Here’s another one of those questions where your interviewer is trying to understand how you see yourself and the contributions you’ve made for your employer, and also to gauge how forthcoming you are about your past. How employees respond to criticism – whether they learn from it and improve their work, or become defensive and argumentative – directly impacts how managers and supervisors determine their potential for growth and advancement. But in truth, everyone has endured some criticism of their work. When discussing it with a prospective employer, the trick is to not come across as defensive. Your response, in part, will be influenced by how comfortable you are talking about any criticism you’ve actually received. If you choose to identify something that was criticized, whether major or minor, take ownership of the criticism and the reasons for it, and the positive changes you made and what you learned from the experience. Don’t place blame on someone else. Try to avoid going the philosophical route by saying “the subjective nature of another’s opinion doesn’t mean your work was inferior or warranted criticism, but maybe the other person simply disagreed about the process by which the work was to be done.” That will still come across as defensive, and sound like you don’t really want to answer the question. So don’t be evasive!