As a candidate preparing for a technical interview, you’ll want to understand what’s on the table. A technical interview typically contains a combination of questions that are both behavioral in nature (i.e., how you’ve reacted or behaved in similar situations) as well as scenario-based troubleshooting prompts (i.e., applied problem-solving).
What is a behavioral question?
Behavioral interviews are an important part of any hiring process. They’re used by companies who want to get a sense of who you are as a person, how you react in different situations, and whether you’re going to be a good fit within their company culture.
Behavioral interviews focus more on your past behavior and less on your current skills, because you already have the answers to those questions. In other words, the questions can be fully prepared in advance, and you’ll be able to provide some concrete examples of how you handled specific situations.
In the context of technical interviews, you’ll want to prepare answers to behavioral questions based around qualities like teamwork, communication, leadership, etc. The idea is that these traits help determine whether you’ll be able to work effectively with others.
How to answer them
The STAR method (Situation, Task, Action, Result) provides a go-to framework for answering behavioral questions. You may not need to explicitly use the acronym, but structuring your answer using the four components will help guide you toward giving a complete response. Each component is explained below:
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Situation – This is where you set the stage, describing what the situation was. You want to describe the background of the situation without too much detail; just enough to give the interviewer context. Be sure to highlight the challenge.
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Task – Describe what you needed to do. It’s possible that there were multiple people involved, so you’ll need to clarify what role you played and what the goal was. Try to keep this concise, too.
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Action – Here, it’s all about what you did. Again, try to be concise and avoid getting bogged down in unnecessary details. The goal here is to explain the actions you took to meet the task and solve the problem.
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Result – Finally, this is where you wrap up by sharing the outcomes of your actions. This is also the most important part of the story, since it shows the results of what you accomplished. Focus on outcomes to really drive the example home.
Common behavioral questions
While technical interviews often ask situational questions and technical problems to test your ability to apply your knowledge, they also include a handful of behavioral questions, usually focused around how you interact with other people. There are dozens of variations of the common behavioral interview questions, but some of the most commonly asked are listed below.
Interpersonal questions
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Give me an example of a time you had a conflict with a team member.
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Give me an example of a time you faced a conflict while working on a team.
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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?
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Tell me about a time when you had to work with someone else to accomplish a difficult task.
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Tell me about a time when you failed to communicate a project timeline or deadline and how you resolved it.
Technical experience questions
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What have you built?
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What is the hardest technical problem you have run into?
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Tell me about a time when you had to solve a complex technical problem.
Scenario-based troubleshooting questions
You’ll also be presented with scenarios, where the interviewer will tell you that something is broken. Often, these will be fairly generic scenarios that aren’t tied to a specific industry or domain. For example, you might be told that “your laptop isn’t turning on,” and then you’d have to troubleshoot why and figure out what steps to take to resolve the issue.
These types of questions don’t ask you to talk about how you’ve handled situations in the past. Rather, they test your ability to solve a problem on-the-fly, applying your technical knowledge and problem-solving skills to arrive at a solution.
Preparing for behavioral interview questions
You should spend time before the interview familiarizing yourself with the questions that are likely to be asked during the interview. If you prepare a few stories based on the job description beforehand, you’ll feel more ready and less nervous during the actual interview.
If you research the company beforehand, you’ll know which values and traits they look for in their employees, and can tailor your answers accordingly. This gives you the opportunity to show that you did your homework rather than providing cookie-cutter responses. Likewise, if you arrive at a one-on-one meeting with a prepared update of all ongoing work, you’ll be far better prepared to answer any curveball questions the interviewer throws your way.