F-A-I-L: a four-letter word that shouldn’t be a four-letter word. Just like good can’t exist without evil, success can’t exist without failure. Every failure is an opportunity to grow your knowledge, skills, and character. So how can you get that across during a job interview when you’re asked, “Tell me about a time you’ve failed”?

When you answer this dreaded question, remember that everybody has failed at something; if you have any upper management on your interview panel, they have probably failed a lot to achieve their level of success. Even if you feel embarrassed or unworthy for having failed in the first place, it’s not the failure itself that defines you, but how you respond to and learn from it. Be sure to frame your answer that way as you…

• Think of solid examples before your interview. Just like, “What’s your greatest weakness,” you do not want this question to catch you off guard. You need to demonstrate honesty and self-awareness of your not-so-great moments. You don’t need to share your most epic failure (“…and that’s how I bankrupted the company), but it should be more than, “I ordered the wrong weight of copy paper.” Once you select the “right” time that you stumbled and walked tall again, rehearse your answer until you have the major beats down.
• Get help choosing a failure. If you can’t come up with a good failure, try reaching out to a trusted coworker. You should have a good rapport with this person, enough that they can speak frankly about a time you failed or that others’ perceived that you failed. Maybe they were directly impacted by your failure. Find out how your coworker felt you handled the failure, and why they think you failed in the first place. You might even get a fresh perspective on a past mistake.
• Explain why you failed. Remember, you’re here to explain how you grew from your failure, not to give your interviewers a reason to reject you. Instead of dropping “I missed a project deadline that lost my company a major client,” try, “I missed a project deadline that lost my company a major client. I wanted to do everything just right, which I thought meant doing it myself, but it proved too much for me under the time constraints. I have since learned the importance of delegating tasks and asking for help when I need it, and learning to embrace the power of a team effort.” In this scenario, you can also talk about any processes you’ve established to evaluate goals and delegate tasks at the beginning of a project, to avoid missing future deadlines.

Nobody is perfect! The ability to honestly reflect on your mistakes shows you are a self-aware, improvement-oriented professional who is able to learn and grow from your mistakes. And because you rehearsed before your interview, you didn’t let this tough question trip you up. There’s a leg up on your competition!