How to Shine in the Behavioral Interview
April 29th, 2008
Over the years many techniques and strategies has been tried to improve on the hiring of new employees. Some have been more successful that others but “behavioral interviewing” techniques seem to have stood the test of time. They are being used more often as the best way to weed-out the truly qualified candidate from the “best sales person” in the interview.
What exactly is this technique called Behavioral Interviewing?
It’s a technique employers use to determine whether you are a good fit for the job by asking questions that pertain to your past behavior.
When being interviewed, anybody can say they are a “great problem solver,” or a “hard worker.” But when the person is asked for an example showing how he or she solved a problem or worked hard in past jobs, then the interviewer wants proof that they have done what they say they can do.
As an example, a behavioral question might be: “Tell me about a success you had that stemmed from working hard or going beyond your assigned duties.”
Is this a new technique?
Not at all. Behavioral Interviewing techniques started to be used in the 70’s by industrial psychologists as a way of predicting if a person would succeed in a job. They concluded that if candidates were asked questions that demanded specific examples of past behavior it could be a clear indicator of future behavior - whether good or bad.
You may ask what the difference is between behavioral questions and other ones. The defining characteristic of a behavioral question is its specificity. For example, if asked to “Tell about a time when you solved a problem,” the key words are “a time.” This calls for a specific example.
When traditional or “what if” questions are asked you can use your imagination to come up with an answer. For example, “What would you do if you had a problem to solve?” The word “if,” is the clue word that the interviewer wants to hear your thought process - how you think through a problem. This question does not require a past experience example.
What preparation is necessary for behavioral interviews?
Yes. Good preparation is key for the behavioral interview. Spend some time before your interview coming up with examples from your past work that you can use to back up the skills or experiences you claim on your resume or that may arise in the interview.
For example, if you claimed you were “very organized” on your resume, the interviewer might ask you to tell them about a time when you organized a project or event. This gives you a great opportunity prove your claim by relating a story about a successful project that required you to be organized.
Behavioral Interviewing Technique
While there are many methods that inform good story telling, the main thing to remember is that every story has three crucial elements:
Luckily you learned all about them in grade school. There’s a Beginning. “There was a time when I faced the following challenge….” A Middle - “These are the steps I took to solve it…” and an End - “The problem was solved and..”
On way to think about story telling is to thinking about going to a movie.
Arriving 10 minutes late to a movie can cause you spend the rest of the time trying to figure out what it is you missed. This is because it’s in the beginning of the story, the first 10-20 %, that the whole movie is set up or “framed” for the audience. In the interview, if you don’t “frame” your story the interviewer will be just as confused.
The middle of the movie is the “plot” which should be a good 60-70% of your story. This is where the action is. And as the “star” of the movie, you should make sure that you are “on screen” most of the time. Some people tend to use the words “we” and “us” too much and it is difficult to see the “star.” The word “I’ lets the interviewer know it’s about you. If you do use the word “we” in the story, make sure the listener, in this case the interviewer, is aware of who “we” is. For example, “My partner and I,” or “I worked with a team of four people.”
Back to the movie. If you were to leave 10 minutes before the movie was over, you would not know the outcome and never know what happened in the end. An ending is very important to your story. If you don’t tell the end of the story the interviewer may ask, “And what was the result?” That’s a clue that you have left off the ending.
Keep in mind, Beginning, Middle, and End. Every good story has each.
So what are there secrets to good storytelling?
Stories should be interesting and full of action. This is the pitfall for most people - the story lacks detail. Give the interviewer something to remember about you. A savvy interviewer will be able to hear skills from the stories and judge your behavior from your past actions, but you must let them hear the steps you took to solve the problem. The more details and skills you can work into your story, the more convincing your story will be. The biggest fault are examples/stories where there is no “action” or detail.
Succeeding in the behavioral interview will take time and preparation, but it will allow you to tell the success stories your interviewer needs to hear with confidence. Your examples will allow the interviewer to get a clear picture of who you are and if you’re the right person for the job!
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