When is the last time you took a risk? How did it work out?

How do I answer the question "Tell me a time when you took a risk and failed"?

When asked in an interview, the question actually means 'tell me a time when you demonstrated courage, tenacity, and learnability'.

Answer it with a short thoughtful pause. Recount a time In life when you had to muster the courage to do something, you faced difficult circumstances because of it but dealt with it, what you learnt from it and how it informed further choice.

Incident should not be flimsy, or commonplace, and most importantly not fake. I'll share two examples.

G was constantly finding himself at odds with a bully at school. Eventually he mustered up the courage to confront him/her. But it didn't work. In fact G got physically hurt by the bully's violent reaction. G got better of course, but he also learnt that head on confrontation is not always the best way to deal with a bully (or any adversity in his life, if you consider the bully as a metaphor for adversity). He figured that sometimes having a suitable plan which addresses the real deeper issue (in this case the root of the bully's behavior) is necessary. Additionally, he learnt that ‘carefrontation’ could be a useful approach rather than confrontation. G used this approach many times successfully in life situations to solve potentially explosive situations while managing his teams and even in personal life.

Y always dreamt of becoming an IPS officer in India. However he hailed from a business family and was expected to enter the business. He believed in his dream, risked being financially completely cut off by hisb family, and appeared for the competitive exams for the same. He was in general bad at tests and so unfortunately he failed to get through in the third attempt as well. At that point he had two options, risk losing another year and losing face with family and reappear next year. Or build a new dream. Both options were risky. However, When faced with that choice he realised that he had never even considered suitability of other careers for himself. He eventually got involved in assisting with criminal investigations, in the process realised he enjoyed legal work a lot. Y pursued corporate legal studies and started a career in corporate law. He enjoyed the law so much that he even did very well in his bar exam. Y learnt how important it is not get blindsided by one possible path or approach, there are always multiple aspects to consider for wholistic decision making process.

The second example can be especially useful for interviews in a career change situation.

Hope this helps readers. I can be contacted for futher guidance for one on one guidance for essays, Statement of purposes, interview preparation and such.