A job interview used to consist of questions that focused almost entirely around job-related issues. If applying for a Quality Manager role, you would be asked about the processes you’ve helped improve or the interactions you’ve had with staff and regulatory agencies. Of course, they’d want to know a bit about your personal style and how you might fit into the company. For that aspect of the interview, we can thank an anonymous HR manager who years ago developed an interview based on his or her belief that “past behaviors predict future performance.” This became the Behavioral Interview, the style which dominates today.

Bad hires can be terrible on a company’s bottom line; it costs a small fortune if a manager makes a hiring mistake. And I would agree with HR that the best solution is to learn as much as possible about the “fit” for that new employee into the culture of the organization. It is not enough to have job skills alone. A hiring manager needs to know whether the team dynamics would be enhanced or damaged by this new hire.

It’s so hard to develop responses in advance that behavioral interviews are often considered impossible to prepare for. While I think that’s an exaggeration, it’s true that memorizing answers isn’t going to do much for you here. Still, I believe there are some things you can do to improve your odds.

Today’s toughest interview

Have you ever been asked this old chestnut, “Where would you like to be in five years?” There are still managers out there who will ask those classic interview questions because asking those gives him or her a moment’s respite. The candidate can then spin a response that will either intrigue the interviewer or set up more questions. Luckily, that old approach is not relied upon today.

Instead, a different type of question will come up, one that puts a bit more emphasis on situations you’ve run into. Here, the interviewer is looking for responses from you about how you dealt with those scenarios. These new questions will always take the “open-ended” vs. “closed-ended” approach.

Even the greenest supervisor will know better than to ask a series of closed-ended questions. Those are the kind that can be answered with a simple “yes” or “no,” or something that is equally abrupt. For example, “Do you enjoy your job as a QA Supervisor?” or “How many years have you been practicing QA?” If you’re faced with a series of closed-ended questions like these, recognize it and perhaps add a bit more. For example: “Yes, I enjoy my job because of the variety of experiences I go through. While there are moments around audit time when the stress level is high, most of the time it’s a job that requires solid problem-solving skills, something that I’m good at and love to do.”

The “behavioral” interviewer, however, will rarely ask a closed-ended question. They’ll ask you about a situation you went through with a problem or a person, and then they’ll dig even further with “What did you do next?” or “How did you feel at the time about your exchange with that person?” Their goal is like peeling away the layers of an onion. The further the questioning goes, the more likely they are to “uncover” the real you.

How technical people typically deal with behavioral questions

“I was totally baffled by the interviewer’s seemingly strong interest in my relationship with the difficult people in my life,” one scientist told me. “I had been prepared to answer any question that she wanted to ask about my research, and the technical challenges that I had overcome in getting to this point in my life. But man, when it went into all this interpersonal stuff I was blown away.”

This guy was a great fit for my client, but he was totally tripped up by the behavioral interview. I asked him if he had expected questions about him or whether he had been expecting only technical questions, and I found out that I hadn’t prepared him properly. All his expectations were on the science itself.

“I’d done a lot of personal introspective into the ways that I can assist them. I was ready to do a little selling on my own behalf. But these questions really threw me off track. Basically, I was just floored that there was nothing there that I could take and run with—it was all touchy-feely.” He went on to detail many of the questions that he had been asked. Some of these are below.

For many of my readers, their entire education has focused them on developing and maintaining a set of technical qualifications. That’s why it is frustrating indeed when they find that these matters are not quite as important to getting the job as they had believed.

Writing about this subject some years ago, I conducted interviews with HR professionals to learn more about why they were counseling their hiring managers to take this route in the interview. I learned a great deal about the why of the behavioral interview.

“There is so much technical talent available, and we use so many sources to find those applicants, that what really matters when we see them is that we know who’s promotable,” described one Director of HR. “Of courses, it is up to our technical interviewers to determine which of these candidates fits best, but who will move up in our company culture is a critical piece of the hire. That’s why I make sure we ask very specific questions about behaviors.”

How specific is this? Take a look at the common list of behavioral questions that follow.

A variety of behavioral questions
• Tell me about the most difficult person you’ve ever worked with? What made that person so difficult? How did you deal with it? Tell me about a specific situation you encountered with that (former boss, former workmate, etc.) and how you handled it?
• Give me an instance where you used your problem-solving skills to resolve a problem with a co-worker.
• Give me two examples of personal conflicts on the job and how you handled them? Is there a certain type of person whom you consistently don’t get along well with?
• Describe two people whom you like and respect. What do you like about them? Describe two people whom you have trouble dealing with. Why is this?
• What makes you feel content at the end of a typical day? Tell me about a time when you were in your comfort zone and then got rudely shocked out of it by circumstances or by people on the job. How did you handle this?
• Are you an independent decision-maker? Give me an example of a time when you made a decision that had to be defended and how did you proceed?
• Are you a ‘Team Player’? Describe a project team in which you played a key role.

How to be prepared for behavioral questions

It is clear by the list of questions above that the company wants to know as much as possible about the “real you.”

The best way to answer these questions is to be aware that they are coming, and then to do some self-analysis in advance that will assist you in showing pieces of the real you. What kind of self-analysis? As you can tell by the examples above, these are questions that deal with your responses to people. Think long and hard about the folks you have worked with and the interactions you’ve had, both good and bad.

My suggestion is that you prepare yourself to discuss what you like and what you dislike about various types of people—all the while remembering that companies are looking for a person with flexibility in this department.

In the behavioral interview, the process of cramming doesn’t make any sense. But while you really can’t adequately prepare for these interviews, you can remember a formula that I have always found to be helpful. Remember the acronym S-T-A-R, which stands for Situation-Task-Action-Result. Be prepared to describe the situation you were in (or the problem you faced), the task that you were asked to accomplish, what action you took, and then what the result was. If you get all four pieces in, there is a strong likelihood that the interviewer will not go further.