Behavioural questions are aimed at uncovering how you acted in a certain situation. By asking this type of question, interviewers are looking for evidence of what you have done in the past and how this may influence your future behaviour at an organisation.
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Industries where the jobs are right now. A guide to salaries in your industry. Explore related topics. Some people assume that they will have no problem talking on the fly, but this is rarely a good idea. Remember that interviews are stressful! For a list of the top behavioral interview questions, see the resource list at the end of the article.
Prior experience questions gauge your past behavior as predictors of future behavior. Interviewers want to get a pulse on your instincts, tendencies, and influences. The main focus should be on professional experiences. A prior work experience question will almost always ask you to reflect on your past.
You can recognize these questions by listening for cues such as past tense verbs and story-based responses.
The key is to make sure that everything in your response is relevant to the question posed. All anecdotes and reflections should come back to the crux of the question. Your answers should focus primarily on your actions, accomplishments, and thought processes.
Avoid describing decisions made as a team or answers that did not directly require your effort. To learn more on this, check out CodingInterview. They gauge your ability to apply past experiences to potential challenges as well as your instincts when faced with company-specific issues.
An interviewer will listen for your creativity and personal biases. You can recognize these questions by listening for cues like these:. The key to answering these questions is to avoid too much detail. Any specifics to your answer should be framed as assumptions. This is also where your company-specific research comes in handy. If you know upfront what an organization values, you can tailor your hypothetical responses to match their needs.
There is a difference between rambling and actively processing information. Let the interviewer see how your brain works when posed with different challenges. Values-based questions offer the opportunity to assess if you are a good match for the organization and role. This includes the personal values that you bring to the table. This is where your research on company values and the position comes in handy, which we will discuss later.
Many of these questions might be phrased as hypotheticals, or they may ask you to describe your ideal work environment. Listen for cues such as,. Leadership also plays an important role in values-based questions. Interviewers want to hire potential leaders who fit with their culture and vibe. For example, a hierarchical organization will be less attracted to a candidate who loves democratic decision-making.
Take note that these questions are also an opportunity for you to assess your interest in the role. You are also interviewing the company! As they pose questions about your values, you can reflect on how fulfilled you would be in that culture and role.
Practice behavioral interviews without scrubbing through videos or scattered articles. As I have mentioned, a lot of preparation comes down to doing your homework on the company and job description. This includes the roles of the position, the culture of the company, the brand, and the questions they are likely to ask you.
Studying the values of an organization will hone your answers and make you a more invested interviewer. So, where can you do this homework on the company?
Larger companies will usually provide detailed declarations on their values, which you can memorize and implement in your answers authentically. Social media voice and vibe speak for the culture of the company overall. Once you have a good sense of company values and brand, you can start brainstorming your answers to common questions that strike a balance between being authentic and tailored to their expectations. Which of the following values do you think you should focus on?
Respectful communication would likely be an implicit value for that organization. As you are speaking, introducing yourself, and answering questions, you would want to come across respectful and communicative. Take a look at the difference between these two responses:. Though both of these convey the same information about time management, the second response is oriented towards respecting others and communication.
Once you have a strong sense of the questions ahead of you and the company values, you need to assess your strengths and weaknesses. Which questions will you be ready to answer clearly? Which questions have you done little thinking on? This step requires some self-reflection and self-investigation. Here are some tips for this step:. Personality assessments are not a clear-cut science, but they can offer some interesting insights. A personality test can help you understand your values, fears, communication style, and intuition.
On the most basic level, the questions can be very thought-provoking. One easy way to assess your strengths and weaknesses is to write them out. Consider making a chart.
On the left, write out the company values in bullet points. On the right, write out potential speaking points for each value. This will help you determine where you need to focus. If you leave any blank, consider doing some self-reflection to generate potential answers.
You can even ask friends, loved ones, or previous employers for guidance on specific values. They may bring an external perspective that sparks new ways of thinking. Practicing your interview answers may feel awkward at first, but it will help you structure your answers and build confidence overall.
Here are some tips for practicing your answers in advance:. The STAR method helps you create structured responses to behavioral interview questions. You can implement this acronym with any answer. Writing things out activates a different part of the brain than speaking or typing. Writing requires a slower, more intentional form of communication that can offer great insight into your answers.
As you practice, try writing out your answers first. Slow down and carefully select words that trigger company values. When we speak aloud, we cannot necessarily hear what we are actually saying or how we might come across. Recording yourself empowers you to take the position of the interviewer and listen to your responses more directly.
You can even just do this on your phone, either with a video or a voice recording. Play it back to yourself, and pay attention to the strengths and weaknesses of your response. You can even play it for a family member or previous employer to get outside advice on the success of your answer. Not only does it teach through real-world examples, quizzes, and pro tips from hiring managers, it also offers a unique embedded video widget, where you can record answers and play them back for assessment.
Mock interviews are a very helpful tool for you during the practice stage. They force you to bring all your hard work and research together into a real-world environment. You can do this with anyone who is willing to take your responses seriously and offer constructive criticism.
There are also online companies who offer mock interviews. Once you go through a mock interview, be sure to ask good questions for improvement, such as:. Video and phone interviews are popular right now. Currently, due to the worldwide pandemic, all tech companies are relying on video interviews for behavioral assessment, and industry leaders predict that this trend will continue after the pandemic concludes.
Doing a phone or video interview can be tricky at first since we are used to in-person etiquette. Here are some things to remember in your virtual interviews. When coming up with examples, write down the Situation or Task you had to resolve, the Action s you took, and the Results of the situation.
Use specifics, such as people, places, scale, and scope, and quantify as much as possible. Provide details that can be verified by references in case the employers decide to check. Look at past performance documents and appraisals. To prepare for future job interviews, look back at past performance appraisals and notes to help you identify achievements and situations that will help you come up with examples for a behavioral interview.
Begin taking notes now. If you're not currently working, then this might not apply to you; but could still be good to take note of for the future. Document your successes, achievements and so on, while you're working to help you come up with stories and examples for behavioral interviews in the future. This will also help you when it comes to completing performance appraisals if you're required to do so.
If you're a candidate fresh out of school with little relevant work experience, your interviewer should already realize this. You'll be asked similar behavioral interview questions as an experienced hire would be asked, and all of the above points on how to prepare still apply to you.
Your answers, however, will be based on results or how you handled situations in college, within organizations, on sports teams, at a part-time job, within your family and so on. Practice nailing a behavioral-based interview with a TopInterview coach.
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