The behavioral interview
Whether it is called the behavioral interview, the behavior-based interview, or the personal experience interview, the behavioral interview is being used by more and more employers to assess candidates – whatever it is called, let us help you to gain the skills you will need to beat your competitors at the behavioral interview!
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What is the behavioral interview anyway?
Perhaps it is better to answer this question by thinking about what the ‘traditional’ interview might entail.
Traditional interview questions might include “Why are you applying for this position?” or “What do you know about our company?”
In fact, I’m sure that you have a whole list of these types of interview questions against each of which you have written, rehearsed and memorised your answer. If you haven’t, then you should!
It is reasonably easy, though, for you to know (or at least take an educated guess at) what the interviewer wants to hear when they ask each of these questions. Therefore it is also reasonably easy to come up with the ‘right’ interview answer. And because of this, interviewers find it very difficult to differentiate candidates based on their responses to this type of interview question alone.
This is where the behavioral interview comes in!
The behavioral interview is based on the premise that the best guide to your future performance is your past performance. Each interview will draw upon one or a small number of ‘experiences’ – times in your life when you found yourself in a situation or problem where you needed to take a set of actions to resolve the situation or problem. The behavioral interview is designed to allow you to tell the interviewer about what actions you took.
This certainly appears to make sense. If, for example, I was interviewing you for a role which required well-developed negotiation skills, I would much rather hear about a time when you used your skills in a tough negotiation than hear about what you know about my company! Therefore, behavioral interviews are a much better predictor of future performance.
Another key attribute about good behavior-based interviews, in my view, is that they should be more ‘input-based’ than ‘output-based’. What do I mean by that? I mean that I want to know what you did, what you said, how you felt, and what you thought (in other words, your ‘behaviors’) during your tough negotiation more than whether it was successful or not. The reason for this is that even if you had achieved your desired outcome in the negotiation, I have no idea in the confines of our interview room whether the person you were negotiating with was a push-over, or the hardest negotiator that walked the earth! I will be able to get a much better view of that by finding out how you ran the negotiation process, what you did and said at each stage, and how you planned for the next stage of negotiation – this is what I mean by the ‘input’.
So who uses behavioral interviewing techniques?
The truth is that most top-grade employers use behavioral interviews. They have found it to be a much better way of assessing whether a candidate is suitable for the job than other ‘traditional’ methods of interviewing.
It is also true that some less-trained interviewers may ask behavioral interview questions, without realising that they are doing so! You can use this to your advantage, since if you use the techniques in this report your answer will be far more compelling than those from unprepared candidates. Let me illustrate with an example:
A less-trained interviewer may ask “What positions of responsibility have you held?”
This information should be on your resume, so the interviewer is asking the question either because they haven’t seen or read your resume (which is possible) or because they are hinting that they would like some more detail behind the facts on your resume.
Either way, here is your chance to shine. Keep reading, and I’ll show you how you can really impress your interviewer by providing a behavioral interview styled answer!
What is the interviewer looking for at the behavioral interview?
As mentioned above, the interviewer is looking for a set of behaviors which the employer has decided are key for success in the position. They could include taking initiative, taking risks, persuading, manipulating complex data, making decisions under pressure, facilitating meetings, working within teams, leading teams etc.
It is important for you to have a clear idea of what behaviors the interviewer will be looking for.
Sometimes you will find this on the company website under their ‘careers’ section. Sometimes you will find hints towards what they think are important traits in their people in the ‘about our people’ or ‘about us’ sections. Remember to check the websites of other companies who operate in the same sector – they are likely to want the same things as your prospective employer!
Alternatively, use your network to reach out to people who work at the company, used to work at the company, or are otherwise involved with the company to find out what kind of behaviors they value in their people. And again, don’t just stop at your prospective employer, but also other companies in the sector.
What questions get asked at the behavioral interview?
By now, you will have gathered that the point of the behavioral interview is to allow the interviewer to find out how you acted in specific past situations. Therefore, the questions themselves will be tailored to the behavior that they are trying to assess.
