Describe a situation when you had conflicting responsibilities and how you handled it.

This question is aimed towards understanding your ability to prioritize tasks, balance multiple responsibilities, and to display your problem-solving and decision-making capabilities under pressure. It is also a way for employers to gauge how you handle stress and conflict at work.

When answering this question, think of a situation where you had to juggle and prioritize multiple tasks or roles, a scenario where two or more responsibilities were in direct conflict, or a situation where your duties to two or more different parties were at odds. You should:

1. Be concise but thorough: Briefly explain the situation, but make sure you include all the necessary details.
2. Describe the conflict: Clearly identify where the responsibilities conflicted.
3. Talk about the steps you took: Explain what you did, why you did it, and how you did it.
4. State the outcome: Was the conflict resolved? Was the project completed successfully because of your actions?
5. Reflect on the situation: Would you do anything differently in retrospect? What have you learned from this experience?

In my previous role as a project manager at XYZ Corporation, I was given the responsibility of handling two high-priority projects simultaneously. Each had different teams and different deadlines, which were unfortunately close together. The initial stages went smoothly, but as we felt the crunch of the upcoming deadlines, it became clear that the two teams required my guidance and supervision at the same time.

Rather than dividing my attention ineffectively, I called meetings with each team separately. Afterward, I reassessed the remaining milestones and their deadlines and decided to delegate some of my tasks to the respective team leads. I was hesitant about this initially, but I ultimately decided that it was the most effective way to ensure both projects moved forward.

I maintained open lines of communication and scheduled additional team meetings to ensure that everything was on track. In the end, both projects were completed successfully and on time. This experience taught me the importance of task delegation and trust in your team when dealing with conflicting responsibilities.

When I was working as an IT consultant, there was a time when I was assigned to resolve an urgent issue for a high-profile client. However, at the same time, I was also scheduled to conduct an important training session for a group of new employees. I was torn between delivering the training and addressing our client's immediate issue.

I spoke to my manager about this and we agreed that the client's issue was urgent and required immediate attention. To handle the training session, I reached out to a fellow senior team member who was familiar with the training materials and was scheduled for some less-urgent work that day. He agreed to take over the training session for me.

Hence, I was able to give my undivided attention to the client's issue and resolve it in a timely manner, and the training went ahead as planned. The situation taught me the value of proactively communicating with my colleagues and superiors to effectively manage conflicting responsibilities.