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I have an interview coming up at a small firm and I've always been bad at questions like "Tell me about a time you faced adversity" or "tell me about a time you had a conflict with a co-worker?" I have a hard time thinking of examples and have completely blanked in interviews before. Does anybody else struggle with these? Do you have any tips? How closely does the answer have to match the question, can I answer "tell me about a time you failed" with the same story I would use for "tell me about a time you made a mistake"? That was a question I blanked on in a prior interview and I still don't know what they want for "a time I failed."

Just think of something that was really annoying then frame it as a mistake.

Someone else didn’t give me an Excel model in time and I had to stay up all night to fix. Mistake: not following up earlier. Fucked up: handing the task off to someone else.

A fix is built in: stayed up al night to fix the problem.

Long term fix: do more to follow up, harder short term but long term better

This is how I handle it but YMMV. Some people definitely have canned answers.

Our CDO recommended this and I found it helpful:

Think of the qualities of characteristics you want to convey about yourself. Them, reverse outline your resume and come up with examples based on your prior experience with stories to demonstrate those characteristics. Have a couple of stories or anecdotes for each of your prior experiences. This will help you not only answer the "tell me about a time when" questions, but other types of questions, as well.