For instance, if they would like to find out how good you are at working with teams, they could use opening questions such as:
- “Tell me about a time when you found it hard to work within a group of people”
- “Tell me about a time when you were working within a group of people from different backgrounds”
- “Tell me about a time when you joined a team which was already established”
- “Tell me about a time when you led a group of people to achieve something truly challenging”
But there are many other questions the interviewer could ask, trying to assess the same behavior.
Follow up questions are likely to dig into the experience you choose. Sometimes they can be quite leading, such as “Tell me how you set about influencing your boss in that situation” and this gives you a great clue that they are looking at your influencing techniques, so hopefully you’ll already be well prepared for this. Other follow-up questions in a behavioral interview can be deliberately non-leading. Be prepared for questions such as “What did you do?” or “What did you say?” It is much harder, but just as important, for you to pinpoint what behavior, or set of behaviors, the interviewer is looking for, and give them all you’ve got!
In other words, don’t get hung up on preparing answers to each potential question. It is far more important to think what type of behavior the interviewer is trying to assess with each question, and to have evidence to back up your skill in that area.
So how can I best prepare for a behavioral interview?
It may seem that the interviewer could be coming from anywhere in a behavioral interview – in which case, how can you possible prepare?
Well actually, it is reasonably straightforward to prepare for a behavioral interview, so long as you have sufficient experience of exhibiting the behaviors they are looking for.
The first thing to do is to produce a list of behaviors you think will be needed for the job. As mentioned before, scour the websites of as many companies in the same sector as you can, and also reach out to your network to refine your behavior list.
Once you have your refined behavior list, now is the time to scour your recent past for when you exhibited those particular behaviors. Many employers really don’t mind whether these experiences come from your time at school, your job, team sports or from community work, but some employers stipulate that they should come from work (or school if you have not held a job before). All interviewers, however, would prefer to discuss experiences which are relatively recent. I would always prefer to discuss experiences from the last two years of a candidate’s life, although I know of other employers who mandate that the experience must have come from the last year.
It is ideal if you are able to describe two or three different experiences in which you exhibited each behavior – that will allow you to choose the most appropriate depending on how the interview seems to be going, and will prepare you for the interviewer saying “tell me about another experience” out of the blue!
The final task is to match up each of your experiences with each of the behaviors on you behavior list. You are likely to find out that some of your experiences are actually very good examples of when you exhibited a broad range of behaviors. For instance, the time when you successfully led a difficult negotiation might also have involved rapid assimilation of data, or facilitating meetings, or prioritisation of a range of tasks etc. Focus on these experiences, for they will cover the broadest range of behaviors your interviewer will be looking for.
So far, so good. But do you feel prepared for your behavioral interview yet?
It’s now time to practice how you will lead the interviewer through the experience. There is a handy little acronym to help you out here – it’s called the SPAR approach.
What does SPAR stand for, I hear you ask. It stands for Situation or Problem, Action, Resolution!
So think about providing a concise and punchy summary of the Situation or Problem you faced. Make sure that you focus on the challenge behind the situation or problem – if, for instance, the situation you were faced with was that you were a supply teacher in a classroom full of pupils who had been allowed to misbehave by their normal teacher, don’t down play it! Don’t say “I was a supply teacher and had to deal with some unruly children”. DO say “I was brought into what was known among the other teachers as the worst-behaved class in the school. They were aged between 11 and 12, which as you know is a difficult age for children. Furthermore, the 40-strong class had effectively divided into two groups, so any approach I took needed to address the concerns of both groups, as well as to break down the barriers between the two groups and bring them closer together. And all this in only two weeks while their regular teacher was away!” As an interviewer, I will have a much fuller idea of the challenge and constraints you need to operate under.
Next – Action! What did you actually do and say at each stage? Make sure that you focus on what YOU did and said. The more you can use “I” than “We”, the better idea I get of what impact you had on the situation. Also, tell me what you were thinking at the time, and why you chose a particular course of action. “We called in the lead trouble-maker into an empty classroom one recess” does not help me find out what WHY you did or said what you did, nor does it give me an idea of whether it was YOU who did it, or actually someone else! It is much better to say “Given my role as a supply teacher, I felt unable to lead any disciplinary action against the lead trouble-maker. So I discussed the situation with my head of department and encouraged him to call the trouble-maker into an empty classroom. I let my head lead the meeting, but made sure that I was able to support him by mentioning specific instances of when the trouble-maker had been disruptive and disturbed the education of the other children”.
