"Tell Me About a Time When..." Questions for Humanitarian Jobs

Why These Questions Dominate Humanitarian Interviews

"Tell me about a time when..." is the standard phrasing for competency-based interview questions, and competency-based interviewing is the default format across the humanitarian sector. The UN system, the ICRC, MSF, IRC, Save the Children, and most other major organizations all use this approach.

The logic is simple: past behavior is the best predictor of future performance. When an interviewer asks you to describe a real situation where you demonstrated a skill, they get concrete evidence rather than aspirational claims. They can probe for details, ask follow-ups, and compare your response against a rubric shared by the entire panel.

Understanding this means understanding what the interviewer actually needs from you. They are not making conversation. They are filling in a scorecard. Your job is to give them the evidence they need, clearly and concisely, for each competency they are assessing. For a deeper overview of how this format works, see our guide to competency-based interviews.

Bank of Common Questions

Below are questions that appear regularly in humanitarian interviews, grouped by the competency they assess. Use this list to identify which examples you need to prepare.

Teamwork and Collaboration

• • Tell me about a time when you had to work with someone whose working style was very different from yours.
• • Describe a situation where you had to build a relationship with a difficult stakeholder.
• • Give an example of when you supported a colleague who was struggling with their workload.

Communication

• • Tell me about a time when you had to explain a complex issue to a non-technical audience.
• • Describe a situation where a miscommunication caused a problem. How did you resolve it?
• • Give an example of when you had to deliver unwelcome news to a manager or partner.

Problem-Solving and Decision-Making

• • Tell me about a time when you had to make a decision with incomplete information.
• • Describe a situation where you identified a problem before others did and took action.
• • Give an example of when you had to find a creative solution to a resource constraint.

Adaptability and Resilience

• • Tell me about a time when your plans changed suddenly and you had to adjust.
• • Describe a situation where you worked effectively under significant pressure or stress.
• • Give an example of when you had to learn something new quickly to meet a deadline.

Leadership and Initiative

• • Tell me about a time when you took the lead on a project or task without being asked.
• • Describe a situation where you motivated a team through a difficult period.
• • Give an example of when you identified an opportunity to improve a process and acted on it.

Cultural Awareness and Ethics

• • Tell me about a time when you had to adapt your approach because of cultural differences.
• • Describe a situation where you faced an ethical dilemma in a professional setting.
• • Give an example of when you worked with a community or group whose values differed from your own.

How to Prepare Your Examples

Do not walk into an interview hoping the right stories will come to you. The candidates who perform best prepare systematically. Here is how to do it.

• • Audit your experience. List every role, project, volunteer engagement, and significant academic project from the last five years. For each, write down two or three situations where something challenging, interesting, or instructive happened.
• • Map to competencies. Take the question bank above and assign at least one example to each question. Aim for two examples per competency area so you have a backup if one does not quite fit the specific question asked.
• • Write them out in STAR format. For each example, write the Situation (two to three sentences), Task (one to two sentences), Action (the bulk of the story, specific steps you took), and Result (what happened and what you learned).
• • Practice aloud. Reading your notes silently is not preparation. Say the answers out loud and time yourself. Each response should take two to three minutes.
• • Get feedback. Ask a friend or colleague to listen to your examples and tell you if they understood what you did and why it mattered.

STAR Method in Practice

Here are two fully worked examples showing how to structure your answers. Notice how the bulk of each answer is in the Action section.

Worked Example 1: Adaptability

Question: "Tell me about a time when your plans changed suddenly and you had to adjust."

Situation: "I was coordinating a three-day training for community health workers in rural DRC. On the morning of day two, heavy rains made the training venue inaccessible and destroyed some of our printed materials."

Task: "I needed to find a way to continue the training without losing an entire day, as participants had traveled long distances and could not extend their stay."

Action: "I contacted the local church leader, who offered us their building for the day. I reorganized the schedule to move the sessions that required printed handouts to day three, giving us time to reprint. For the afternoon, I adapted the group exercises to be discussion-based rather than worksheet-based. I also called our logistics officer to arrange for new materials to arrive by the next morning."

