HOW TO PREPARE FOR A BEHAVIORAL INTERVIEW
A bit of preparation will help you perform at your best in an interview. Although you can never predict exactly what you’ll be asked, there are some interviewing techniques you can prepare for, such as the behavioral interview.
UNDERSTANDING THE ROLE YOU’RE APPLYING FOR IS VITAL
Preparing for a behavioral interview means researching the role and the specific personal requirements. Find out more about the importance of preparation with our guide.
SO WHAT IS A BEHAVIORAL INTERVIEW?
They were developed by psychologists based on the premise that a person’s past behavior in a certain situation, is a good indicator of their future behavior. A behavioral interview will assess specific behavioral competencies that an employer thinks are essential for a role.
Although it’s not, statistically, the most reliable method of predicting a candidate’s performance, it is a fairly cost effective and much more effective than an unstructured interview. That’s why lots of organisations use it and why most interviews will involve a mix of biographical, technical and behavioral questions.
Thinking about influential career moments and working through how you approached them before you step into an interview, will help you deliver your answers to these questions in a confident, consistent and compelling way when the heat is on.
HOW CAN YOU PREPARE FOR ONE?
Just as you should customize your resume for each job application, you should tailor your interview responses based on the specific role you’re going for. You shouldn’t memorize answers or provide false information but you need to work out what behavioral competencies the role requires and base your answers around them.
A behavioral competency is an attribute or skill that influences how you approach and do your job, such as: leadership, delivering results, respect for colleagues and conflict management. If you’re not sure which competencies you’ve demonstrated in your career to date, and which the role you’re interviewing for might require, you can find helpful lists and descriptions with a quick online search.
To start your preparation, research the role and company as much as you can:
- Reread the advert and job description carefully.
- Ask your network for their first-hand experience of the company.
- Look at the company website and find out what their values are.
- Find out what issues they want to solve (often referred to as ‘pain points’). If in doubt ask them before your interview.
Come up with four to six key behavioral competencies you think they are looking for. Once you’ve got this information, it’s much easier to find the transferrable skills and career achievements that you should focus on in the interview.
Take the time to think about the moments that have defined your career and align them to competencies you believe are relevant to the role you’re interviewing for. Framing your interview responses in a way that demonstrates you understand an employer’s problems and needs will go a long way to making you stand out from other candidates.
You should also look for career moments that show the most common behavioral competencies, that you can adapt to a number of different questions, such as teamwork, communication skills, managing people, flexibility, and attention to detail.
MAKE SURE YOUR ANSWERS SHINE LIKE A STAR
The STAR methodology splits an answer to a behavioral question into components. Interviewers will only consider you have given a complete answer if you cover each STAR component. Before the interview, you should think about your defining career moments in relation to each component:
S / T = situation and/or task. The background or context of your example. It explains why you acted the way they did. For example:
“Part of my job is to maintain the customer database for the childcare center. Then the system crashed and the data was lost.”
A = actions. How you responded to the situation – what you did, or did not, do:
“I had to manually re-enter all of the customer details into the database from scratch. To do this efficiently, I went back to all the hard copy files we had in storage, and worked a full week and a Saturday to get the system up and running again. I then reconciled the database against the sign in book at the center daily to ensure there was no one I had missed.”
R = results. The direct outcomes of your actions. Candidates often forget to cover this in their responses. If you do forget, the interviewer is likely to use further questions to get more information. If the example you have used had a negative outcome that’s fine, just make sure it’s clear you are aware of what went wrong and why, and what actions you’ve taken to make sure it doesn’t happen again. This shows development and self-awareness. For example:
“As a result of what I did, the database was fully up and running within 3 weeks of the system crash. Two customers failed to receive center updates via email in that time, but when this did happen, I was able to rectify the problem immediately with no adverse impact on the safety of children registered for care at the center.”
Always keep your responses positive. Talking negatively about a previous experience or employer won’t reflect well. But don’t be afraid to talk about your own weaknesses and how you’re working on them.
BE A COMPLETE STAR
As we’ve mentioned interviewers are looking for complete STAR responses. But candidates often give ‘false’ or ‘partial’ STARs.
FalseSTARs are vague statements that provide no specifics about what you actually did, or statements that tell the interviewer what you would do, would like to do or would have done, rather than what you actually did.
