The vast majority of interview candidates will participate in a behavioral interview. Behavioral questions focus on past performances versus hypothetical situations, following the premise that past behavior is a clear indicator of future behavior.
Later in this chapter, a comprehensive list is presented of the most-asked behavioral questions, along with strategies to answer them. Just about any other question asked is a derivative of these questions, so carefully review that section and practice your answers. Questions will relate to aspects of your past work and educational experiences. Here are four typical behavioral interview questions:
- What was the toughest project you ever completed? Tell me about it.
- Who was the most difficult customer you ever helped? Tell me about that situation.
- What was your most challenging class? Tell me why it was challenging.
- Were you ever a member of a team? What was your role, what was the goal of the team project, and did it go smoothly or was there an issue? What was the end result of the project?
The following strategies will help you answer behavioral questions successfully:
- Never mention anything negative about your past managers, past professors, or past clients. Even if a particular individual was difficult, speak instead about the challenge and the subsequent approval you received when you succeeding in satisfying that person.
- Focus on presenting an image of an enthusiastic and optimistic problem solver. Interviewers aren’t interested in someone who was downtrodden or didn’t get along with the team in general.
- Answer questions directly, and include a beginning, a middle, and an end in your answer.
- Quantify your answers whenever possible. For example, if you worked in your school’s library and you are asked about this work, include the number of books you managed per day, whether it was ten, one hundred, or one thousand. It’s fine to estimate.
- Ensure your answer is tied to the bottom line. Using the library example once more, your answer could include that using the electronic checkout system decreased lost books by 75 percent.
- Focus on the question asked to help you avoid going off on tangents.
- Ask the interviewer to repeat the question if you think you have gone off on atangent or if you didn’t quite understand the question.
- 727 reads
