What are behavioral interview questions?
Behavioral interview questions are a common type of question asked by most hiring managers that try to uncover specific actions – behaviors – you have exhibited in the past. The hope is that they’ll be able to figure out if you will act a certain way or have a certain skill if you’ve demonstrated it in the past.
A behavioral interview question typically starts with “Tell me about a time when….” or “Can you give me an example of when you…”.
Why are they asked?
The purpose of behavioral interview questions is to uncover how well you have preformed in the past and to determine if that’s a good indicator of how well you’ll perform in the future.
In my opinion, most hiring managers (including myself) use behavioral interview questions to figure out three things:
- Do you have relevant work experience where you gained the skills I need?
- Do you know what skills to highlight in your examples? Put another way, are you self-aware?
- Are you able to explain complex concepts (or long stories) in a succinct manner, by only sharing relevant details?
Special note: In a later post I’m going to dive into much deeper detail on how to structure your responses while in the interview. This particular article focuses on specific steps you can take today to prepare.
The best way to structure your responses
If you don’t have structure, you will ramble and seriously decrease your chances of getting the job offer. Instead, use one of the two common frameworks used to answer behavioral interview questions.
The benefits?
Having a framework not only helps you remember your example through the nerves of an interview, it also helps you tell your story in a way the hiring manager wants to hear it – and they’ll take better notes. This increasing your chances of them remembering the important details later!
The two most common frameworks
STAR
- S – Situation: Describe the background, setting and important context to set of your example, including at which job/school this took place.
- T – Task: Describe what your specific challenge, role, or problem you faced.
- A – Action: This is the heart of your response. Describe the specific action and steps you took. Use this time to demonstrate the skills you know the hiring manager is looking for. Caution: Many people I interview focus too much on what others did here, but not enough on the specific role they played in the situation. You are the one being interviewed – don’t be afraid to talk about yourself!
- R – Result: Describe what happened as a result of your action. Did things turn out okay? Or was the result not so great, but you learned an important lesson for the next time? Either way, this is your time to succinctly close out the story.
SBO
- S – Situation: Same as ‘Situation’ above
- B – Behavior: Same as ‘Action’ above
- O – Outcome: Same as ‘Result’ above
While I recommend using STAR since more HR professionals and hiring managers are familiar with it, feel free to use either depending on your preference and how your brain works best.
Just make sure you use one of them.
The best way to prepare for behavioral interview questions – hands down
You don’t want to just ‘wing it’ here. I’ve seen that too many times – rarely does it go the way you planned. Instead, go in with a plan.
You may think you can’t control this part of the interview. To a point, you’re correct. You may think of this part of the interview as the ‘messy middle’, right in between the two portions of an interview you can pretty much bank on – the “tell me about yourself” question and the opportunity for you to ask you own questions at the end of the interview.
However, there are some key steps you can take. Let’s dive in.
Do your homework
Taking time to really think through the role and what the hiring manager is probably looking for will go a long way.
Here are two action steps you can take immediately:
- List the top 3-5 skills you think the hiring manager is looking for. This step is crucial for every component of the interview prep process. I dive deeper into this concept in my articles “The Top 3 Things Every Hiring Manager is Looking For” and “4 Simple Strategies to Confidently Answer ‘Tell me about yourself.'” It may seem simple to you, but if you’d like extra tips, go ahead and check them out.
- Write out specific, memorable moments in your last few jobs or at college. This could include:
- Frustrations
- Disagreements with co-workers/managers or other students
- Problems/roadblocks you encountered
- Key initiatives you led or key performance review comments
- Your best days at work, your worst days at work, etc.
You get the idea. What was memorable? What stood out? These make for great interview examples.
Use your homework
If you follow the two steps above, you now have a list of skills and another list of experiences.
Now what?
Now it’s time to prepare a little differently than other candidates so you can stand out from the crowd.
Most people try to come up with examples of things they’ve done. But that’s where a lot of their energy stops. This is where they wish, hope, and pray that the interviewer finds some kind of connection between the story and the skills he or she is actually looking for as the hiring manager.
My recommendation is to connect the dots for the hiring manager. Don’t make any assumptions. How?
Build on your homework: 2 more action steps
- Use the list of 3-5 skills above to help you create specific examples that highlight at least one of those skills in every example. Put another way – come up with a solid example for each of the 3-5 skills (preferably 5) you came up with.
- Use your list of memorable moments to come up with a different set of examples. 3-5 examples should be sufficient here, too.
Putting it all together
Once you have your list of examples, I recommend organizing and categorizing them. This will help you during the interview to remember not only your example, but to highlight an important skill you want the hiring manager to know you have.
For example, part of your list could look like:
| Behavioral Example | Skill I want to share |
| February marketing project | Time management, organization |
| Pitching idea to boss’s boss | Persuasion, creativity, relationship management |
Additional Tips
I’m going to share some rapid-fire tips for this part of your interview based on my years of doing interviews.
I want you to stand out and get that job – here are a few was to increase your chances.
- Be clear and be specific
- Don’t ramble. In most cases, your answer should be 2 minutes or less.
- Practice ahead of time. Out loud. And time yourself (see tip above).
- It’s better to have a good example that’s slightly off topic, than no example (or a bad one that’s on topic). So, where possible, stick with your examples and your plan.
- Try to figure out what skill the hiring manager is looking for with the question being asked. If you can, provide commentary first before you give your answer – this will really make you stand out from your competition. Trust me.
- What does this sound like?
- Sample question: “Tell me about a time when you had a huge problem and didn’t know what to do.” You might realize the hiring manager is trying to determine your conceptual thinking, strategic thinking, or ability to handle ambiguity. Here’s how your answer could go:
- Sample response: “That’s a really great topic. There are so many times in my career I’ve had to deal with ambiguity, but I love it. I learn something new each time, and really get energized when I get to think outside the box and use some conceptual thinking. For example, there was a time when…” and then dive into your STAR/SBO situation.
Conclusion
The best way to prepare for behavioral interview questions is to:
- Prepare ahead of time
- List the top 3-5 skills you think the hiring manager is looking for
- List the most memorable moments in your most recent jobs (or school experiences)
- Use these combined lists to come up with examples that highlight the skills the hiring manager is looking for, making sure you state those skills out loud in the interview
- Use a common behavioral interview answer structure, such as STAR (Situation, Task, Action, Result) or SBO (Situation, Behavior, Outcome).
Some may consider this portion of the interview the ‘messy middle’, but if you are equipped with what you want to say, you can go into the interview much more confident.
Discussion question
I’d love to hear from you! Join the conversation with the Equipped Community – we’re in this together! In the comments section below, share your thoughts on the following question.
What tricks do you use to prepare for STAR and behavioral interview questions?
