Basically, the interviewer asks you questions about situations you have dealt with and how you you've responded in a particular scenario. Generally the scenario will be comparable to something you would be expected to deal with in the position you are interviewing for. You are demonstrating through your past behavior that you would be successful in the future in the same type of situation.
The classic beginning to a behavioral question is "tell me about a time when you" (insert situation) and how you dealt with that situation. The candidate ideally will give a real life situation in which they had to demonstrate a certain type of behavior that is considered essential to the position for which they are interviewing.
How do you prepare for an behavioral interview? Anticipating every question and preparing an answer for every possibility would be next to impossible. However there are strategies that you can use to be more prepared:
Enter the STAR technique.
Situation or Task:
- Describe a real life situation that you were in or a task that you undertook. Try to make it as specific as possible and try to avoid generalities. Be sure to give enough detail and background information so the interviewer can envision the situation. This situation can be from a previous job, from a volunteer experience, or any relevant event. Start with previous work experience if possible.
Action you took:
- Describe the action you took. Describe what you did and why that made sense to you in that situation. This is all about action and your actual behavior.
Results you achieved
- What happened? How did the event end? What did you accomplish? What did you learn?
Practicing with some sample behavioral questions is the best way to become effective at this technique. Get a list of behavioural questions (see post entitled sample behavioral questions for a list to get you started) and either run through them yourself or have someone test you in a mock interview.
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