Tell Me About How You Work Under Pressure
The interviewer is using this question to see how well you work under pressure and what strategies you have used in the past to handle the pressure. This question is especially important if you’re interviewing for a high-stress job. A great answer will give a specific example of how you managed a high-pressure situation successfully. It could also include what you would have done differently, looking back.
Example:“I had been working on a large project that my team committed to turning around for the client in 60 days. My manager came to me and said that the client wanted it back in 45 days and that we would need to speed up our work without losing momentum on our other projects. I met with our team and we reviewed the calendar. We eliminated team meetings and shifted lower-priority tasks until the end of the 45-day period to add extra hours to our workweeks. I challenged my team to complete the project in 45 days or left and as a reward promised two days of extra PTO time. Our team got the job done in 42 days.”
Top Behavioral Interview Questions To Ask Candidates
According to the society of human resources management, behavioral interview questions are a very effective interview technique working across various types of organizations making them an important part of the hiring process when evaluating a candidates work experience and work style.
These types of interview questions help the interviewer create a structured process by using the same set of standardized questions to compare and evaluate multiple candidates interviewing for the same job opening.
Behavioral Interview Questions To Prepare For
Behavioral interview questions are often asked in job interviews to gauge how successful you are at problem-solving. These questions can provide the interviewer with insight into your personality, skills and abilities. Because each behavioral interview question requires you to share a specific story that highlights your strengths and skills, thoughtful preparation can help you feel confident and prepared.
In this article, we offer some tips for preparing and responding to questions by topic and also offer 10 sample questions and examples to help you form your own answers.
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Sometimes We Have An All
Like it or not, were working more hours these days. Although you dont want to become a slave to the office, if your prospective employer has asked you this question, you can be sure shes going to need you to be a team player.
I try to keep a good work/life balance, so Id do my best to help my team meet project goals during working hours. That said, crunch times happen. Im dedicated to putting in the extra hours when they become necessary.
Behavioral Job Interview Questions About Working With Clients
Question #1 – Clients can be difficult to work with sometimes. Can you describe a situation when a client was wrong and you had to correct them?
Situation: Absolutely. One of our past clients at Agency X came to us because his Facebook advertising strategy wasnt working. He was driving traffic but wasnt getting any conversions, so they thought that it was because they werent reaching the right audience. We realized, though, that it was actually because their product homepage wasnt really that convincing. The client, however, was adamant about not fixing what wasnt broken.
Task: I had to somehow communicate with the client that the service he wanted wasnt what he wanted – there was no way for us to fix his Facebook ads if his homepage wasnt selling the product.
Action: We had to give the client an ultimatum – they either go with our approach, or we wouldnt be able to get the results .
Results: After some back and forth, the client grudgingly agreed to do an A/B test between the existing landing page, and one that wed propose. So, we tested the two landing pages with the same ads hed been running, and ended up getting 2.5x better results. From then on, the client was a lot more willing to allow us to experiment with whatever we proposed.
Question #2 – How do you handle irate customers? Give me an example.
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What Are Behavioral Interview Questions
Behavioral interview questions are those that focus on how you’ve handled various situations in the workplace and reveal your character traits, abilities and skills. These questions give an interviewer an idea of how you would behave if a similar situation were to arise, the logic being that your success in the past will show success in the future.
Unlike traditional interview questions, behavior job interview techniques look for concrete examples of skills and experiences that relate to the position. Your answers to these questions should provide a brief story that illustrates your skills and strengths as an employee. For each answer, give the interviewer the background to the story briefly, specific actions you took and the results.
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Adaptability: Tell Me About A Time When You Had To Demonstrate Adaptability
Context: I was working as project lead on a major marketing campaign for my company when by coincidence, two weeks before launch, a competitor launched a campaign that was very similar in content. Pushing ahead with our plans would have seemed like we were copying our competitor, even though wed already been working on our campaign for weeks.
Action: I knew we had to immediately change tack, so I called an emergency meeting with my team. We had a huge brainstorming session having already done our research, and with our goals unchanged, it was more about changing the look and feel of the content, and coming up with a few fresh ideas.
I quickly mapped out a new plan and assigned various team members to create the new content. I also enlisted the help of a freelancer who I knew would be able to produce quality content quickly. It was all hands on deck and we all worked some long days in those two weeks before deadline.
Result: With a large dose of hard work and good humour, we managed to launch on time and produce a very successful campaign that generated a 28% spike in leads. In the end I felt that the new content was even better than what we had originally planned, and I was very proud of the way my team and I were able to quickly pivot and deliver.
Now that youve prepared for questions you may be asked in an interview, do you know what questions you should ask the interviewer in return? Discover some of the best questions to ask in an interview.
