How do I answer "Tell us about a time you......." when I have no examples.

[Newjobadvice]

I took voluntary redundancy last year, had some time out and started looking for work towards the end of the year. I got a good settlement and could afford to be fairly picky with what I was applying for so I’ve only applied for about 12 jobs so far, out of which 2 were withdrawn after closing date, probably due to a recruitment freeze, 2 I never heard back at all, 4 were rejections and I’ve had 4 interviews.

I felt all the interviews went well but none have resulted in an offer, I’m still waiting the outcome of the last one but the interview was over a week ago and they said they’d make a decision by the end of last week.

I think where I’m struggling is when they ask questions like “tell us about a time when…..” and I kind of go blank and start waffling. Now I know what they’re looking for, they want an example of a problem you faced and how you resolved it or alternatively when things didn’t go so well but what lessons were learned and plans put in place for the future.

My problem is I simply can’t think of examples, I’ve spent the last 20 years in admin/customer service in the public sector. I don’t think “I remember the time the Director had an unexpected VIP visitor and I had to make them tea but we’d run out of milk so they had to have it black but after that I always made sure we had some UHT in” is the sort of example they’re looking for. To be clear I have NEVER actually used that but that’s the level of problem I encountered. I literally used to type, file and compile spreadsheets. My line management structure was very top heavy e.g. Supervisor<Team Leader<Assistant Manager<Manager<Senior Manager and responsibilities at each level were jealously guarded so I never really had much opportunity of contributing to problem-solving (did I mention it was Public Sector).

I could probably think of a few examples from my personal life but I’m not comfortable discussing that with strangers.

Does anyone have any advice of the sort of things I could say?

TL:DR I struggle to give examples in job interviews of problem-solving etc because I was basically a minion allowed no responsibility..

I’d make it up. You could probably do the role standing on your head, so just say whatever you need to. It’s not like you’re pretending to be a qualified midwife or electrician and putting people at risk. Don’t overthink.

I know what you mean OP. I am very similar and worked in admin in a very traditional office where I was usually assessed as somewhere in the middle. Fully competent but never going to be management material.
Then I got a new line manager. My first appraisal with her she listed all my wonderful qualities and competences, gave examples of actions that highlighted all the key points that they wanted evidenced that I had just done as part of my job, never thinking I needed to record it somewhere so I could show off about how good I was.
I never did get any good at playing the silly game. I went technical rather than management because I didn't want to have to do all that for other people.

Exactly! Making things up or embellishing will usually go badly. Interviewers are pretty savvy. You need to do the actual prep beforehand and think of genuine examples for when you’ve encountered common competency scenarios. Testing genuine answers and experiences is the whole point of competency interviews and it can make them very difficult to lie in if you have an experienced interviewer. You will probably never know you’ve been caught out but think about what you said if you get rejected.

I’ve done a lot of interviewing / recruitment over my career and some of the lies / bullshit I’ve picked up on has just been hilarious / unnecessary! Candidates were oblivious of course. My personal favourite wasn’t even someone I interviewed. It was part of a recruitment evening (so 3 back to back interviews for candidates and anyone who was successful would get an offer the next day) so we had multiple interviews going on and us (the panel) would meet after each round to discuss all the candidates. One of the candidates lied about a role he’d done at his current employer. He claimed to have been the Project Manager for a particular project (when he’s actually been an IT Tester on it). Unfortunately for him, I was on the panel and I used to work for his then employer. And very unfortunately for him, I was the Project Manager on that project! Such a stupid lie. And so unnecessary. But it cost him. He had no idea why he was rejected. He would have got through to the next round if I hadn’t spotted the lie. What an idiot!

Use Chat gpt to give you example questions before the interview and prep the answers. Speak out loud to yourself and force yourself through it. Then it's much easier in the interview

id use real life examples in place of office ones