How to Explain Competing Deadlines in an Interview

Questions about competing deadlines may ask you to describe how you decided what to do first. This guide is an evidence worksheet for one true past decision, not a formula for ranking tasks, and it does not promise that any approach will work.

The practice suggestions here are optional. Honesty, confidentiality and permission are not optional. All examples are fictional and are not for you to copy as your own experience.

Choose a real example

Pick something that actually happened. National Careers Service advice on the STAR method defines action as what you did and result as what happened and what you learned, and recommends preparing for follow-up questions. If you have no real example, say so and ask whether the interviewer would like you to talk through how you would approach it, making clear that it is hypothetical.

Fill in the evidence worksheet

Answer from what you remember or can check, and leave blank what you do not remember. Do not invent figures, hours or calculations. Use general descriptions, and leave out client names, internal figures and anything a colleague would not expect you to share.

• What was due, to whom and when? Give the actual dates or times as far as you know them.
• Did the work have to happen in a particular order, with one piece needing another first?
• Who or what was waiting on each piece?
• What time, people or resources were actually available?
• What did you know at the time about what would happen if each piece was late, and what were you assuming?
• What options did you consider, such as asking for help, moving a date or finishing part of the work?
• Who could choose between the options, and who did?
• What was deferred or not done, and how and when did you tell the people affected?
• What was actually completed, and what do you not know?

Describe the choice

Say what could not be done at the same time and what your choice changed. Name what was deferred or handed on, and who agreed. Do not say that nothing was affected, or that the choice was right, if you do not know.

Some choices are genuinely yours, such as the order of your own tasks. If so, say it was within your role and who you told. Not every decision in every job is yours, so keep your choices apart from decisions that belonged to a manager or client. Asking for a decision is a real action.

Follow-up questions

You may be asked why you chose that order or what you would change. Answer from what you knew at the time, and say so if you have learned something since. Our STAR examples guide shows annotated fictional examples of describing your part honestly.

Fictional examples

Each example below is invented. Do not present either as your own experience.

Fictional example, a conflict raised before the deadline: "On Tuesday morning I saw that two items were due on Thursday: a monthly summary for my supervisor and a set of labels a colleague needed for a Friday event. I could not finish both by Thursday. I told my supervisor, explained what each was for and asked which should come first. My supervisor decided that the labels came first and agreed that the summary could be sent on Friday. I told my colleague that the labels would be ready on Thursday. I sent the labels on Thursday and the summary on Friday. I don't know whether the later date caused my supervisor any difficulty."

Fictional example, a choice within my own tasks (not true of every job): "I had two of my own tasks due on the same afternoon, and neither needed anyone else's work. Ordering them was within my role, so I did the shorter one first and told my supervisor the other would follow later that afternoon. I sent both that day."

Practise your answer

Practise aloud if you wish. If you practise with another person, agree with them before recording and before sharing any recording. In a real interview, do not use any tool to generate answers unless the organiser has explicitly allowed it.

This guide is published by Muqabala. You can visit our interview practice page for your next practice session. Use any method that suits you, and check how any tool handles your data first. Do not paste confidential employer, client or personal information into a practice tool.