Situational Judgement Questions & Answers

You are assigned to work on a project along with another co-worker. He has been working in the department longer than you. Since he has no great ambitions or aspirations to develop professionally, he does not put much effort into your mutual project.

What would you do? Choose the BEST option.

This is an inflexible situation as far as you are concerned, so you accept it and do your share of the work load to the best of your ability. The rest is up to your co-worker.

You are concerned that the quality of the project will reflect badly on you and the company, so you put in extra hours to complete the project by yourself to the best of your abilities.

You cannot accept this kind of attitude. You immediately contact your manager to discuss the situation. You request that your co-worker be replaced by another worker to complete the project.

You reach out to the co-worker, explain your difficulty and try to negotiate a fair distribution of the work load between you. You take into account that you might have to put in extra hours to complete whatever tasks he neglects to do.

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Correct answer is D

No explanation has been provided for this answer.

You work in a large audit firm as a consultant. There are five additional members in the team, all working under the supervision of a team manager and the department manager above him.

Matt, a co-worker in your staff with whom you share an office, needs your advice regarding a report he is about to present at this week's team meeting. These meetings are led by your team manager but the department manager is almost always present, too.

Although the part of the report that Matt shows you seems fine, you notice that the numerical analysis in another section of the report is missing important conclusions. You can tell that this section of the report does not adhere to the standards of your department's supervisors.

Matt seems to be confident about that part of the report and you get the impression that he is not interested in your opinion about it.

What would you do? Choose the BEST option.

If he is not interested in your opinion there is not much you can do about it, so you let it go and leave him to deal with the consequences of a poor presentation.

If he does not want to listen to you, notify management about it. Talk to your manager and ask him to explain to Matt the importance of the necessary changes.

You do your best to get him to listen. It may involve some discomfort but you try to explain the logic behind your criticism in the hope that he will understand.

It's best to stay out of it. If Matt does not want to hear your thoughts, that is his right and there is always the possibility that you are mistaken.

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Correct answer is C

No explanation has been provided for this answer.

In the past month, one of your employees has shown a major decline in sales performance. Although the decline has been ongoing for a couple of months, it has been particularly steep during the past two weeks. In addition, she has started coming in late and seems very frustrated with her work. Her behaviour is influencing the atmosphere in the office as she is a
popular employee and has been working for the company for the past two years.

What would you do? Choose the BEST option.

You meet with the employee and explain that her negative behaviour is affecting not only her performance but that of the entire office. You express a sincere desire to help her during her rough patch on condition that she cooperate with you and improve her attitude.

You feel that since she is a very popular employee it is crucial that she be replaced temporarily or else office performance will suffer. You assign her to back office tasks for the time being and promise her that once her performance improves, you will re-instate her in her former position.

You call a staff meeting to talk about the negative atmosphere in the office. You single out the problematic employee and discuss her contribution to this atmosphere in the hope that her behaviour will improve.

You decide to let it blow over. She has been a consistently good employee until recently and you feel you need to "cut her some slack". Part of your job is to be sensitive to your employees' needs when necessary.

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Correct answer is A

No explanation has been provided for this answer.

You are a department manager. Two members of your staff are long overdue to participate in a professional training course. The training department manager has informed you that she has chosen employees from a different department instead. Relations with the training department are already problematic.

What would you do? Choose the BEST option.

You do not accept the decision and send the training manager a furious e- mail demanding that she re-open the course for your employees as their performance is hindered by the delay in their training. You make sure to cc the executive director.

Since relations between you and the training manager are already strained, you decide to let the subject go this time and wait a few months until the next course opens.

You contact the manager of the other department, whose workers were selected for training instead of your employees. You try to convince him to let one of your employees take the course instead of one of his.

You talk to the training manager and try to understand the reasons for her decision. You explain the necessity of training for your department's performance and try to persuade her to let at least one of your employees attend the course.

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Correct answer is D

No explanation has been provided for this answer.

A co-worker is undermining you. Currently, he is at a less senior position than you in the company and hasn't been working there for long. However, he is better educated than you and is also considered a fast learner. You know from a third party that he is interested in taking over some of your responsibilities.

What would you do? Choose the BEST option.

You wait to see how things develop; at the moment this information is merely hearsay.

You call your co-worker in for a talk. You explain that cooperation is an essential feature of any workplace and tell him you believe both of you can learn from one another. If he refuses to understand you take more serious steps.

You do not want to take any chances with such issues. You report the matter to your supervisor and advise him to consider replacing your co-worker.

Since you do not want to make a "big deal" out of the issue, you ask a third party to intimate to your co-worker that his behaviour is unacceptable.

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Correct answer is B

No explanation has been provided for this answer.