How would you answer this question in your Personal Fit interview? Receive feedback on your answer and browse through the Q&As to review the approaches of other applicants and experts.
Situation:
In my first semester at Monash, I took on a unit with a large final project that required designing and developing a basic Android app — something I’d never done before. To make things harder, I was juggling part-time work, a personal family situation, and adjusting to uni life. A few friends even suggested I drop the unit, thinking the workload might be too much.
Task:
The project involved building the app from scratch using tools I had never used before (Android Studio, Kotlin, Jetpack Compose). I knew it would require not just technical learning, but a lot of independent problem-solving under time pressure.
Action:
I broke the work down into milestones and committed to a daily 2-hour deep work routine. I made a strict plan around my work schedule and cut out distractions. I also reached out to online communities and friends who had more experience in mobile development, which helped me learn faster.
The stress was definitely there — especially during bugs or crashes close to submission — but I managed it by staying focused on small wins, exercising regularly, and reminding myself why I chose to challenge myself in the first place.
Result:
I not only completed the app successfully, but also scored above distinction level. More importantly, the experience helped me build confidence that I can push through steep learning curves — even under pressure. It taught me that consistency, not perfection, is what actually leads to growth — especially when others doubt your ability to pull through.
At the end of my first month on the job, I recieved back from a third party a pack of near 80 drawings that we aimed to deliver in 3 days. However, we had to redraw all of them to follow the regulations of the project. It was stressful, but the conscience of the responsibility and the focus on the result, made me keep going.
In the early days as an Analyst, I had to convince my team to follow specific data standards to derive valuable attributes and insights. The challenge was the tram comprised of 2 more analysts and 30 warehouse staff members, who were not as data literate as required. I resolved the problem by including more repeating components in the tasks which was easy for the warehouse staff members and our small team of analysts handled the QA of the input data.
First of all, when a bunch of work come in. I try to arrange those works into categories; urgent and important, not urgent but important, urgent but not important, and not urgent nor important. After categorizing each type of work, I started to classify the first category based on it’s urgency and starts from that point
The last time I was offered with a challenge unintentionally was when my project teammate got into an accident and had to cover a critical section of the project all my myself, having to learn as I go and crush it down by the deadline. It wasnt a perfect submission but it saved the project from getting dropped from the qualifying rounds.
Hello!
On top of the insights already shared in the post, the "Integrated FIT guide for MBB" has been recently published in PrepLounge´s shop (https://www.preplounge.com/en/shop/tests-2/integrated-fit-guide-for-mbb-34), adressing topics precisely as your question.
It provides an end-to-end preparation for all three MBB interviews, tackling each firms particularities and combining key concepts review and a hands-on methodology. Following the book, the candidate will prepare his/her stories by practicing with over 50 real questions and leveraging special frameworks and worksheets that guide step-by-step, developed by the author and her experience as a Master in Management professor and coach. Finally, as further guidance, the guide encompasses over 20 examples from real candidates.
Furthermore, you can find 2 free cases in the PrepL case regarding FIT preparation:
Intro and CV questions > https://www.preplounge.com/en/management-consulting-cases/fit-interview/intermediate/introduction-and-cv-questions-fit-interview-preparation-200
Motivational questions > https://www.preplounge.com/en/management-consulting-cases/fit-interview/intermediate/motivational-questions-fit-interview-preparation-201
Feel free to PM me for disccount codes for the Integrated FIT Guide, since we still have some left from the launch!
Being a flight attendant and pursing my B.A. fulltime at the same time
I had to complete my thesis before the 1st of May. Due to procedures that take a lot of time, I had to finish the thesis approximately a month earlier. The model that I used for my thesis turned out to be flawed all of a sudden, and this meant that I had less than two weeks to fix it. Hard long hours and no weekends later, I finished the job and received an 8.8 for the thesis. The experience was very stressful. However, focusing on staying healthy via sports, sleep and good food helpt me a lot.
I had to do the whole market analysis of the African market in two weeks with only me and my supervisors where previously they had done the whole analysis in one month with four people. We worked two weeks everyday and had it done
I would talk about an anticipated deadline or an important sport challenge.
During my experimental research we experienced a flaw in out model making our retrieved data useless. As our experiments were time-consuming, it meant that I had not gained data to analyze, and time had been wasted. The issue was solved by correcting the model and running doubled experiments, meaning longer days at the lab. I managed to retrieve the necessary amount of data within reasonable time
my boss get sick and left me in the middle of an important project. the team was discouraged and I had to help each of them, rise up the moral and make the work done.
After my grandmother passed away, my husband and I were given the task to tear down her trailer. It took nearly 3 months of sustained physical labor to take it apart piece by piece and handle the materials. When you have an goal in mind you just take it one bit at a time. The work of the ant. Don't get bogged down by the enormity of it all. Before you know it, your project is complete. Even if it takes time, it gets done.
Developing an extensive PowerBI dashboard with complicated queries, which was required to support a large internal change project. It was an initiative by myself and highly appreciated by the project manager, but people in the team doubted the feasibility. I, however, made the concept very clear and involved team members in preliminary results. Along the way the patience of the team grew and my persuasion provided us and the involved supply chain departments with a valuable dashboard. Extra effort helped us all to make a big step forward.
During my master's degree, I was working part-time while also working on a student-run incubator. Many people though I would have to give up my work soon, but I worked throughout the program. Of course this was a stressful experience, but I had planned for it and knew that I was going to have to prioritize differently than other students and accept that I wouldn't have the best grades. By planning beforehand and setting realistic expectations for myself, I was able to handle the stress.
During the first year of my thesis I conducted many flow experiments that took whole day and I had to stay there night and weekends. I was still learnings how to use my experimental setup that was delicate and many times failed. However, I always learnt something new and I found this very rewarding. Therefore, I kept my efforts. At the same time I had to build my hypothesis to convince the supervisors that it is worth to continue the project. Clear communication helped in this.
I worked as a Tipico worker and we had once the situation, where the whole system fall apart. A lot of people wanted there money back and I couldn´t give it to them and normally that´s the part where another fellows failed, because it´s hard to tell 15 to 20 People they need to wait at least a couple of hours. I stayed calm, shared their view, promised that everyone will get their money back asap and make some jokes about the electronic technics
