Behavioral question
How would you deliver bad news to stakeholders?
- The New York Times
- Behavioral
- Easy
Practice this question out loud. An AI interviewer asks it, follows up like a real interviewer would, and scores your answer. Type or speak.
Start a mock interview on this question · Mock interview from a job description
What this question tests
Behavioral and communication skill: delivering unwelcome news to stakeholders clearly and maintaining their trust.
How to approach it
- Describe your general framework: be direct and early, avoid burying the bad news, and bring context plus a path forward.
- Give a concrete example: a missed deadline, budget cut, or scope change you had to communicate.
- Describe how you structured the message: leading with the fact, explaining the cause, and proposing next steps.
- Explain how you adapted the delivery for the audience, such as executives wanting a concise summary first.
- State the outcome, ideally showing that stakeholder trust was preserved through the transparency.
What a strong answer includes
- Uses a specific real example rather than staying abstract about 'how I communicate.'
- Shows a clear structure: lead with the fact, give context, then propose a path forward, not a buried or softened message.
- Notes audience-specific tailoring, distinguishing an executive summary from a detailed team update.
- States a concrete outcome, like the stakeholder appreciating the early transparency.
Common mistakes
- Giving a purely theoretical answer without a specific example.
- Softening or delaying the bad news too much in the description.
- No outcome described showing the impact on stakeholder trust.
Likely follow-up questions
- Can you walk through a specific example of bad news you delivered?
- How do you handle a stakeholder who pushes back or gets upset?
- How do you decide when to escalate versus handle bad news yourself?
More behavioral questions
- What's a successful brainstorming session you conducted, and why do you consider it successful?The New York Times · Behavioral · Easy
- How do you encourage participation in brainstorming sessions?The New York Times · Behavioral · Easy
- How do you deliver bad news to stakeholders?The New York Times · Behavioral · Easy
- Describe a situation or project in which you had to work with a cross-functional team.The New York Times · Behavioral · Easy
- How do you drive engineers and the team towards the product vision?The New York Times · Behavioral · Easy
- How do you define a good PM vs. a bad PM?Google · Behavioral · Easy
More questions from The New York Times
Learn the skill behind it
Chapters of the AI PM course that teach what this question tests.
- Chapter 13: Lead the room: staff moves, forward-deployed PM, and the portfolio
- Chapter 14: Get the job: the AI PM interview loop