How do you answer 'How did you handle a time you prioritized a personal matter over work' in a job interview?

Answer 1

Find out the company stance on balancing home/work commitments. Where I work you must have a good home/work balance or you are counselled about spending too much time away from home. In contrast my previous employer frowned if you said you could only work 8 hours a day as you had family commitments, so it is imperative for you to find out first how the company perceives this balance.

Answer 2

Some sample answers from our contributors:

• I can handle it by acknowledging the need to balance home, life, and health, and indicate that i am capable of doing so, without sacrificing job responsibilities.I could guarantee you my three traits which is:My commitment, decisiveness, and coping ability to the company.

• This is another one of those trick questions that may involve a bit of fibbing. They are asking if your personal life is going to interfere with your work life. If you say you call off work every time one of your kids is sick, forget it. But if you say you came in an hour late to get a baby sitter to sit with your sick kid, and then stayed two hours late that day to make up for the lost work time, THAT will impress them. I have to be honest, however. Any company that asks about a time you put personal life before work isn't a company I'd want to work for. A company is just a company. They can hire you or fire you at will. They can downsize your job or lay you off in a second. Your family should come first.

• Interview questions try to find out particular traits a candidate may or may not have and so continue/halt the interview process as a result of the candidate's answer. Here, at least three traits are being queried: commitment, decisiveness, and coping ability. This question wants to know if the candidate can cope with a crisis involving home and work; whether the candidate is well enough organized so that only true emergencies interfere with his/her performance at work; and, if the candidate is being interviewed for a supervisory job, can the candidate recognize legitimate crises of work/home in subordinates and handle them with appropriate responsiveness?

• The key to a good answer is to acknowledge the need to balance home, life, and health, and indicate that you are capable of doing so, without sacrificing job responsibilities. Here, a best answer would show the candidate was faced with an issue that could not have been forecasted/prevented by previous planning/organization, but when the issue arose, s/he was able to quickly re-prioritize office responsibilities in order that no losses occurred at work, but that home problems were also addressed.

• Time management, you must know your priority between work and personal needs. you couldn't handle both problems.

• I am an individual who is highly effective in separating my professional and personal life with excellent prioritizing skills. In a 9-5 schedule the priority is for professional work. Only in exceptional situations,where there is a personal emergency that I would consider doing the personal job first and only if in my task schedule-it got top priority. Then you go about describing a personal emergency crisis-if this is the case.

Answer 3

How do you express yourself in situations where you have to be tactful?