It is hard to get to know a person from just a few conversations. Recruiters and hiring managers aim to learn as much as they can about you in a short amount of time. They try to understand your strengths and weaknesses, what is important to you, how you would handle certain situations, and how you would perform in the role. Instead of asking about how you would behave in hypothetical situations, they ask you about concrete examples from your past.

The assumption of the behavioral interview is that:

 Your past behavior will predict your future behavior.

Behavioral interview questions usually start with:

Tell me about a time…

Describe a situation…

An example would be: Tell me about a time when a project you managed was not meeting deadlines and what you did to bring it back on track.

You want to answer in an organized and well articulated manner that will leave the interviewer impressed with your experience.

Use the STAR method to structure your response:

Situation – Set the context for the story. Where were you working? What was the issue? This is your: Who, what, where, when, why?

Task – What was required from you? What was your role?

Action – What did you do?

Result – What happened? What were the results?

You want to put together a concise story where the above structure is invisible but your response is well articulated. It is good to include specifics: company, employees names’, background information. You don’t want to go into too much detail, but you want your story to keep the interviewer interested and sound believable.

In our example:

Interviewer: Tell me about a time when a project you managed was not meeting deadlines and what you did to bring it back on track.

Your response: “I was working for company X as a project manager. The project included management of multi-level hardware and software teams in multi-national environments. We learnt that one of our Houston facilities was severely impacted by hurricane Maria and that production of a piece of our hardware would be delayed and thus push out deadlines for the whole project. This would have had detrimental effects on our project as well as other projects in the company. I needed to find a solution to producing the hardware elsewhere. We managed to quickly divert the production of the essential parts to the Austin facility temporarily, bringing over some of the key people from Houston to manage the transition. All in all, we only lost about a week of production which we managed to make up at both the Austin and Houston facilities once it was up and running again.”

Consider every bit of information you are providing in your responses. What are you sharing about yourself and your management style, how you deal with stress, your priorities etc.

So how do you prepare for a behavioral interview?

Likely, most job interviews you will go to will contain some behavioral questions. The STAR method is a good way to organize your response to any question providing the context to the situation, specific details, and the results.

To prepare, revisit the job description and identify the required skills and experience. Think of specific examples from your past where you used those skills and how you can demonstrate your success in handling similar situations. Practice your response so that it sounds like a naturally flowing story. When you provide a clear response you are making it easier for the recruiter to learn who you are, ultimately helping the interview flow smoothly.

Miki Feldman Simon, Founder & CEO IamBackatWork