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Anonymous A
on Oct 07, 2019
Global

Describe a situation that demanded sustained, unusually hard work, where others might have thought you couldn’t succeed. Was the experience stressful? If so, how did you handle the stress?

How would you answer this question in your Personal Fit interview? Receive feedback on your answer and browse through the Q&As to review the approaches of other applicants and experts.

13 Answers
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Top answer
Anonymous G
on Jun 08, 2024

In the early days as an Analyst, I had to convince my team to follow specific data standards to derive valuable attributes and insights. The challenge was the tram comprised of 2 more analysts and 30 warehouse staff members, who were not as data literate as required. I resolved the problem by including more repeating components in the tasks which was easy for the warehouse staff members and our small team of analysts handled the QA of the input data.

9
Anonymous F
on Dec 26, 2023

At the end of my first month on the job, I recieved back from a third party a pack of near 80 drawings that we aimed to deliver in 3 days. However, we had to redraw all of them to follow the regulations of the project. It was stressful, but the conscience of the responsibility and the focus on the result, made me keep going. 

9
Clara
Coach
on Sep 30, 2020
McKinsey | Awarded professor at Master in Management @ IE | MBA at MIT |+180 students coached | Integrated FIT Guide aut

Hello!

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on Jul 11, 2022

I had to complete my thesis before the 1st of May. Due to procedures that take a lot of time, I had to finish the thesis approximately a month earlier. The model that I used for my thesis turned out to be flawed all of a sudden, and this meant that I had less than two weeks to fix it. Hard long hours and no weekends later, I finished the job and received an 8.8 for the thesis. The experience was very stressful. However, focusing on staying healthy via sports, sleep and good food helpt me a lot.

4
Anonymous E
on Feb 25, 2023

I had to do the whole market analysis of the African market in two weeks with only me and my supervisors where previously they had done the whole analysis in one month with four people. We worked two weeks everyday and had it done

4
on Dec 26, 2019
McKinsey | NASA | top 10 FT MBA professor for consulting interviews | 6+ years of coaching

I would talk about an anticipated deadline or an important sport challenge.

on Oct 03, 2022

During my experimental research we experienced a flaw in out model making our retrieved data useless. As our experiments were time-consuming, it meant that I had not gained data to analyze, and time had been wasted. The issue was solved by correcting the model and running doubled experiments, meaning longer days at the lab. I managed to retrieve the necessary amount of data within reasonable time

2
Anonymous B
on Oct 10, 2021

my boss get sick and left me in the middle of an important project. the team was discouraged and I had to help each of them, rise up the moral and make the work done. 

1
on Oct 21, 2021

After my grandmother passed away, my husband and I were given the task to tear down her trailer. It took nearly 3 months of sustained physical labor to take it apart piece by piece and handle the materials. When you have an goal in mind you just take it one bit at a time. The work of the ant. Don't get bogged down by the enormity of it all. Before you know it, your project is complete. Even if it takes time, it gets done.

1
on Apr 19, 2022

Developing an extensive PowerBI dashboard with complicated queries, which was required to support a large internal change project. It was an initiative by myself and highly appreciated by the project manager, but people in the team doubted the feasibility. I, however, made the concept very clear and involved team members in preliminary results. Along the way the patience of the team grew and my persuasion provided us and the involved supply chain departments with a valuable dashboard. Extra effort helped us all to make a big step forward.

1
Anonymous C
on Jun 16, 2022

During my master's degree, I was working part-time while also working on a student-run incubator. Many people though I would have to give up my work soon, but I worked throughout the program. Of course this was a stressful experience, but I had planned for it and knew that I was going to have to prioritize differently than other students and accept that I wouldn't have the best grades. By planning beforehand and setting realistic expectations for myself, I was able to handle the stress.

1
Anonymous D
on Oct 28, 2022

During the first year of my thesis I conducted many flow experiments that took whole day and I had to stay there night and weekends. I was still learnings how to use my experimental setup that was delicate and many times failed. However, I always learnt something new and I found this very rewarding. Therefore, I kept my efforts. At the same time I had to build my hypothesis to convince the supervisors that it is worth to continue the project. Clear communication helped in this. 

1
on May 06, 2023

I worked as a Tipico worker and we had once the situation, where the whole system fall apart. A lot of people wanted there money back and I couldn´t give it to them and normally that´s the part where another fellows failed, because it´s hard to tell 15 to 20 People they need to wait at least a couple of hours. I stayed calm, shared their view, promised that everyone will get their money back asap and make some jokes about the electronic technics

1
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