Invested money/undertook a task & lost money?

Question

Hello,

Please can someone help with instances a graduate student can use when trying to give an example of times when he/she invested money and lost it? (Or probably undertook a task and lost money?)

Also, I will kindly appreciate a further explanation on the WHAT & WHY that this question seeks to assess of the Interviewee.

Thanks for your anticipated responses!

Answer 1

Hi Martins,

Fundamentally, they're looking to see: can you learn from your mistakes?

So, pick an example where you had a belief/convinction, took a risk, and turned out wrong. Then, provide the lesson you learned from this!

Personally, I would talk about a startup I launched that ultimately failed. I didn't understand a key part of the market (essentially big powerful companies that would block you). Waht I learned from this is to always consider how your competition will respond to your actions. Furthermore, before I started, I made sure to only pursue a low-capital idea. This is a view that was reinforced....if you're going to take a risk hedge/minimize risk by either picking something with low capital requirement OR getting someone else's money!

Answer 2

Hello!

There are a few things the interviewer is looking for here:

Can you make bold decisions? (e.g., launching something yours, etc.)
Do you calculate risks?
Do you learn from your mistakes? Hence, don´t limit the story to the loss itself but also your learnings from it
etc.

I would pick a story regarding you betting for something (e.g., project, startup, etc.) that then failed.

Hope it helps!

Cheers,

Clara

Answer 3

Hi Martins,

I personally never ask such questions since I expect rehearsed answers - but that's for another day.

The reason behind is two-fold:

How well did you prepare your decision upfront - was it a structured, logical process on how you came to that decision.
Once you understood in hindsight that it was not the very best decision which you could have taken - was your process to derive that decision (point 1) good enough nevertheless to stick with in principally, and in addition to that what are the key take-aways for your further improvement for such situations in future?

Hope that helps - if so, please be so kind and give it a thumbs-up with the green upvote button below!

Robert

Answer 4

Hi Martins,

I can see tthat by your anwer you might be assessed on how:

• You take risky desicion and you calculate risks

• You ability to make conclusion out of mistakes

• How well your assess the given situation to take such desicions.

Hope it helps,

Best,

André