Behavioral Interview Questions and Answers

Behavioral interview questions are a widely used method of assessing a

candidate’s suitability for a position. By asking behavioral questions, the
employer goes further then just looking at the candidate's work and educational
background to decide whether or not they are the right fit for the organisation
and, further to this, the role itself.

Behavioral interview questions are based on the premise that a candidate’s past

behavior will reflect how he or she is likely to think and act in the future. The
interviewer will ask the candidate for specific examples of previous behavior to
determine whether these match the requirements of the current role.

Why employers use behavioral interview questions

Interview questions based on a behavioral method can help employers to make
better informed employment decisions.

A traditional interview question such as “Why should we hire you?” allows a

candidate to tailor their response directly to what they think the interviewer
wants to hear, while even more testing questions such as ‘”What would you do
if xxx happened?” are quite impersonal, revealing relatively little about the
candidate’s personality and skill set. This kind of questioning style allows the
interviewee to distance themselves a little, avoiding having to draw on past
experience or give real-life examples to back up their response.

A well-structured behavioral interview question makes it tricky to respond

without revealing something of your personality or making some reference to
previous experience. It gives the interviewer more to work with and a deeper
insight into your thought processes and behavior. This style of questioning relies
on the candidate giving truthful or at least semi-truthful answers.
It's OK to let your personality shine through a little when facing behavioral
questions.

Typical structure of a behavioral interview

While each will differ depending on the organisation and the person asking the
questions, a typical behavioural interview will be structured as follows:

 Opening (5%)
 Job / Organisational culture (10%)
 Questioning / Information gathering (75%)
 Candidate questions (5%)
 Wrapping up (5%)

Categories of question and model answers

Leadership

Leadership skills come in many different forms, as do the questions that test for
this particular attribute.

Your employer may look for evidence of personal traits such as patience and
open-mindedness, as well as clear examples of how you work and interact with
others in a professional setting.

A sample leadership-focused question may ask you to describe a situation where

you had to delegate a task to someone else. In answering this, you could mention
a situation where you evaluated the individual strengths of the people you were
working with, before matching different aspects of the task to the person with
the requisite skill set.
Negative thinking

You may face questions regarding what you didn’t like about a previous
experience, role or individual. Tread carefully: demonstrating bitterness or a
negative approach may reflect badly on you and your attitude, so look to
emphasise the positives by shifting the focus to how you successfully dealt with
the situation.

For example, when answering the question “Tell me about a time when you
were unhappy with a classmate or colleague?”, seek to highlight how you
managed to resolve a potentially difficult situation between the two of you,
rather than attributing blame to the other person.
Decision making

Both positive and negative decision-making questions are commonly asked in

behavioural interviews. Here, the employer is looking to assess the interviewee’s
ability to stick to a decision, be fair and demonstrate critical thinking, reasoning
and logic.

An example of when you handled a tough decision well could include describing
how you had to choose between two potential partners to work with on a joint
university assignment. Again, it’s crucial to highlight your thought process and
how you came to a logical conclusion.
Problem solving

Problem solving is a sought-after skill by employers who may be evaluating your

ability to identify issues and challenges and then work independently and
logically to resolve them. In this case the most important thing is not the solution
itself but how you went about reaching it.

A sample problem-solving behavioural question could be: “Explain a time

where you had to make best use of your decision-making skills.”

A typical answer to which might go as follows:

“The clothes store I was working at two summers ago was having problems with
late deliveries of some products. After a little investigation, I discovered that
some of the invoices we had received from our suppliers were not being paid on
time, which was causing the delays. From there it was just a question of making
sure bills were paid on time.”
Teamwork

The ability to work within a team is vital for most graduate roles and will continue
to be an important skill throughout your career. To be seen as an effective team
player, you can expect to be judged on your people skills, interactions with others
and evidence of strong relationships during your work and/or studies.

A typical question could ask to describe a situation where you had to resolve an
issue between a group of friends or colleagues. An effective answer to this might
be:

“I made sure not to rush in immediately in the hope that the issue would resolve
itself. When this wasn’t the case, my next step was to talk with each of the group
members to get their perspective. From here I was able to put across the
opposing views to each of the other members. The most important thing was to
maintain an objective stance and to avoid taking sides.”
Communication

Your ability to communicate effectively is important for any graduate role,

particularly in situations where you are likely to be dealing with clients or
customers on a regular basis.

You may be asked by your interviewer to describe a time where your

communication skills were tested. A strong answer might be:

“I was given responsibility for running a company’s social media presence during
my internship. The target audience was people with an interest in financial
markets, so it was crucial to tailor my style and tone to reflect this. This meant
having to read up on financial terminology. My manager was very impressed with
the level of interaction I achieved.”
Organisational skills

Employers naturally want to hire people who can organise their workload
effectively and possibly those of others. The interviewer will want to see evidence
of being able to put together a plan or strategy and work towards this in a
methodical way. You should also look to explain how you fit others into your
planning and organisation processes.

If asked the question, a good example you could give of organising or planning
could be a recent event for a student society or club, again making sure to
emphasise your thought processes and the different steps involved, as well as
how you worked effectively alongside others.
The CAR and STAR approaches

Two popular and extremely useful techniques for preparing an answer to a

behavioural-style question are CAR and STAR.

The CAR approach

The CAR approach helps you to structure your answer as if it were a short essay.

Context is your introduction, where you describe the scenario you are confronted
with. The Action forms the main body and should be the longest part of your
answer. The Result is the conclusion and, like the introduction, should be
relatively short and succinct.

Context: Begin by detailing the challenge that you were dealing with. A typical
challenge may relate to your team, technology, or timing.

Action: What action did you take? What were the different steps involved?

Result: What was the final outcome? While ideally the result will be positive,
there is no harm in admitting the difficulties you encountered, so long as you still
achieved a satisfactory result. Ideally your answer will be quantifiable eg you
managed to achieve x times as many sales.

The STAR approach

The STAR approach involves being positive about your actions throughout your
response. Be careful not to stray too far from the truth, as your interviewer may
choose to delve deeper into your story by asking for specific details.

Situation: What was the situation facing you or your team?

Task: What tasks were involved in that situation?

Action: What actions did you take?

Result: What result did you achieve?

How to prepare for behavioral interview questions
The best preparation for a behavioral-style interview is to research the role in-
depth beforehand, identifying what character traits or skills the employer is likely
to deem important for that role. Having selected those behaviors you feel to be
most relevant, spend time building up a bank of examples from your recent
experience that provide evidence of each trait.

Make sure the examples you give are varied and come from different areas of
your experience. For example, you could give examples of situations you
encountered during a recent internship or part-time job; a number from your
studies, and so on. In selecting your examples and composing your ‘story’, try to
make sure that each has a positive outcome.

Also give some thought to the structure of your story and how you plan on
explaining the different thought processes involved. Use the CAR and STAR
techniques to guide you. While it might help to write some brief notes on your
examples to help you remember them, try not to learn your answers verbatim,
which is likely to undermine the authenticity of your response when it comes to
the interview.