Behavioral interview question · prioritization
How do you decide what not to work on when you have more to do than time allows?
What interviewers listen for
Give a concrete example with real competing items (Situation/Task), your framework or reasoning for deprioritizing (Action), and the trade-off result — what you did not do and why that was the right call (Result).
Likely follow-up questions
- What was the opportunity cost of not doing the deprioritized item?
- How did you communicate to the owners of deprioritized items?
- In hindsight, was it the right call?
Practice this question out loud with an AI coach that asks the follow-ups, scores the answer against the STAR method and tells you what to tighten.