The Student Room Group

mental health and 'resilience' questions

Hi everyone,

I'm currently applying for a charity position and one of the questions is 'when have you shown resilience?'. Honestly, the time when I showed the most resilience was when I developed an anxiety disorder during my masters but managed to deal with it and still got a good mark. I don't know whether I should write that though - my gut says no, but a couple of friends have said it would show honesty and was impressive. Apart from that, I wouldn't know what to write, as the only thing to say would be like 'did my degree and had jobs and extracurriculars' etc, which is pretty boring and generic. Any help?
Reply 1
Is it a fundraising role? If so they are potentially thinking in "rejection handling" terms, so would probably be expecting examples of times you have been told "no" and kept bouncing back with a smile on your face.
Have you had a retail job where you have had to sell loyalty cards, or a bar job where you have been asked to upsell to a specific brand, or a restaurant job where you have had to encourage diners to order meals which are cheapest to produce / slowest selling? These feel like they would tick the "rejection handling box".

The mental health angle is interesting, and its encouraging that you feel confident to discuss it - we should be more open to these discussions in the workplace and life in general. It's potentially a higher risk / higher reward option. Some people might be scared off and some people might see it as impressively open, transparent and resilient.

Quick Reply