The tense you use can also ring warning bells in an interview. When a candidate speaks in the present or future tense – for example: “when I have to rush”, “the way I handle that”, “I plan to”, “I will” – an interviewer will suspect the example is a false STAR since candidates generally relate past behaviors in the past tense (“we were swamped”, “I did”, “I decided”).
Partial STARs provide the interviewer with an incomplete response. You might explain the situation and the action you took, but not the result. This means the interviewer doesn’t really know how you managed or reacted to a certain situation in the past.
Some more pointers:
- Avoid saying ‘we’ in your examples because the interviewer is interested in what you did, not the team.
- Be specific with your examples. The interviewer is not interested in what you could or might do, but something you actually did.
- When defining your career moments, choose the ones that are more complex and show depth of experience. Interviewers are looking for quality, as well as complete, STARs.
FIRST IMPRESSIONS COUNT
Don’t waste all your preparation by making a bad one. Research suggests interviewers tend to make up their mind on your suitability for the role within the first three to five minutes. So it is critical you make a great first impression. 80% of what we communicate is non-verbal so a confident handshake, direct eye contact and a smile are three simple ways to build rapport quickly.
Immediately before the interview review your resume, go through your career moments again and leave any insecurities at home. Come into the interview warmed up and ready to impress in those first minutes.
A GOOD INTERVIEWER WILL FOLLOW A CLEAR STRUCTURE
It’s likely to start with an informal question to put you at ease – such as “Did you find us OK?” – before moving on to a couple of biographical questions that drill down into your motivations. For example:
“Why are you interested in this role and the company?” The key here is to know the company, their issues and what they are looking for and how this matches up to your career goals. Decide beforehand how you will align your goals with the role and be prepared to articulate that.
“Tell me a little about yourself.” Only discuss interests that are relevant to the role and make you a great candidate. Don’t be tempted to regurgitate your resume.
“Why are you looking at a new opportunity?” Always be positive about your current role and employer, be honest but focus on why this role fits with your career goals.
You’ll then move to the body of the interview. Generally this will consist of a behavioral question followed by probing questions assessing each of the four to six competencies needed in the role.
Each competency will have both positive and negative indicators that the interviewer will tick off as you respond. For example:
BEHAVIOURAL COMPETENCY: CONFLICT MANAGEMENT
Identifying, addressing and dealing effectively with others in difficult or confrontational situations; using appropriate interpersonal styles and methods to reduce tension or conflict between two or more people.
Examples of positive indicators
Anticipates conflict and addresses it promptly.
Establishes a clear and compelling rationale for resolving the conflict.
Collects information from relevant sources to understand the conflict.
Remains open to all views.
Stays focused on resolution.
Develops others’ and own ideas.
Takes positive action to resolve the conflict in a way that addresses the issue, dissipates the conflict, and maintains the relationship.
Examples of negative indicators
Is not willing to understand others or differing opinions.
Does not address conflict or leaves it too lateIs dictatorial in approach to conflict management.
Does not seek to minimise conflict.
Participates in the conflict.
Takes criticism personally or gets defensive and doesn’t take criticism on board.
Behavioral questions test a particular competency, such as teamwork, and often start with:
- “Tell me about a time when…”
- “Give me an example of…”
- “Have you ever…”
Take your time, think before answering if you need to and clarify the question if you are unsure what they are asking. Then cover all aspects of the STAR methodology in your answer.
NOW IT’S YOUR TURN TO ASK THE QUESTIONS
The interview is a two-way process. You need to work out if the role, team, organization and culture are going to suit you. Asking questions is one way to do this, it also shows the interviewer you are interested and well prepared.
Here are some questions you could ask:
- What is a typical day in the life of this role?
- What will the biggest challenge in this role be?
- What key performance indicators are in place for measuring success in this role?
- What do you enjoy most about working here?
- Why is the incumbent leaving?
- What opportunities for growth are there in this role?
FIVE THINGS TO REMEMBER:
- Don’t underestimate the importance of preparation and working through your career moments.
- Use the STAR methodology when answering behavioral questions
- Leave your insecurities at the door and be confident.
- Be comfortable with silence.
- Prepare some questions of your own.
