“Tell Me About a Time You Had to Persuade Someone”
This one is scored on influence without authority — can you move a decision you don't own? Most answers fail because the person never actually objected, or because the candidate could have just decided it themselves. Get an answer that states their objection fairly, reframes the idea around their problem, and makes saying yes small enough to be easy.
Generated for: Dental office manager (7 years) interviewing for an operations analyst role
I wanted us to stop double-booking hygiene appointments, and it wasn't mine to decide — the schedule belonged to the lead hygienist, and she had been running it that way for longer than I'd worked there.
Her objection was fair and it wasn't about the schedule. Double-booking was how she hit her production number, and if we thinned it out and collections dropped, that landed on her review, not on mine. Arguing that patients waited too long was never going to move that, because she already knew they waited — it just wasn't the problem she was being measured on. So I went and pulled the no-show data instead, and what it showed was that the double-booked slots were also the ones patients skipped most, so a chunk of the production she was protecting wasn't real. Then I asked for something small: two Thursdays, single-booked, and I'd track the numbers myself and be the one to explain it to the owner if it went badly.
The two Thursdays held their production, so she extended it to Thursdays and Mondays and eventually most of the week. What I took from it is that people rarely say no to the idea — they say no to the risk of it, and my job is usually to make the first yes cheap.
Why this one works
- Establishes in the first line that the decision belonged to someone else — that's the whole thing being tested.
- States her objection as a reasonable position about her own review, not as stubbornness, and abandons the argument that was never going to work.
- The ask is a two-Thursday trial with the downside risk moved onto the candidate — persuasion as de-risking, not rhetoric.
Yours is written from your own background and the role you're actually interviewing for — not this one. One credit per answer, $9.99 for a single credit or $49.99 for ten. Fill in the form below to generate it.