"Tell me about a time when..."

I have had a couple of interviews now that have asked questions like this such as "Tell me about a time that you had a conflict. What was the situation? How did you handle it?" and other questions phrased in a similiar way asking you to identify a situation to answer the question.
Any hints for answering these questions other than to be prepared. I try to avoid examples that make me look bad or that might be contraversial. Sometimes I feel that in an attempt not to look bad that my situations are minor or don't really represent me and don't represent my potential.
Does anyone have any pointers on questions like this? Are such questions more common?

If the job is something like working at a retail store, and you are describing a problem with a customer, the best thing to say is that you tried to make the customer feel comfortable, and assured him/her that you were doing everything possible to help. If the customer was still not satisfied, you got help from a supervisor. That sort of thing. If you are working with customers, they want to see that you are polite in the way you present yourself. If the job is more managerial or white collar they probably ask questions like that just to see what kind of personality you have. They just want to hear how you talk, basically. It's really a stupid process that almost all interviewers do now and brings us this much closer to totalitarianism, IMHO. I'm really disgusted by how being skilled and passionate about one's work means almost nothing and conformity means everything, but that's just how I feel.

Where I would work primarily with a small team of other employees. Both of these jobs required technical skills. During my last interview, I was rather put off because I wanted to talk about my technical skills and why I would be excited about the particuliar job, but all the questions seemed to be directed towards how I handled situations and how I got along with people.
Perhaps if I do get a second interview from my latest interview (I was told that it would be 2-4 weeks), I will get to talk about what I wanted to talk about. I don't know if I will have that chance though. I guess that I just have to learn to anticipate these questions and formulate good canned responses.

If you would be working on a team, they need to know how you will fit into that team. Will you handle conflict in a way that compliments the current environment? They may have strong personalities on the team and need to know you can stand up to it. On the other hand, they may have some "shrinking violets" and need to know you won't intimidate the group.

Remember, interviews aren't really about what you want to talk about - they are about what you can do for the company. First round interviews are often done by people who are looking for a fit first - you can have all the technical skill in the world but if your personality doesn't fit with the team, then you're not going to add anything to the working environment. The second round will likely include the techies who will grill you on your tech skills.

"Tell me a time when you were under stress at your job and what you did about it."

Let's see-how about the night that we had a double homicide, a meth house blow up, an attempted kidnapping by a possible stranger and an officer run over by a car-the owners of the car being the same owners of the meth house? And this was in a half hour time period when everything was reported.

I count to ten, take a deep breath and take everything one step at a time.

(Really, what answer did they expect? I'm a former dispatcher who left the field only to finish a degree. It's obvious I can handle stress.)

True enough but they're not trying to find out IF you can handle stress, they're trying to find out HOW you handle stress.

Does the way you handle stress make it more or less stressful for the people working with you? Do you blow up and "let off steam"? Do you keep it inside and let resentment fester? Or do you deal with it, as you said, one step at a time.

Honestly, if you went off on a snarky, "Let's see-how about..." rant in an interview with me, I would consider that you couldn't handle the relatively minor stress of an interview without becoming beligerent. I wouldn't hire you.

my previous jobs and it's never any of the other areas I've worked in. They always ask about the 9-1-1. I'm not actually allowed to speak about the cases I worked and more than one interviewer has tried to dig further.

I'd love to tell them about other ways I've dealt w/ stress in other fields but most of them focus in on one specific job-the one that had the most references in the news. The moment we start the interview they almost always ask me "You worked for such-and-such a department during this time? Did you work (case here)? I really remember that in the news. What was that like?"

When I tell them that I signed a confidentiality agreement when hired that I am still not supposed to break they then press deeper w/ the stress question, usually asking for specific examples from that department. I try to go to another job instead and say something like "I can't get into specifics on that job but when I used to work in this field..." but they usually cut me off.

It's a small town that I live in now and everyone knows everyone. I sometimes wonder if half the interviews I'm called in for are really ways for someone to get further information about something. (When I quit dispatching full time I stayed w/ one department part time for a few years after. I finally left the field last summer because of schedule conflicts w/ my full time job. They never ask me about the full time job I was working at the time. They always want to know about the part time job and many of the cases they try to press about are still pending in the court system.)

It may work different in a bigger job market where I'd be allowed to merely state that I am not supposed to speak about specifics but in small towns they want the specifics, whether I can tell them or not. I'm always quite polite when I tell them I cannot discuss specific instances from that job but they press. Then again, I've had interviews where they've asked me how much dental work I've had done and what color hair dye I used, along w/ who was my auto insurance provider (when it was a nondriving job), what church I regularly attend, who my family is (small town again) and who am I dating (goes back to small town). I go into interviews and I can tell right away what type this will be, whether it will be professional or not. I handle the situation politely but I know if I don't give the information they want to not expect a callback any time in the near future.

The only interviews that I've ever had in which the interviewer did not press for specifics on my dispatching jobs were-surprise-other dispatching jobs. Those have always been group interviews and they've always stated that they know they cannot ask for specifics. Instead they will give me an example of a highly stressful situation and ask me how I would handle it.

(And the example I stated in an earlier post was actually brought up by an interviewer. I spoke to an officer friend about it later on and they said that they thought she was related to one of people involved that night.)