative questions where they're, you know, they may say, you know, tell me about a situation where you, you know, didn't, were unable to help a customer or, you know, a time when you weren't sure what to do. How did you handle that? You know, anything where it's something about. Tell me something where you messed up. They just might word it differently. But, you know, when we talk about being prepared for an interview, we often I, I often say, like, make sure you have kind of, like, certain scenarios that you're ready to talk about. And one of them needs to be a situation where something didn't go the way you expected or you messed up or something negative because they're going to ask about that. You may even want to have a couple of those situations ready to go. Yeah, right. That's the reason why these are that anxiety provoking questions of the interview. And that's why we want to talk about them. Because if we can start understanding these, hopefully rest of the interview becomes a little bit easier. So now let's consider how you should be responding. It's important to be truthful, but you can be selective in what you share and this can come from many different settings. I really like this. That's a nice way to put it is like you should be honest, but that doesn't mean that you have to share everything or share all the like the worst situation that ever happened to you, right? Like you, you can control what you share, but it does need to be the truth. Exactly right. Be truthful because that is who you are, right? And if you're not truthful and at some point that comes out that you've lied, you made up something, regardless if it's the interview on the resume, the application that could really ruin your credibility, maybe even caused for you to get fired. Absolutely. And then being that selective. Right. As you were just saying, we don't have to share our biggest, our, you know, thing that our deepest secret that we're trying to hide. But we do have to make sure that we're addressing the mistake, right? Because that's what they're really asking about. But being aware of some different options that you could be selecting from. And as you try to select what you talk about in the interview, really think about what mistakes, what areas have you, gone through that you have then use to help you grow and develop? Because that's what the is really looking for as we go through this. So yes, you made a mistake, but how did you correct it? Or if it's that weakness, how did you work through that to better enhance yourself? In the end? And finally, in this preparation stage, don't limit, where you are selecting your stories from. A lot of times people think it's got to be about a previous job. especially if you're, student, a young professional, that really limits your options. But it doesn't have to be that case, right? It could be an academic project. It could be volunteering. It could be an internship. Really? Any place where you've been demonstrating your abilities, those are opportunities to draw from for any interview question, not just this one. With that said, the more relevant you can connect it to the experience. The opportunity you're pursuing. It may carry a little bit more weight. Absolutely. So I mean, if you did an internship and you have an example from that, that's probably a stronger one then from your retail job and high school, right. But you know, yeah, even giving an example of a group project that you did and you, you know, you say, you know, at the end, I my understanding was we were all going to do, you know, A, B and C, but then some people did X, Y and z. And I realized that I hadn't listened well enough to what we were supposed to do. And I had to redo my part of the project last minute. Well, whatever. Right. That's a great example where even though it's not from a job, obviously, again, if you have something that's more specific to the work, that's great. Yeah, right. So being aware of yourself and being able to use that as you move forward. So before I get into some examples here, I want to share some ideas on how to structure and approach your response. For this I'm going to focus in on the star method. This is something I'm just going to review really quickly. But if you want to do a deeper dive into this four step approach of responding to interview questions, we have episode 28 of the Career Ready podcast. It's titled, Interview Prep, answering behavioral questions. You could go in and get a lot more content for this, but star is star. We're breaking down the situation, task, action and result. Here. We're providing the context and why you are working on this project, what you were doing, the responsibilities for that. And we go through this really quickly. This is basically the situation and the task. This is also the negative part of the response. And we don't want to focus on the negative. We don't want to linger. All right. We quickly transition and we get to the positive which is our actions and the results. We want to include how we were addressing the mistake that weakness and those actions that we were taking to produce an outcome, or at least how those actions helped us learn a lesson for the future. So I want to emphasize that while we answer the questions by addressing the mistake, failure, weakness, whatever it may be, the actions and results are the most important part because this is showing our proactive approach and improvement. So now let's go through some examples. Rebecca, you want to go ahead and ask me some questions here. I love being on this side of the table. Sure. All right Pierre tell me about a mistake you made and how you handled it. In my internship, I was working on a market analyst report with a set deadline. I missed that deadline because I underestimated the research time. As soon as I realized this, I informed my supervisor, proposed a revised timeline, and worked extra hours to complete the project. I also created a checklist for future projects to better estimate time for those. As a result, I developed the report on the new timeline and my supervisor appreciate my transparency and proactive approach. Since then, I significantly improved my time management skills. Excellent. Yeah, that's really good because you you set out the issue, but you don't linger on that, right? That's literally the first like two sentences. And then the rest of the sentences are all about your actions, right? It's all about the result. So you talk about like, oh, as soon as I saw this, I realized this, this is what I did. You know, the one tip I would just given the situation if someone was in the situation, is to also ask the supervisor for their opinion of how you can, better estimate project time. But. Yes, but I love this because you, you know, give the specific things that you did to fix the issue and talk about the future, because obviously this is a new job. So they want to know this isn't going to happen again. Right? I appreciate the feedback there. Makes me feel better about my responses. Do you have another one for me? I do, I do, right? Because as we said, these are just kind of like this, this category of questions. So let's try this one. What's one of your weaknesses? I had a tendency to procrastinate in high school. I could get away with last minute work, but in college that approach didn't work. So I started using a calendar with due dates and benchmarks. I, added, reminders to my phone, and I started prioritizing tasks that had to get completed. Since implementing these changes, I haven't missed a deadline and have developed a habit of starting projects early. Excellent. Yeah. I think that, that one's very good because, you know, I think it's a it's a real issue, you know, like, it's again, we always say when they ask about weaknesses, people, I'm just too dedicated. I just, I care about my job too much. Make that, strengths sound like a weakness, right? Or bad advice? Don't do it. Yes. So, no, you want to pick a real thing, right? And again, as you said, something that is the truth, right. And then again, as you did, you're not focusing on it. Right? You're giving an example of when that was an issue, and then you're talking about how you fix it and how you continue to fix it. All right. Thank you Rebecca. So to wrap up when asked about a mistake failure or a weakness, remember it's okay to be human What matters is showing that you learned adapt and grow. Employers want to see professionalism including that resilience and commitment to improvement. Yeah. If you are saying if you say I can't think of a time when I made a mistake, they're going to say that you're lying and you're not someone they're going to want to hire 100%. Yeah. That's just how it is. Yeah. Because again, we all make mistakes. And that's why they're asking that question. Yeah, yeah. All right. So thanks to all of our listeners for joining us today. We hope you feel better prepared to respond to questions about mistakes made in an interview. There was no list or question in today's episode, but if you have a question you want to hear us answer in a future episode, you can submit it to Career Podcast at KOD. That edu. As we end here, we encourage you to join us for our next episode. For more information to help you be career ready.