Describe a situation where you had to work with a difficult coworker.
How to structure your answer, what the panel listens for, and the mistakes to avoid.
By Nikhil Utane · Updated
Practice this questionWhy interviewers ask this
Everyone works with someone difficult eventually. The panel wants to see empathy, professionalism and initiative, not someone who complains or avoids the problem.
What a strong answer does
- Describe the behaviour and its effect on the work, not the person's character.
- Show that you tried to understand why they behaved that way.
- Explain what you changed and what improved.
Structure it with STAR
- SituationSet the scene in two or three sentences: where, when, what was at stake.
- TaskWhat you were responsible for, and what made it hard.
- ActionThe steps you took yourself. This should be the longest part.
- ResultWhat happened, with numbers if you have them, and what you learned.
New to STAR? Read the STAR method guide, with a worked example.
Example answer
- Situation
- A senior engineer on my team regularly rejected pull requests late on Friday with long, blunt comments, which left juniors stuck over the weekend.
- Task
- I was not his manager, but two of the juniors I mentored were affected, and our release cadence was slipping.
- Action
- I asked him for a coffee and asked how review was going for him. It turned out he was the only reviewer for a critical service and was doing reviews in one batch at the end of the week. I suggested we set up a review rota and a short checklist for that service, so fewer issues reached him. I offered to write the first draft of the checklist, and he reviewed it.
- Result
- Within a month the average review time for that service dropped from four days to one, and his comments got shorter because most issues were caught earlier. He also started pairing with one of the juniors on her first change to the service.
Use it for the shape, not the words: your own story, told in your own words, will always score better.
What interviewers listen for
- The other person's point of view, described fairly.
- What you said or did to move the situation forward.
- How the working relationship ended up, not only the task.
Common mistakes
- Describing someone's personality instead of specific behaviour.
- Going straight to their manager without talking to them first.
- A story where nothing changed.
Likely follow-up questions
- What would you have done if he had refused?
- How do you adapt to different working styles?
- Tell me about a time someone found you difficult.
Say it out loud and InterviewGPT scores each part of your story the way an interviewer would. Start practicing
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