You won’t be doing fake work on your internship or placement and you may be very busy at times. Internship interviewers often ask this because they want to get a sense of whether they can trust you with tasks that will ultimately have an impact on the wider business.

Good answers to this common interview question on prioritization acknowledge that:

☛ the quality of your work and ability to meet deadlines has an impact on the workload of your colleagues

☛ you may sometimes have to stop what you’re doing in order to work on something more urgent

☛ it is appropriate to ask your supervisor what to prioritise if you’re not sure (but your supervisor would expect you to have thought about your priorities beforehand)