How to handle Behavioral Interview Questions

Interviewing today is much more than being able to explain your background, skills and experience and how they match up to the job requirements. Being able to think on your feet and respond to Behavioral interview questions is often even more important. Hiring managers and HR professionals often use behavioral interview questions to see how you performed on the job.  They want to hear what you did or why you did that. Past behavior is often a good predictor of future behavior.

The candidate that is well prepared for the interview often is the one that receives a job offer.

Below is a list of some Behavioral questions that could help you land that job you want. We hope you find them useful.

Ability to work under pressure

• Describe a time when you were faced with a stressful situation that demonstrated your ability to cope under pressure.
• Give us an example of where you had to deal with a difficult client or customer. How did you handle the situation?
• Tell us about a specific time in which you managed to remain calm and composed in a stressful situation. 

Adaptability and change

• Describe a time where a major change was implemented at work. How did you adapt to this change?
• Tell us about a time that you had to adapt to a difficult situation.
• Describe a situation when you had to learn something new in a short amount of time. How did you handle it?
• Tell us about a situation in which you were required to adjust to changes over which you had little control.

Communication and interpersonal skills

• Describe a situation in which you were able to use persuasion to successfully convince someone of your point of view.
• Tell us about a time when you had to make an important presentation.
• Describe a time where you had to create an important written document.
• Give us an example of a time when you successfully motivated others.
• Tell us about a time when you had to present complex information. How did you ensure that the other person understood?
• Tell us me about a time in which you had to use your written communication skills in order to get an important point across.
• Give an example of a time when you made a stupid mistake because you did not listen carefully to what was being said.
• Describe a situation when you had to negotiate with a key stakeholder. What was the outcome?
• Give us an example of where when you communicated with a person in written or verbal form but it was not effective. What did you learn from this? What did do next time that made it more effective?

Customer Service

• Give a specific example of a time when you had to address an irate customer. What was the problem and what did you do? What was the outcome?
• Tell us about a time where you went out of your way for a customer. What did you do and what was the response?
• Describe a situation where you had to tailor your approach for a customer in order to provide exceptional customer service.

Decision-making

• Tell us about the most difficult decision you have had to make.
• Tell us about a time when you had to analyze information and then make a recommendation. What decision did you come to?
• Give us an example of a time when you had to make a quick decision with limited information available. What decision making process did you take and what alternatives did you consider?

Goal setting

• Give us an example of a time when you set a goal and achieved it successfully.
• Describe a time where you tried to accomplish a goal but failed. What did you learn from it?

Integrity

• Give me a specific example of a time when you had to conform to a policy with which you did not personally agree with.
• Describe a time when you identified that a certain policy or procedure was not been adhered to at work. What did you do and what was the outcome?
• Tell us about a time when you took responsibility for an error and were held personally accountable.
• Tell us about a specific time when you had to handle a difficult problem which involved ethical issues.

Initiative

• Tell us about a specific time when you had to go above and beyond the call of duty in order to get a job done.
• Give us an example of when you showed initiative and took the lead.
  Describe a time when you anticipated potential problems and developed preventive measures.
• Describe a time when you came up with a creative solution to a problem at work.
• Tell us about a suggestion you made to improve internal process. What was the result?
• Describe a time where one of your ideas was implemented by management.
• Tell us about an innovation that you have introduced into an organization. How did you implement it and what was your approach?
• Tell us about a time when you identified a small problem and prevented it from becoming a big problem.

Judgement, logic and problem solving

• Give us a specific example of a time when you used logic and reasoning skills in solving a problem.Give us an example of when you showed initiative and took the lead.
• Tell us about a time when you missed an obvious solution to a problem.
• Tell us about a time when you used facts and reason to persuade someone to accept your recommendation.
• Give us an example of a time when you used your fact finding skills to solve a problem

Leadership

• Can you give me an example of how you were able to motivate and retain people within your team by appealing to their individual interests?
• Tell us about a time when you used your leadership ability to gain support for something which had strong opposition.
• Tell me about a time when you delegated a project effectively
• Tell me about a time when you were forced to make an unpopular decision.
• Describe a situation where you had to keep subordinates informed about information which affects their jobs.
• Tell us about a time where a staff member’s performance was below expectations. What did you do to address the situation?
• Give an example of a time in which you felt you were required to build motivation in your co-workers or subordinates at work.
• Tell us about a specific development plan that you created and carried out with one or more of your employees. What was the specific situation? What was the outcome?
• Tell us about a time when you had to take disciplinary action with someone you supervised.
• Describe a situation where you have had to discipline a staff member about their performance. How did you do this without de – motivating them and have their performance drop further?

Managing conflict

• Tell us about a time you were required to work alongside a co-worker even though you did not get along with the co-worker on a personal level.
• Tell us about a time where you disagreed with your manager on a certain point. What did you do?
• Tell us about a situation in which you had to separate the person from the issue when working to resolve issues
• Tell me about a situation when you found it difficult to build rapport and a good business relationship with a client/manager/colleague? How did you overcome that? What skills did you use?

Teamwork

• Describe a time where someone in your team was not pulling his or her weight. What did you do to ensure the workload was spread evenly amongst the team?
• Tell us about a time where you worked in a competitive environment. What was your position in the team?
• Tell us about the most difficult person that you have ever had to work with. How did you manage to work with them?
• Describe a time when you had to reach a compromise at work with one of your team members over a certain point.
• Give an example of how you have been successful at empowering a group of people in accomplishing a task.
• Tell us about a time that you had to work in a team that did not initially get along. What happened? What role did you take? What was the result?
• Tell us about a time when you had to adapt to a wide variety of people by accepting and understanding different backgrounds or perspectives.
• Tell us about a particularly complex project you worked on. What was your contribution to the project and what was the final result?

Time management skills

• Tell us about a time when you had to manage competing deadlines and you were required to prioritize your tasks.
• Describe a time when you have several clients, customers or co-workers placing multiple demands on you simultaneously. How did you respond in this situation?
• Give us an example of where you managed competing professional and personal priorities and maintained a healthy work life balance.
• Describe a situation where you were required to act on important issues from multiple sources – what process did you follow to make the choice of which issues you would address?

Senior Management

• Tell me about a situation where you discovered a business practice or policy was negatively affecting profitability.
• Describe a situation where you learned about the practices and decisions made by different functional units within the business.
• Considering the business partnerships you have built both inside and outside the company, describe a situation where things did not go as you had planned. Why was this the case and what did you do to rectify the situation?
• How have you demonstrated in your roles an ability to push through challenging situations and build an achievement-oriented culture? Please provide an example.
• Describe a situation where you have actively had to drive change quickly through the business. How have you done this and kept your team focused on the “main game”?
• Describe a situation where you have received negative feedback about your personal style, how did you respond and what did you do?