How to Suceed in Behavioral/Situational Interviews
Posted on September 18, 2014 by Jill MacFadyen, One of Thousands of Career Coaches on Noomii.
Many companies use behavioral situational interview questions and it is easy to prepare. Read below for practical advice.
Many firms use Behavioral or Situational Interviewing. The premise is that past behavior predicts future behavior. If you are given a statement to react to, and it is not asked in the form of a question, your interviewer is probably using this technique. Your interviewer might begin by saying, “Tell me about a time when you….”
Your answer will have three parts:
Situation (what happened), Action (what did you do) Result (what was good for the company or client).You will be pushed to think of a specific example. Speaking in generalities (“Oh, I always take care of clients. It’s one of my strengths,”) will not work. On one recruiting assignment we interviewers were to ask candidates, “Tell me about a time you didn’t get along with a coworker.” If your answer was the general comment of “I get along with everyone,” you failed. At the very least, you missed an opportunity to promote a key skill.
I worked on a recruitment project with a group trained by government psychologists. We were instructed to give no positive feedback to candidates because it would mean that we might be giving unfair advantage to one over another. This “no positive feedback” extended to not using the words “thank you” or “okay.” We were not to smile or nod our heads. So don’t take it personally or think you are not doing a good job, if this is the case.
For most of the interviews that I conducted either by phone or in person, I asked at least one or two behavioral/situational questions. I would talk to the decision maker and ask what traits he or she wanted in the eventual hire and then formulate a situation for the candidates to react to. The responses then became a large part of my feedback with a recommendation of which candidates to further consider.
To recap, some interviews might be strictly behavioral and some might be regular interviews with a few behavioral questions. In either case, it is best to be prepared.
So how to prepare? When you have an interview set up, look at the job posting and make a short list of traits that you think the employer will want. A few possibilities might be: leadership, initiative, customer service, proactive problem solving, teamwork. Then think of a story to show how you have the desired quality. Write it out in situation, action and result form. Prepare examples in that form—situation, action, result–for each of the traits you think might be required.
It would be best to use a different story for each question. So the rule of thumb is, “don’t repeat a story even to different interviewers within a firm.” They will compare notes.
Mistakes I see clients make are:
*Getting so lost in the details of the situation that they run out of time for the important part which is how their actions brought about a good result.
*Using a story which does not have a good result for the company or the company’s clients.
*Being so team-oriented, that they forget to showcase themselves.
*Rambling because they weren’t prepared.
*Repeating the same story.
*Making up a story.
You can Google examples of Behavioral/Situational questions. Plan ahead, practice and much success!
