A behavioral interview question is one where the interviewer tries to get the candidate to demonstrate a certain quality. It’s not a technical question, but instead focuses on the candidate themselves. Behavioral questions are usually open-ended, inviting the candidate to describe how they acted in a past situation. There's no right or wrong answer, since everyone has different experiences. The key thing is that the candidate already has the answers in the form of their own past experiences.
Employers use behavioral questions because specific past examples can provide useful evidence about how a candidate approached a similar situation. They can encourage more detailed responses than broad hypothetical questions, but they are not automatically the most accurate method or the best way to identify a successful candidate for every role. In addition, behavioral interviews go beyond what you can learn from application materials and reveal productive and collegial qualities that might be difficult to determine otherwise.
There are many different types of behavioral questions. Here are some common categories:
Leadership
Tell me about a time when you influenced the outcome of a project by taking a leadership role.
Describe your leadership style and give an example of a situation where you successfully led a group.
Teamwork/Conflict
When working on a team project, have you ever dealt with a strong disagreement among team members or a team member who didn't do their part?
Tell me about the most difficult or frustrating individual you've had to work with and how you managed to work with them.
Time Management
Describe a situation when you had many assignments or projects due at the same time.
Analytical/Problem-Solving
Summarize a situation where you had to locate relevant information, define key issues, and determine the steps to get a desired result.
Stress/Coping
Describe a time when you were faced with problems or stress at work or in a class that tested your coping skills. What did you do?
Accountability
Give me an example of a time when you didn't meet a client's expectation. What happened, and how did you attempt to rectify the situation?
Situational
Have you handled a difficult situation? How?
Did you ever make a risky decision? Why?
One technique that I recommend to students is the STAR method (Situation, Task, Action, Result). This is a structured framework for building strong answers to behavioral interview questions. When answering a behavioral interview question, you should start by describing the situation. That means telling the interviewer what, where, when, and who was involved. Then, tell them what task you were involved in. Next, explain what action you took. Finally, describe the result of that action.
Interviewers are essentially asking for a good story, with the candidate as the main character. So if you prepare stories in advance based on the job description, you’ll be able to provide specific information through an actual example. Committees advised not to rephrase or offer leading information, so it's important that the candidates supply concrete detail themselves.