Examples of Behavioral Interview Questions
Employers today are starting to move away from traditional interviewing techniques. The resume interview is becoming a thing of the past. Behavioral interviewing is gaining popularity because of the nature of the questions. Using behavioral based questions allow the employer to dig deep for a more personal look at each candidate. The idea of behavioral interviewing is simple: “Past behaviors tend to predict future behaviors.” The way you behaved in a certain situation in the past will help predict how you will behave in the future if put in a similar situation.
Behavioral interview questions are a little different than other questions you might expect during a job interview. Here are some examples of the questions that may come up in a behavioral interview:
- Describe an instance when you motivated yourself to complete an assignment or job that you really did not want to do?
- Tell me about a difficult boss, co-worker or other person who you worked with. What made that person hard to work with? What did you do to successfully interact with this person?
- Describe to me the riskiest decision that you have made.
- Tell me about an occasion where you were required to work with a group large or small to get a job done?
- Talk to me about a time when you worked with someone who did things very differently from you. How did you work together to do the job right?
- Explain your three greatest accomplishments.
- Illustrate for me a situation when you had to learn something new in a short time. How did you proceed?
- Tell me about a challenge that you successfully completed.
- Review a situation where you effectively persuaded others to do something or to agree with your viewpoint.
- Provide an example of when your perseverance had the biggest payoff.
The questions mentioned above are just a sample of the kind of questions that may be asked in a behavioral style interview. The best advice to follow in order to have a successful interview in this type of atmosphere is to really know yourself inside and out. Do a lot of soul searching before you go to the interview and review the personal experiences you have had in your job environment.
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