Result: "We completed the full training curriculum within the original three-day window. The participant feedback actually rated the discussion-based exercises higher than the worksheet format, so we adopted that approach for future trainings. I learned that having a relationship with community leaders before you need their help is invaluable."

Worked Example 2: Communication

Question: "Tell me about a time when you had to explain a complex issue to a non-technical audience."

Situation: "Our program team had developed a new beneficiary targeting methodology using a vulnerability scoring matrix. The local government officials who needed to approve the approach had no background in data analysis and were skeptical of the change."

Task: "I was asked to present the methodology to a group of twelve district officials and secure their buy-in within a single meeting."

Action: "Instead of presenting the technical framework, I started by asking the officials what they considered the most important factors for identifying vulnerable households. Their answers mapped closely to our criteria. I then showed how our scoring matrix simply formalized what they already knew, using three real household profiles as examples. I avoided jargon entirely and used a simple color-coded chart rather than spreadsheet outputs. I also invited one official to walk through a scoring exercise on the board."

Result: "The officials approved the methodology that day and two of them asked to be involved in the first round of assessments. The district coordinator later requested the same approach for a separate government program. The key lesson was that starting from the audience's knowledge rather than your own framework makes complex ideas accessible."

Strong vs. Weak Answers

Understanding what separates a high-scoring answer from a low-scoring one helps you calibrate your preparation.

Weak Answer Patterns

• • Hypothetical: "If I were in that situation, I would probably..." This does not answer the question. The interviewer asked what you did, not what you might do.
• • Team-focused with no personal role: "We decided to change the approach and we implemented the new system." The panel cannot score you if they do not know what you specifically contributed.
• • All context, no action: Spending two minutes describing the background and then rushing through "so I fixed it" in ten seconds.
• • No result: Ending with "and we moved on" without stating the outcome, impact, or lesson learned.

Strong Answer Patterns

• • Specific and personal: Clear "I" statements describing distinct steps you took and decisions you made.
• • Action-heavy: At least half the answer describes what you did and why.
• • Quantified results: "Reduced delivery time by two weeks" or "trained 45 staff" gives the panel something concrete to score.
• • Reflective: Mentioning what you learned or would do differently shows self-awareness, which is itself a competency many organizations assess.

Handling Questions About Failures

Interviewers will ask about times you failed, made a mistake, or received critical feedback. These questions assess self-awareness, honesty, and your ability to learn. They are not traps, but candidates often handle them poorly by either denying they have ever failed or choosing an example that is not actually a failure.

• • Choose a real failure. Not "I worked too hard" or "I was too detail-oriented." Pick something that genuinely went wrong.
• • Own it. Do not blame others or circumstances entirely. Acknowledge your role in what happened.
• • Focus on the learning. The Result section should emphasize what you took away from the experience and how it changed your approach going forward.
• • Keep it proportional. Choose a meaningful failure but not one that raises serious concerns about your judgment or integrity. A missed deadline or a poorly planned activity is appropriate. A safeguarding incident is not.

Tips for Candidates with Limited Humanitarian Experience

If you are applying for your first humanitarian role, you may worry that your examples are not relevant enough. They almost certainly are. The competencies assessed in humanitarian interviews, teamwork, communication, problem-solving, adaptability, are universal. What matters is how well you demonstrate the behavior, not where you demonstrated it.

• • Corporate experience: Managing a project with a tight deadline, coordinating across departments, or handling a client complaint all translate directly.
• • Volunteer work: Organizing a community event, fundraising, or mentoring are rich sources of examples for teamwork, leadership, and communication.
• • Academic projects: Group assignments, research under pressure, and presentations to unfamiliar audiences all demonstrate relevant skills.
• • Personal challenges: Moving to a new country, learning a language, or navigating a complex personal situation can demonstrate adaptability and resilience. Use these sparingly and keep them professional in tone.
• • Frame the transferability. After giving your example, briefly explain how the skill applies to the humanitarian context. This helps the panel see the connection.

Frequently Asked Questions