Interviewers can never rely on what you claim you will do, but can learn a lot from what you have already done. The past is a fairly reliable indication of the future where employee behavior and attitude is concerned.
With that in mind, here are four favorite behavioral interview questions and how interviewers would view your response:
1. “Tell me about the last time a customer or coworker got mad at you.”
Intent: Evaluating your interpersonal skills and ability to deal with conflict.
Remember, interviewers will make sure they find out why the customer or coworker was mad, what you did in response, and how the situation turned out both in the short- and long-term.
- Red flag: You push all the blame — and responsibility for rectifying the situation — on the other person.
- Good: You focus on how you addressed and fixed the problem, not on who was to blame.
- Great: You admit you caused the other person to be upset, took responsibility, and worked to make a bad situation better. That’s the trifecta of answers: You are willing to admit when you are wrong, you take responsibility for fixing your mistakes, and you learn from experience. (Remember, every mistake is just training in disguise as long as the same mistake isn’t repeated over and over again, of course.)
2. “Tell me about the toughest decision you had to make in the last six months.”
Intent: Evaluating your ability to reason, problem solving skills, judgment, and sometimes even willingness to take intelligent risks.
- Red flag: No answer. Everyone makes tough decisions regardless of their position. Even someone working part-time as a server at a local restaurant makes difficult decisions every night, like the best way to deal with a regular customer whose behaviour constitutes borderline harassment.
- Good: Made a difficult analytical or reasoning-based decision. For example, wading through reams of data to determine the best solution to a problem.
- Great: Made a difficult interpersonal decision, or better yet a difficult data-driven decision that included interpersonal considerations and ramifications. Making decisions based on data is essential, but almost every decision has an impact on people as well. The best candidates naturally weigh all sides of an issue, not just the business or human side exclusively.
3. “Tell me about a time you knew you were right… but you still had to follow directions or guidelines.”
Intent: Evaluating your ability to follow… and possibly to lead.
- Red flag: Found a way to circumvent guidelines “… because I know I was right,” or followed the rules but allowed your performance to suffer.
- Good: Did what needed to be done, especially in a time-critical situation, then found an appropriate time and place to raise issues and work to improve the status quo.
- Great: Not only did what needed to be done, but stayed motivated and helped motivate others as well. In a peer setting, an employee who is able to say, “Hey, I’m not sure this makes sense either, but for now let’s just do our best and get it done…” is priceless. In a supervisory setting, good leaders are able to debate and argue behind closed doors and then fully support a decision in public even if they privately disagree with that decision.
4. “Tell me about the last time your workday ended before you were able to get everything done.”
Intent: Evaluating commitment, ability to prioritize, ability to communicate effectively.
- Red flag: “I just do what I can and get the heck out of there. I keep telling my boss I can only do so much but he won’t listen…. “
- Good: Stayed a few minutes late to finish a critical task, or prioritized before the end of the workday to ensure critical tasks were completed. You shouldn’t expect heroic efforts every day, but some level of dedication is certainly nice.
- Great: Stayed late and/or prioritized… but most importantly communicated early on that deadlines were in jeopardy. Good employees take care of things; great employees take care of things and make sure others are aware of potential problems ahead of time just in case other proactive decisions make sense.
- Note: Keep in mind there are a number of good and great answers to this question. “I stayed until midnight to get it done” can sometimes be a great answer, but doing so night after night indicates there are other organizational or productivity issues the employee should raise. (I may sometimes be glad you stayed late, but I will always be glad when help me spot chronic problems or bottlenecks.) An interviewer will evaluate a candidate’s answers to this question based on the company’s culture and organizational needs.
An awesome candidate will shine in a fact-based interview.
– Based on “4 Essential Job Interview Questions to Ask” by Jeff Haden