How to answer behavioral questions | Tips from a Professional Recruiter
Advice for acing the most stressful interview questions
As a professional recruiter, nearly every client I’ve worked with has agreed on their number one struggle during an interview: answering behavioral questions. Answering these open-ended questions can feel like navigating a minefield. Once you are familiar with what behavioral questions are asking, you will realize that they aren’t worth worrying about.
So, let’s take a look at what a behavioral question is and how you can prepare to answer them with confidence.
What are Behavioral questions?
Tell me about a time when you had to solve a problem?
Walk me through a situation where you had to deal with a difficult co-worker?
Describe a project that involved collaboration with others?
Tell me about a time when you had to improve something at work?
These are all examples of behavioral questions. Pretty much any question that elicits a short story as an answer can be considered a behavioral question.
Hiring managers ask these questions to get an idea of your adaptability. Examples of how you approached situations in the past can give hiring managers an idea of how you will handle similar situations in the future. Behavioral questions also help gauge how your previous experiences have prepared you for the hiring position.
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The course also details company research methods, the best ways to tell your story, and a full strategy on preparing yourself for behavioral interviews by including worksheets and exercises. For more information on how to ace your interview, visit Job Interview Course | Tips from a Fortune 500 Recruiter Recruiter.
How to Answer Behavioral Questions
Here are some easy tips for how to correctly answer behavioral questions.
Avoid hypothetical scenarios
The number one mistake people tend to make when answering a behavioral question is responding with a hypothetical scenario.
For example, let’s say the interviewer asks, “tell me about a time when you had to deal with a difficult customer.” You wouldn’t want to answer with, “I would try and be patient, ask them why they’re upset, try to come up with a solution.”
Don’t tell your interviewers what you WOULD do. The word “would” should not be part of your answer to these questions. Explain a situation that has actually happened, and describe to them how you handled it. Demonstrating your experience will prove to the interviewer that you are ready for the position.
Give them a story
My rule of thumb is that an answer to a behavioral question should sound like a story. Your answer should have a beginning, middle, and end. Start with setting up your answer by describing a scenario. Then, continue by explaining how you handled the situation. Finally, finish your answer by reiterating why you chose this example specifically.
For example, you can explain where you experienced a difficult customer, and what conflict you had to solve. Then, continue to explain how you handled the situation. To conclude, describe the end result and why this is a good example of your customer service skills.
This does not mean that your answer has to be a long, drawn-out novel. However, structuring your answer and providing a story will resonate with the interviewer and show them that you prepared.
Use the STAR method
The most well-known method for answering behavioral questions is called the STAR Method. It stands for Situation, Task, Action, Resolution.
Provided below is a PDF file that describes the STAR Method in detail. But for the sake of this article, we will briefly summarize each of these steps.
Let’s start with Situation
When constructing your answer, start with a situation that you faced. It could be a project you worked on, a company you worked for, or a work trip you went on.
Task
What’s the task you had to accomplish? The problem you had to face? The project you were assigned to? Make sure that the interview has a solid idea of what you were responsible for accomplishing.
Action
Describe the action that you took to solve the issues and accomplish the task. Make sure you focus on things you did, avoiding mentioning what your team did. Always start this section with an “I” and not “We.”
Result
Result is the final piece of the puzzle that applicants always tend to forget.
Interviewers don’t just want to know the situation you were in, the task you had to handle, and/or the action you took. Interviewers also want to see the impact of your actions and if you could solve the original problem. Make sure to always finish your answer with the resolution.
Examples of Behavioral Question Answers
Now, you know what a behavioral question is, why interviewers ask them, and how to navigate your answer. Now, it’s time to practice your answers.
Let’s put all of this information together in two examples:
Example 1: Tell me about a time when you were able to improve your team’s productivity?
What hiring managers are looking for: your problem-solving skills, creativity, and contributions to a team.
Wrong answer: “I would try and identify a task that would take them the longest and find a solution based on that.”
This answer is vague, and it doesn’t describe a situation that actually happened.
Right answer: “When I was working at my previous job at an XYZ company, I noticed that my team would take a very long time to complete a project. They didn’t know where their co-workers were standing with their portion of the project (S). I decided to find a way to improve our productivity by changing the way that we communicate (T). I did my research and convinced our leaders to invest in better project management software (A). After implementing that software, we were able to cut the project completion time in half (R).”
Notice the difference between the two? While you’re technically providing an answer in both situations, the second answer provides your interviewers with a real-life example.
Use your answer to let them know how you acted in a certain situation while proving your analytical, problem solving, and creative skills.
Let’s look at another example.
Example 2: Describe a situation where you had to finish multiple projects on a tight deadline?
What hiring managers are looking for: your ability to prioritize, ability to multitask, and ability to work under pressure.
Wrong answer: “When I’m tasked with multiple things, I try to create a checklist of what I need to do. Then, I do them in the order of urgency and how long it would take me to finish each of them.”
This answer is vague and does not provide the interviewer with the confidence that you have successfully multitasked in the past.
Right answer: “When I first started working at an XYZ company, my manager called me last minute and asked me to help out with an additional project (S), I had to finish three reports before the end of the week (T), so what I did was I wrote those projects down and ranked them in order of urgency and time I would need to finish each of them. I then wrote down specific action items that I needed to complete to finish each of those projects in order of importance. I followed my checklist the entire week (A), and thankfully, I was able to finish all three projects before the deadline! (R)”
Hopefully, these two examples gave you a good idea of how to answer behavioral questions!
It can be hard to predict the types of questions that interviewers ask. Though, to prepare for an interview, I suggest practicing answers to several behavioral questions specific to the job you are applying for.
For example, if you work in a customer-facing job, plan for questions that involve customer interaction. This could mean describing a difficult customer interaction or explaining when you were able to persuade someone. If you work in an operations’ driven role, think of examples of when you solved a problem, or improve a process.
The most challenging part of answering behavioral questions is not necessarily learning how to structure your answers — though it is definitely a challenge. The real difficulty is thinking of examples from your past that reflect your best qualities. Therefore, the best way to prepare yourself for your behavioral interview is to spend a reasonable amount of time brainstorming examples and writing them down prior to your interview.
Now go ace your next big interview!
