Acing The Behavioral Interviews

If you don’t know what a behavioral interview is, and why you need to prepare for one, check out our previous article Behavioral Interviews: What You Need To Know

The Four Basic Steps to Prepare

To prepare for behavioral interviews, we break it down into four simple steps:

• Research the company to find the qualifications/skills they are looking for. For example, the company may be looking for people who have skills such as strong initiative, leadership skill, strong communication skills. etc.
• Prepare interview stories involving your past experiences to highlight the qualifications the company is looking for
• Practice answering questions aloud using your stories
• Practice with a friend to simulate an actual interview where you won’t know what the question is until you process it audibly

Common Themes

Unlike technical interviews, the questions for behavioral interviews are diverse in format and scope. Although almost all questions are fair to ask here, the questions usually fall into one of the common themes below

How to structure your answers

There is a popular and effective method for answering behavioral questions called the STAR method you should utilize.

The STAR method encompasses the four main important components of your answers:

• Situation: Set the stage for the story by giving context to the situation. Make sure to share only the relevant details and pick a situation that had a positive outcome.
• Task: Describe your responsibilities or role in the situation.
• Action: Explain how you handled the situation by talking about the specific actions you took to achieve the positive outcome. Focus on the actions executed by you, specifically. If it was a team effort, focus on your contributions and actions.
• Result: Explain the results or outcome of your actions. Whenever possible, always quantify your results or provide concrete examples of the effects of your efforts/actions.

Don’t forget you want to spend a maximum of around two minutes for each answer while incorporating those four STAR elements in your stories. This is where practice will help your stories flow more smoothly and stay relevant and concise.

Last Tips/Reminders

• Have your two minute pitch ready for the “tell me about yourself” question. Usually your interviewer’s first impression of you will come from this question, so practice, practice, practice!
• Review major projects you’ve worked on so you don’t forget any important aspects if it’s been awhile since you’ve worked on some projects.
• Make a list of professional accomplishments you feel comfortable talking about.
• Show — not tell — by using stories and concrete examples.
• Quantify results whenever possible.
• Be specific in your stories.
• Talk about things you personally contributed to or took action on.
• Practice your stories, but don’t memorize them or they will come off as robotic and sound like a recital.

If you want to be even more prepared, check out our list of common behavioral interview questions to practice, stay tuned!

Originally published at https://codebasil.com.