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Best Sample Answers To “How Do You Handle Stress And Pressure?”

Shreeya Thakur

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Best Sample Answers To “How Do You Handle Stress And Pressure?”

0 min read

Table of content:

Why do employers ask, “How do you handle stress and pressure?"
How to Answer, “How do you handle stress and pressure?”
What not to do while answering, “How do you handle stress and pressure?”
Sample answers to “How do you handle stress and pressure?”

Stress and pressure are two of your dearest of friends, that you will definitely give you company if you are involved in any project or working in any organization. And it should not come as any surprise to you. The most important positions or management role in any organization do come along with workplace stress. This is questions related to stress become important interview questions. Through this question the hiring manager wants to understand how well you can handle stressful conditions and whether you are ready to work under stressful conditions that can come up at times. Hence preparing well for such behavioral interview questions will help you to perform well in your job interview. Let's go into some details and understand more about this question.

Why do employers ask, “How do you handle stress and pressure?"

To choose the right fit for the organization or a high-stress job, it becomes pertinent for interviewers to check whether the candidate has the required stress management skills. Hence this becomes a common interview question asked any potential employer to see if you can handle work-related stress easily. During a job interview, the interviewers ask this question to test your stress management skills and to gauge whether you can work in a high-pressure work environment. People with chronic stress conditions might not be able to handle pressure effectively or work in challenging environments. Hence, if you are good at handling pressure, it is equally important for you to answer this question appropriately if you are targeting to work in a high-stress position.

How to answer, “How do you handle stress and pressure?”

One way to give healthy responses to this question is to keep in mind a stressful time you had spent at your prior work and your personal life. This way you can be well prepared to state an incident from your life where you handled your stress well leading to a positive outcome on your work or mental and physical health.

1. Spend some time thinking about how you approach to stress: The first step in finding the answer to this question is introspection and self-assessment. You should be true to yourself while you are doing these. Giving time to this will ultimately help you in arriving at the correct answer.

What were the factors that contributed to the stressful situation?
What could you have done differently to avoid a stressful situation if you were a part of it?
What was your initial reaction?
What methods and management skills did you use to decrease or mitigate your stress?
What would you do differently if you could go back in time and react differently to that situation?
How did stress benefit or hinder your work?

2. Focus on stories and examples that describe your personal growth during stress: You should never go for a general explanation while answering this question. Always try to elaborate with some stories and examples from your prior experience i.e., real-life examples where your positive actions helped mitigate stressful conditions. You could say how you took up a single activity like physical activity or a new hobby to fight stress and how it helped you to improve your personality. This will help the hiring manager to know that you have actually worked in high-stress environments.

Pro Tip: Try to improve your communication skills and in turn your soft skills so that your story sounds genuine and dynamic

Ex 1: "For me, planning is a vital skill for dealing with stress. I can get ahead of stressful circumstances by making thorough plans for projects and even my daily job. When stress strikes, planning allows me to take things one step at a time and prioritize what has to be done efficiently for myself and my co-workers. In fact, some of my best process-streamlining work has resulted from a tense scenario. I've been able to create workflows that are simpler and more efficient, with less potential for error."
Ex 2: "In difficult situations, I believe communication is essential, even if it means overcommunicating to ensure everyone is on the same page." While working on a project with another team, we discovered that a lot of work was being done twice. We pushed the project forward and ended up moving the needle on a company goal in a large way by arranging a weekly stand up and keeping open lines of honest communication with our teams and supervisors."

You should tell the manager how even during times of excessive stress you fulfilled your basic job responsibilities and how you maintained a balanced life while you were working on a difficult project.

3. Be prepared for follow-up questions: Another important component while answering this question is the follow-up questions. The interviewer may ask many follow-up questions so as to test the veracity of your answers. So, never try to state false instances when you are narrating an incident about stress management. The interviewer is a seasoned professional who can catch even an ounce of lies in your answers by further examining you.

What not to do while answering, “How do you handle stress and pressure?”

When asked questions about stress during an interview, your ultimate goal should be to convince the hiring manager that you are skilled enough to handle a challenging situation.

Following are some of the things that you should not do when you are asked about stress management:

Saying that you aren't stressed is a big no-no. While it may appear appealing to present yourself as someone who is always calm, the interviewer is definitely interested in learning about your stress reactions. Avoiding a substantial response or being stress-resistant may appear unrealistic or off-putting.
If you give an example, avoid focusing on the emotions of the situation. Give a structured description of the incident, including how you dealt with it and how it will help their team and the organization.
Choose an example that was not caused by you or could have been easily avoided—for example, instead of saying, "I was in a stressful situation because I forgot about an assignment with a strict due date...", say, "I was in a stressful situation because I forgot about an assignment with a strict due date..."
Avoid framing a bad answer by keeping the points in mind.

Sample answers to “How do you handle stress and pressure?”

You can read the following sample answers to frame your own answer.

Sample Answer 1: As someone who has worked in management for the past five years, I understand that stressful situations are unavoidable. To keep cool and attentive in such situations, I have stress management tactics. When a member of my team unexpectedly quit, for example, I used my prioritizing abilities to deal with the problem.

I discovered that by reorganizing my daily tasks from time to time, I was able to devote more time to aggressively seeking new hires. I didn't want stress to cloud my judgment, so I kept reminding myself that finding the proper applicant would take time. I've seen far too many other managers rush to recruit someone to relieve their stress, only to find that selecting the incorrect person resulted in much more stress.

Sample Answer 2: For me, a bit of stress can be a motivator in daily life. I use the pressure to help me stay focused on my chores and do them more quickly. When I'm working on a tight deadline, I use my time management abilities to remain on top of my responsibilities and do the most critical ones first. I've discovered that interacting with my team on a daily basis also helps me manage my stress and keep things in check.

Sample Answer 3: Morning meditation helps me in effective stress management. When I know I'm going to have a busy day ahead of me, I make a point of getting up a bit earlier and doing a session. This allows me to clear my head and start the day with a clean slate. When a stressful scenario arises unexpectedly, I use my meditation skills to refocus my attention and keep from feeling overwhelmed. Taking a few deep breaths and observing a situation objectively can sometimes be enough. I've discovered that focusing my attention on seeking answers rather than obsessing over the problem is more beneficial.

All being said, the last thing that you as an interviewer should keep in mind is- ‘Be honest with whatever you are saying when you are answering this question.’ The old adage of “Honesty is the best policy” is truly applicable here. So follow the above points and don't take unnecessary stress over the stress-related questions in the job interview!