Vital Behavioral Interview Preparation Guide

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Behavioral interviewing or competency based interviewing explores workplace competencies that are required for successful job performance.
If the job requires a person to be able to analyze and find solutions to problems the interviewer will ask the candidate to provide an example of when they previously displayed that behavior.

Questions about managing others are not limited to management jobs. Businesses want to see examples of leadership in their employees. There are a variety of behavioral interview questions that are designed to see how well you handle a leadership role. The best way to answer this is to highlight why you delegated each task to its recipient. "I focused on the staff member's strength. I delegated the tougher IT tasks to Todd because he was more experienced. Jeff had an eye for accuracy, so I had him run data check. I handled the overall QA since I had the most experience with the details of the project."

Personality plays a role in behavioral interviews. Employers want to see that you are well balanced person that knows how to handle themselves. These types of questions are designed to see how you handled situations that can be very personally stressful. Try to share examples that reflect positively on all parties involved. "Once I was blamed for not double checking marketing data, which drastically impacted one of our campaigns. Though I was not the staff member in charge of the data collection and analysis, I knew it would be unproductive to try to pass blame, so I simply asked what steps I could take to help resolve the problem. Afterward I spoke with the staff member in charge of checking data and let them know of the error so that both of us could ensure it would not be repeated."

★ Describe the specific situation or task you were involved in
★ Detail the action and steps you took in the situation
★ Outline the results and outcome of your actions. What happened, what was accomplished, what did you learn

behavioral questions that explore the key competencies of:
★ Teamwork
★ Leadership
★ Negotiation skills

behavioral interview question that explores about candidate's:
★ Ability to handle stress
★ Resilience
★ Adaptability

common behavioral interview questions that explore:
★ Problem-solving
★ Initiative
★ Judgment

Often the interviewer will ask follow-up questions to get more information.
★ "Tell me why you did that?"
★ "Take me through your decision process?"
★ "How did you feel about that?"

Many jobs require a motivated self-starter that will seek out tasks and ensure they are on the right track. Employers are not looking for someone that gets confused and does not look for help. Many questions will focus on your own personal responsibility and how you handled issues that arose while you were working alone.

Questions about your ability to change your mind will be very common during behavioral interviews. The employer is going to be testing your decision making skills. They also are seeing if you are rigid in your beliefs. Share a time during your past employment where you needed to change your mind or adjust a process. No employer wants someone that is rigid in their beliefs.

Companies do not want to hire someone that is always right. They want to hire someone that makes mistakes and learns from these mistakes. Questions about mistakes or errors in judgment are common. Come up with a few mistakes you can discuss if requested. Always make sure that you are able to follow up with what you learned from the experience and how it has affected your current decision making strategies.

This question is common for customer service, sales, marketing, management and IT jobs. Provide specific, job related examples. Did you create any documents? Did you practice its presentation? Did you run it by another employee? Remember to discuss all of the methods you used to simplify the information.

Standard interview tips and techniques still apply. Do not speak negatively about any supervisors, coworkers or former jobs. It is acceptable to share a specific situation that occurred with a former boss, but do not go into detail about the disagreement. Focus instead on what you did to help the supervisor see your point of view.
You may be asked a follow up question, such as "Did they ultimately see your point of view?" Be honest. Did they follow your advice or didn't they? The answer is not as important as the presentation. Do not sound bitter in your response if they did not. "They did see my point of view. They chose a different path, but they understood my concerns and beliefs in the end."

Sometimes you will have an answer that does not reflect well on your candidacy. It may be a good idea to feign amnesia and act as though you have not had the experience before. It may also be useful to tell the interviewer what you would have done differently. An answer for a difficult question may be "Well, at the time I did this, but soon after I realized that the ideal way to handle it would be that." Minimize the negatives and put more focus on how you would have handled the situation. Good answers will show the employer that you are willing to learn from your mistakes.

Behavioral questions assume you have experienced the situation the question refers to. You may not have an experience to provide. It is important that you do not try to make one up. Your interviewer will have enough experience evaluating applicants that they will easily be able to catch you in a lie. Instead, explain to the employer that you have not experienced the situation and describe what you would do if the issue occurred.

Common mistakes at behavioral interviews include:
★ Overusing "um" or pausing frequently.
★ Telling stories unrelated to the question.
★ Trying to make up a story that is false.
★ Casting yourself in a negative light.
★ Reflecting poorly on your professional relationships.

Without preparation, these job interviews are prone to mistakes. Recall can be difficult when put on the spot, especially during an interview. If you do not remember specific examples of when you encountered these situations, you may struggle.

In this situation you would tell your immediate superiors about the situation and you wait for their orders while completing the work on your hand. On specific orders about managing the branch you will be explaining about the situation or work currently you are handling.

Always remember while answering this question you need to be careful about addressing points, don’t move into the negative side because it can give out negative vibes. Explain to him about the advantages and disadvantages about the product.

When answering these types of questions you need to specify a real life example about the situation you faced if you hadn’t faced such type of situation explain to him how you can deal with an angry customer. It would be an added situation to explain about the possible scenarios.

If you have used logic and judgment in solving a particular problem then explain it to him otherwise politely say that you never faced it and explain him about the possible ways you would have approached at the logic (brain storming, decision making, etc).

If the work is huge the best way to get it done is to share it among the team leaders and members. First you would explain to the manager about the project size and then share it among your batch members for better efficiency. Answer this question in your own way and style of doing work.

Give a brief introduction about all the changes you brought to the company and pick the one which is absolutely dynamic in nature. This question is very important as it can be in the record of your previous company and it will also be in the record of your current employer.

Give a brief intro about how you achieved the goal and also state to him about all the difficulties you faced during the process. Give solution to each and every difficulty you faced which will convince the interviewer much more.

When answering this question explain to him the situation or circumstances in which you had to fire your friend. As an employee of an organization your prime goal is to do just to the company and anything which can harm the development of the organization cannot be tolerated.