The beginning of the interview is like any other, you exchange pleasantries, talk about your qualifications and experience and then the interviewer starts asking you those really weird questions. "Give me a specific example of a time when you could not handle a important deadline." You search the depths of your memory for an example which answers that question and turns that failure into a success as suggested by your favourite book on interview skills, but are unable to come up with a satisfactory answer. The problem is most books offer you advice on succeeding in traditional interviews and not behavioral interviews.
Behavioural interviews came into vogue when industrial psychologists realised that traditional interviews are often ineffective in analysing the candidate is suitability for a job. The questions asked are hypothetical and the candidates end up giving hypothetical answers. For example the interviewer may ask "How would you handle and irate customer?" You know what the interviewer is looking for and respond "I will take him to the side, politely ask him the details of the problem and do my best to help him out." While this answer may sound satisfactory, it is a hypothetical answer and may differ form what you may actually do in such a situation. The same question asked by an interviewer using behavioural interview techniques would be "Give me a specific example of an incident when you handled an irate customer. What was the problem and the end result". Your mind begins to race as you think of a response to this question.
Now imagine an interview which is full of these questions and worse, most of the questions are negative "Tell me about a time when your mistake cost your company dear in terms of time and money." You are in a fix trying to figure out a situation that doesn't sound too bad. If you try to dodge the question the interviewer probes further and asks an even more uncomfortable question in an effort to get to the truth.
The basic premise behind behavioral interviewing is that your past is the best predictor of the future. In essence, if you ask behavioral-oriented questions, you're no longer asking questions that are hypothetical, but are now asking questions that must be answered based upon fact. The interviewer determines the capabilities and traits (often referred to as probes) that are essential for success in a position. Probes include: Assertiveness, Clarification, Commitment to Task, Dealing with Ambiguity, Decision Making, Interaction, Leadership, Management Skills, Communication Skills, Organizational Skills, Problem Solving, Team Building and others. Each probe lists various questions that are designed to determine whether the candidate has the ability or not based on specific past experiences.
With a behavioral question, the interviewer is looking for results and not just a list of responsibilities and activities. The interviewer gets to listen to things like names, dates, places, the outcome and especially what the individual's role was in achieving that outcome. Candidates can prepare for behavioral interviews by identifying specific examples for each of the above probes. Most staffing representatives consider the probe associated with interaction, particularly in the office environment to be very important. The relationships people have and how they get along with each other is of particular significance.
When preparing, identify an unsuccessful example for each probe because you will probably be asked to give an example of a time when things didn't work out as planned. One way to end an answer to a negative probe is to say something like "the mistake caused me to delay the project, but it helped me to develop a project tracking system which would minimize the chance of that happening again." Remember, mistakes are what help us learn. Whatever you do, don't tell the interviewer that you really can't think of any mistakes that you made.
More and more companies are adopting behavioral interviews because they are very effective in identifying the best candidate for the opening. An understanding behavioral interview is the key to preparing for one. Preparing for Behavioral interviews can significantly help you in traditional interviews because you can give the traditional interviewer a specific answer to a theoretical question. Example: "How would you address an irate customer?" You: "I can give you a specific example. I was the sales manager and a really irate customer came in yelling at everyone. He was upset because.... I invited him to my office and..." When you give specific examples to interview questions, you establish credibility and believability, and that can ultimately translate into a job offer.
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