IntermediateBEHAVIORAL
Tell me about a time you had to work with a difficult stakeholder or colleague on a project listed on your resume. How did you handle the situation and what was the outcome?
Resume-Based
General

Sample Answer

On my resume you’ll see a cross‑functional rollout of a new internal dashboard for about 300 sales reps. The head of Sales Ops was a tough stakeholder—smart, but very skeptical and pretty vocal about it. In early design reviews he pushed back on almost every decision and tried to add a lot of last‑minute scope. Instead of debating in big meetings, I set up a weekly 1:1 with him and brought data. I walked through usage analytics from the old tools, specific pain points his team had reported, and a simple impact vs. effort matrix for each feature he wanted. I also gave him clear tradeoffs: “If we add X now, launch moves by two weeks.” Once he saw his input reflected in a prioritized roadmap, the dynamic changed. He became a champion, helped drive UAT participation up by 60%, and we launched on time with 85% active adoption in the first month.

Keywords

Challenging but respected stakeholder on a visible projectShifted conversation to data, tradeoffs, and 1:1 alignmentUsed impact vs. effort to manage scope creep and expectationsTurned skeptic into champion, enabling on-time launch and strong adoption