Tell Me a Time When You Were Challenged

Since I'm to apply for a job which is now related to my field, I need to prepare for any question that the interviewer might fire my way. I was asked once by an interviewer for OJT to tell her a time when I was challenged. The best that I could give her, at the same time impress her, is this event which happened a couple of years ago.

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In my previous job, I had a caller who was an old woman with multiple issues on her DSL. Given a limited time span to resolve everything that she was telling me, I tried to employ all of the procedures necessary to solve her problem, while taking note of the progress for the sake of multitasking. I followed the steps in getting the customer connected to the DSL via our online training manual, and if the results were not yet visible, to maximize the resources at hand.

Apparently, that experience was the hardest and the most challenging of all because I was dealing with a short tempered and hearing impaired customer. Aside from the fact that I had to instruct her to do everything that I wanted her to do, there is a necessity to keep her on track with the progress so she won't drop the call out of impatience, all done under time pressure.

Eventually, with talking slow as to keep up with her pace, we solved each of her problems until we were done to setting up her email address.

After the call, she thanked me for doing a great job and for being patient with the troubleshooting. She even talked to my supervisor for a commendation on the work that I have done. The hard work paid off, though the handling time for the call was exceeded. I handled the scenario professionally and accordingly, ending with a good result.