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Tips to Win in
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For an easy-to-use guide to understanding what the behavioral interview is all about you can read through Preparing for the Behavioral Interview. Use these tips to further increase your chances of success! Determine which behavioral job interview questions you will be asked so that you can prepare good answers. |
Preparing your behavioral interview answer involves analyzing the job and listing the competencies and behaviors required for success in the position. Ask yourself the following questions:
- What skills are necessary to do the job?
- What makes a person successful in this type of position?
- Why would someone fail in this position?
- What are the difficult aspects of this position?
The answers to these questions indicate what behaviors the interview will explore. For example, a customer service position requires good communication skills, problem-solving ability, accuracy, adaptability and tolerance.
Prepare for behavioral interview questions that explore the identified behaviors. Analyze your own background and think of examples that highlight your strength and skills in these areas. For examples of common behavioral interview questions with answer guidelines go to the list of behavioral questions.
Be detailed and specific with the examples you use to answer the behavioral question. Avoid irrelevant ramblings or going off at a tangent. Stick to the facts and carefully outline in detail the actions you took.
Listen carefully to each question. If you are not sure what the interviewer is looking for, you can rephrase the question back to clarify. "Are you asking me to describe a situation where ......?" This also gives you time to think about your answer. It is quite acceptable to take a little time to formulate your response.
In behavioral job interviews it is better to use more recent examples or behavioral stories. The details will be easier to recall and the interviewer will view them as more valid.
If you have limited work experience you can use examples from internships, college or school classes and projects, sports participation, community service or your hobbies and interests. As long as the example demonstrates the behavior that is being explored. For example if you are asked about how you have gone about resolving conflict, you can even use an example from your family life.
Sometimes in behavioral job interviews the question will try to find out how you responded to a negative situation.
"Tell me about a time when you were unable to solve a problem the first time, what did you do?"
Prepare some examples of negative experiences, but use those that you were able to get something positive out of or learned something valuable from.
Vary your examples by thinking of situations from different areas of your life and career. Go through your resume to refresh your memory to help you with this. Make sure each example has a beginning, middle and end. Be ready to detail the situation, the actions you took and the outcome.
Stick to the facts. Exaggerating the results will be found out by the interviewer's further questioning. Stick to a specific account of one situation or event to answer the question and avoid generalizing about several related events.
Be aware of your body language during behavioral job interviews. Sending a positive message with your non verbal signals reinforces the positive message of the words you use in your response.
Use these behavioral job interview tips to demonstrate your ability to manage this sort of interview and stand out as the right person for the job.
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