Is it bad not to answer the "Tell me how you behaved in a situation of conflict with your previous supervisor" question in a PhD interview? I had an interview where I was asked to tell the committee about a situation where I had a conflict with one of my previous supervisors.
I told them the truth, which is &quot;I have never had a conflict with any of my supervisor before&quot;. But they gave me a couple of minutes to think carefully so maybe I remember something. I could not come up with an idea.
Is it bad not to answer this question? In other words, should I have been not honest and make up a story?
How much of an effect can this question have on their final decision?
I think it would be worse to make up a story. I'm not particularly a fan of this sort of &quot;trap&quot; interview question (alongside other common ones like &quot;what's your biggest weakness?&quot;) but presumably the interviewer is asking because they are hoping to elucidate something about how you handle conflict. If you brush the question off, well, that tells them something about how you handle conflict, doesn't it? Maybe they won't mind, maybe they will care deeply, but especially because they gave you extra time they are signaling that, to them, this was an important question, and yet you weren't able to answer a question that was important to them. That said, it's impossible to measure the effect this will have on the decision. It seems unlikely that the answer to this question would be literally the only thing between you and another candidate that was interviewed, but ultimately if it is a choice between you and someone else then anything could matter as the proverbial &quot;last straw&quot;.
Instead, in the future I would consider interpreting a question like this much more broadly. A &quot;conflict&quot; doesn't have to mean you came to fisticuffs, it could be any level of disagreement. If you truly have never had a disagreement with a supervisor that may not be a good thing, either, it suggests you aren't bringing anything to the table of sufficient substance to disagree about or lack the confidence to support your own ideas when a supervisor suggests a different direction.