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Saturday’s flash sale: a situational interview scenario

It’s 8:40 on Saturday and you’re Pellbrook’s weekend on-call coordinator. A flash sale on a garden furniture set opens at 10:00, and an email promising “180 sets” goes to 30,000 customers at the same moment. The warehouse supervisor messages: “System says 180 sets. We found 120 on the shelves.”

Weekend on-call policy (invented)
On-call may cap how many units a sale offers. Only the head of e-commerce may change a price, change what an email promises or cancel a sale. A customer whose order can’t be filled must hear within 24 hours and be offered a refund.
Head of e-commerce
Owns the sale. At her son’s football game and reading texts slowly.

Every decision and where it leads

Decision 1 · 8:40 What do you do first?

The system says 180 sets; the supervisor found 120 on the shelves. The sale and the email go out at 10:00.

  1. Ask the supervisor where she counted: every location, or just the shelves?

    She hadn’t checked the overflow bay. By 9:30 she has found 30 more sets there: 150 found, 30 still unaccounted for. You don’t ask what condition the overflow sets are in.

    • Showed: Ask before you act
    Decision 2, 9:30
  2. Cap the sale at 120 now, then find out more.

    The cap is yours to set and easy to change, so the sale can’t oversell while you look. When you ask, the supervisor finds 30 more sets in the overflow bay: 150 found by 9:30, 30 still unaccounted for.

    • Showed: Act before you have every fact
    Decision 2, 9:30
  3. Text the head of e-commerce and ask her to call off the sale.

    She replies at 9:25, 45 minutes later: “At the game. What do we actually have?” You don’t know yet, and calling it off was never the only option. Meanwhile the supervisor finds 30 more sets in the overflow bay: 150 found, 30 still unaccounted for.

    • Missed: Ask before you act
    • Missed: Know what to own and what to escalate
    Decision 2, 9:30
Decision 2 · 9:30 The sale opens in 30 minutes. What do you do?

150 sets found: 120 on the shelves and 30 in the overflow bay. 30 of the system’s 180 are still missing. The email going out at 10:00 promises “180 sets”.

  1. Leave it at 180. The missing 30 will probably turn up.

    They don’t, and 12 of the 30 overflow sets turn out to have crushed boxes and broken frames. 180 orders by 10:40, but only 138 sets can ship: 42 customers have paid for sets that don’t exist.

    • Missed: Act before you have every fact
    Ending: Customers let down
  2. Cap the sale at 150, and text the head of e-commerce: the email says 180; can I change it to “limited stock”?

    She replies in four minutes: “Yes, change it.” The sale opens at 10:00 with 150 sets and an email that promises nothing it can’t keep.

    • Showed: Know what to own and what to escalate
    • Showed: Act before you have every fact
    Decision 3, 11:15
  3. Cap the sale at 150, and change the email to say 150 yourself.

    The sale is safe, but the email’s promise wasn’t yours to change. The head of e-commerce hears about it from a colleague at 10:20 and asks why nobody told her.

    • Showed: Act before you have every fact
    • Missed: Know what to own and what to escalate
    Decision 3, 11:15
Decision 3 · 11:15 What do you do about the 12 orders?

The 150 sets sold out in 25 minutes. Packing the overflow bay, the warehouse finds 12 of its 30 sets have crushed boxes and broken frames. Only 138 sets can ship, so 12 customers have bought sets that don’t exist. Your 9:30 count of 150 never asked about condition.

  1. Cancel the 12 newest orders with the standard out-of-stock email.

    The 12 hear within 24 hours and get refunds, so the policy is met. But the head of e-commerce still thinks 150 sets sold and shipped, and learns otherwise from a complaint on Monday.

    • Missed: Own the mistake and repair it
    Ending: Contained, not owned
  2. Wait for Monday’s restock and see whether it covers them.

    Monday is more than 24 hours away. By Sunday afternoon the 12 customers have heard nothing, and the policy’s deadline has passed.

    • Missed: Act before you have every fact
    • Missed: Own the mistake and repair it
    Ending: Customers let down
  3. Tell the head of e-commerce now: 138 can ship, not 150, because I didn’t check condition. Propose contacting the 12 today with a refund or a restock date.

    She agrees within the hour. The 12 customers hear from Pellbrook that afternoon, well inside 24 hours, and each chooses a refund or the restock date.

    • Showed: Know what to own and what to escalate
    • Showed: Own the mistake and repair it
    Ending: Repaired in time
Ending Repaired in time

Every customer heard the same day, and the owner of the sale knew the real number before anyone complained.

The ending turns on owning your own mistake: you said your count was wrong, why, and what to do next, and left the decision with the head of e-commerce (Own the mistake and repair it; Know what to own and what to escalate). The mistake started earlier, with a count nobody asked about (Ask before you act).

Ending Contained, not owned

The customers were refunded on time, but the person who owns the sale was left with the wrong number.

Repair means correcting the record for whoever relied on it, not just closing the orders (Own the mistake and repair it). One more question at 9:30, about condition, would have avoided the 12 short orders (Ask before you act).

Ending Customers let down

Customers paid for garden sets Pellbrook couldn’t send. Either the sale ran past the stock, or the short orders waited past the 24-hour notice the policy requires.

A cap was yours to set at any point, and it can be undone (Act before you have every fact). The 24-hour notice was the deadline that mattered (Own the mistake and repair it). Taking only the email’s promise to its owner, early, keeps both in reach (Know what to own and what to escalate).

How it works

A situational question describes a moment at work and asks what you would do. It tests judgment, not memory: what you notice, what you ask, which trade-off you accept and who you bring in. Gary Latham and Guy Itzchakov explain why a good one contains a dilemma:

If an SI question does not contain a dilemma, the answer to an interview question may be a response to what the interviewee infers the interviewer hopes to hear.

A polished first answer is now easy to produce, so interviewers lean on the follow-up. Gartner’s Jamie Kohn writes:

For case study problems, candidates can use generative AI to solve the problems, but AI is less effective for follow-up questions that probe candidates’ thought processes.

Navio Kwok’s list of follow-ups ends with two that this scenario keeps asking:

Have they considered other approaches? And are they aware of the drawbacks of their approach?

The rules of this scenario

  1. Three decisions, three options each. Each option shows or misses one or more of the five skills, and leads to the next decision or an ending. There are 21 ways through and 3 endings.
  2. The numbers. The system says 180 sets. 120 are on the shelves and 30 in the overflow bay, so 150 are found. 12 of the 30 are damaged, so 138 can ship. A sale capped at 150 leaves 150 − 138 = 12 orders short; a sale left at 180 leaves 180 − 138 = 42.
  3. Customers let down if the sale runs past the stock, or if short orders wait past the policy’s 24-hour notice.
  4. Contained, not owned if the customers are refunded on time but the owner of the sale still has the wrong number.
  5. Repaired in time if you correct your own count, say why it was wrong and give the owner a plan the same day.

Play a scenario out loud with an AI interviewer on Socratify.

Last reviewed Nov 9, 2026