Finally – Resolution! As an interviewer, I will want to know what happened due to your actions. BUT I also want to know how you felt about the end result, what you learned, and what you might do differently next time. Perhaps something like “The trouble-maker seemed to calm down once he realised the impact he was having on other children. I was amazed to find out that education was very important to him, and that one of the reasons behind his actions was that he was frustrated by the pace in class – he would have liked to have gone much quicker. The head of department took it on himself to review whether the pace of the class should be increased. I found an extra-curricular course for gifted pupils which is offered by a local college. I then discussed the course with the pupil and his parents and he is now half way through a ten week course. Now that he is getting the stimulation and challenge he has been craving, he is much more constructive in the classroom. The whole experience taught me how important it is to maintain an open mind about why frustration can occur in the classroom – something I’ll definitely remember the next time I am faced with an unruly pupil.”
How should I answer behavioral interview questions?
When you are first asked a behavioral interview question, take some time to think of the experience which best answers the question. If you need some time, then ask for it. Your interviewer is keen for you to use the fullest and most compelling experience. As an experienced behavioral interviewer myself, I know that if the candidate picks the right experience then it will be very straightforward for me to do my job. If, however, the candidate picks the wrong experience, then it can sometimes be too late to stop the interview and restart with a more appropriate experience. It is for this reason that I will always tell candidates that if two experiences come to mind, then we should briefly discuss both and jointly decide which might be the most appropriate. Try a similar tactic with your interviewer – if you can think of two experiences which answer the question set by your interviewer, ask them to help you choose which one is most suitable.
Once you have decided on an experience to discuss with your interviewer, stick to the SPAR framework you learned above which will provide a useful structure to the answer. Also, remember to use ‘I’ rather than ‘We’ – the interviewer wants to know what YOU did, not other people! Pause often to allow the interviewer to ask questions of clarification – giving them the detail they want might swing you from a ‘fail’ to a ‘hire’. And at the end of your response, ask them whether there is any more detail you can provide on the experience.
Where can I get more information on behavioral interviews?
Well hopefully you've now got a much better idea of how to approach the behavioral interview. If, however, you're finding it difficult to think of compelling answers to these types of questions, then I recommend that you pick up a copy of Bob Firestone's book on answering the toughest interview questions.
Here are my thoughts on Bob's book, called "The Ultimate Guide to Job Interview Answers"
- Bob is a business, career and sales coach based in the US. Although I strongly believe that the fundamentals behind his approach to answering interview questions are rock solid, I personally found the style of some of his answers a little more 'salesy' than I'd be comfortable with in one of the more 'straight-laced' organizations. So if you do use the book, make sure you tailor your answers to your audience
- Bob's book provides sample interview answers which you can use as inspiration or as a basis for your own answers. Don't simply rehearse his answers or you risk looking like a bad actor and completely unnatural. Interviewers are trained to get to the truth (actually, we quite enjoy exposing untruths), so make sure that your interview answer is personal and truthful to you!
- Because Bob's interview answer guide is an electronic file, it is available for immediate download - this wasn't something I thought about until an interview candidate asked me one evening for something to help him prepare for an interview the next morning!! Bookshops and libraries were closed and Amazon wouldn't even have dispatched his book by the time his interview started. By producing an ebook, Bob allows you to pack in a couple of extra days of critical preparation before your next interview
Bob offers a no-questions 2-month full money back guarantee. Of all the people who have bought Bob's ebook after visiting this site, not one has asked for their money back (as of 31 May 2006). I don't know of a better recommendation than one offered by other interview candidates!
If you want to see why these candidates are so pleased to have bought Bob's ebook (incidentally, now on special offer and with special bonuses), click on the following link for Bob's interview answers ebook. Just before you go there, please be aware that his website can take a few moments to load - please be patient - I'm sure you'll find it worthwhile!!
