How to answer the job interview question, ‘What is your biggest regret and why?’

Better fess up—with a SFW answer—when an interviewer asks you about your regrets.

By Caroline Zaayer Kaufman

“What is your biggest regret and why?” is a common job interview question that can cause candidates to stumble. Don’t let it throw you off of your game if it comes up in your next interview—and don’t assume that you can get off the hook by saying, “I have no regrets.”

“While employers may be looking for the perfect candidate, they’re not looking for the perfect person,” says Chester Goad, an administrator at Tennessee Technological University who has served on hiring committees. Employers want to see if you blame others for your regrets, or if you follow a reasonable, logical process to learn and move on from a mistake.

Plan ahead for tough questions related to failures and regrets since hiring managers often use these types of questions to get at your character. And when endeavoring to answer this question, be sure you’re professional and honest—it also doesn’t hurt to mention that you learned something in the process.

Take our advice if you want to tackle this question without regretting your answer.

Choose a professional regret

When choosing a regret to share, it’s best to talk about one related to your job or career. Sharing a personal regret about a relationship or financial issue could make the interviewer uncomfortable.

“The last thing you want to do is derail the interview by talking about the time you broke your sister’s piggy bank,” says Nick Fox, Newtown, Pennsylvania-based career coach at SuccessHacking.com. “They want to know about a regret that will shape your ability to do the job at hand.”

You say: “A few years ago, I turned down a great job at XYZ Corporation that could have given me the experience I needed to move my career forward faster.”

Describe honestly how you handled the regret

Interviewers are looking for a candidate who is honest and displays the ability to self-correct and improve, not someone who has no regrets.

Which is all the more reason to own the regret you’ve chosen to share, and be honest about how you dealt with it.

“Most employers aren’t going to eliminate someone from the pool for being honest,” Goad says.

If you regret turning down that great job opportunity, tell the interviewer how you overcame the mistake in the long run.

You say: “Rather than feeling sorry for myself because I turned down the XYZ job, I started looking for other opportunities that I knew could lead me to great—possibly better—learning experiences.”

Show how it made you smarter

No matter the regret you choose to discuss, remember to show you learned something valuable and didn’t make the same mistake twice.

“Open up with a legitimate regret,” Fox says, “but then give the story context by acknowledging that it was just a checkpoint on your way to get where you are currently at in your life.”

If you don’t pair your regret with some lesson learned, you risk sounding like someone who will be bad for business, he adds. “An interviewer wants to hear that you only need to make a mistake once before you’ll fix it because that shows a level of self-awareness that not all people have.”

You say: “I still regret turning down the job at XYZ, but, I got some great and unique experience elsewhere. And had I taken that job, I probably wouldn’t be sitting here learning about this great opportunity, now would I?”

Resource: monster.com