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Common Behavioral Interview Questions
1. What makes an ideal coworker in your eyes?
2. How do you prioritize projects under pressure?
3. How would handle your schedule when its interrupted?
4. Have you ever bent company policy to satisfy a client?
5. How have you handled setbacks at work?
6. How do you handle job training if its going poorly?
7. Have you ever calmed down an angry client? How?
8. Tell me about some regrets in your previous job?
Top 5 Behavioral Interview Questions To Ask In 2021
As an employer, there’s no right way to host a job interview. But you can ask each candidate the right questions to learn the most important things about them.
Learning what makes a person qualified to work for you is difficult, especially if you have just a half-hour interview with them in a conference room.
Because of this time crunch, you might feel compelled to race through the candidate’s resume, asking them questions about each job title and bullet point they’ve written down from top to bottom.
But if you want to know what makes the applicant valuable to you, it’s important to get to know them beyond their written job application. The best way uncover this value is to ask behavioral interview questions.
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Tell Me About A Time When You Were In Conflict With A Peer And How The Situation Was Resolved
In workplaces where there are a large number of people with different personality types and communication styles, conflicts can occur. The interviewer wants to see, with this question, how you handle conflicts in the workplace and what your conflict resolution strategy is. A great answer is one where you demonstrate a specific strategy that you used to resolve a problem and find a mutually agreeable resolution.
Example:“I had a sales manager who was great about stepping in to help when members of our team were struggling with meeting goals. However, she had a single approach that didn’t work for everyone and members of our team were getting frustrated and felt they were being micromanaged. I suggested that I sit down one-on-one with our manager, having heard the frustrations of the team. I avoided us all sitting down because I didn’t want her to feel ganged up on and become defensive. After talking, we decided that she would let team members know her door was open if they needed help but that she would let them be in charge of the strategy they used to meet their goals. We also implemented a monthly, optional training program where we had different team members present what was working for them in order to offer a variety of approaches.”
Asking Situational And Behavioral Questions In Job Interviews
One could argue that interviews are the most important stage in the hiring process. Up to that point, you really dont know much about the candidates youre considering. Youve only seen their resume and possibly had a quick phone or video interview with them.
Now you get to sit in the same room with your candidates and talk to them face-to-face. You have the opportunity to really get to know them and learn what they can do. Youll likely walk out of the room after each interview knowing whether or not the candidate is the person youre looking for.
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Whos Asking Product Sense Interview Questions
There are two different types of interviewers that will ask these questions: those that are told what to look for and those who know what a great answer is supposed to sound like.
If you are in a round one interview or screening call with a recruiter, even an internal recruiter, they will likely know what they are listening for. They may even have a guide sheet or template. These folks will usually provide you with very little information while you fumble around for a coherent answer which can leave you feeling awkward and wondering whether your answer was sufficient.
The other type of interviewer, people who know what good answers sound like, will often give you clues as you share your answer to help push you in the right direction. These second types are extremely helpful and can get you through the exercise. However, they are more critical and will judge responses more severely based on how much prompting they had to supply. You may finish the interview with a false sense of satisfaction given their ability to make the conversation seem smooth but then five days later you get the rejection, which leaves you befuddled.
Regardless of which type you get, there are some straightforward approaches you can take to creating stories and answers for product sense questions that will satisfy both types of interviewers.
The Bottom Line With Behavioral Interview Questions & Answers
Dont be intimidated. Think of these questions as opportunities to share how you have succeeded in your work. Prepare by analyzing the job, determining both the hard and soft skills needed for the job, and then noting examples of how you have handled similar situations in the past, demonstrating that you have those soft skills.
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How Do You Answer Behavioral Questions In An Interview
Many professionals, including Cassady, suggest using the STAR method to answer behavioral interview questions.
The STAR method is a procedure that can be used to provide thoughtful answers that contain fully-formed beginnings, middles, and ends. STAR stands for Situation, Task at hand, Action you took, and Result. This method allows you to tell a story that starts with the situation, moves to the task you were assigned, goes onto the action you took, and finish up with the result of what happened in this particular instance. These stories are most impressive to interviewers because they show how you actually act in the workplace.
I can tell when Im interviewing if somebody thought about the interview prior to showing up to the interview in terms of how specifically or thoroughly they answer questions, Cassady said.
According to Cassady, the characteristics of a great behavioral interview answer are:
How Do You Recognize Behavioral Interview Questions
Unlike typical interview questions, behavioral questions require you to respond with examples that demonstrate your past behavior. A good answer provides hard, real-life evidence of your soft skills, proving whether or not youre a good fit for the job at hand. Lets look at the difference:
Typical question: Whats your greatest strength?
Behavioral question: Tell me about a time when you succeeded at work.
As you can see, you can recognize common behavioral questions by how theyre structured. They begin with phrases like tell me about a time, or describe a time, or give me an example of To answer them, you need to learn how to craft compelling stories that fit the internship or job.
So, why do hiring managers ask these questions? The basic idea is that past performance predicts future success. If youve demonstrated success in certain key areas in former roles, youre likely to succeed in your new one. Second, by asking the same behavioral questions to each candidate, they can easily discern how different people interpret these common concepts and react to these common situations. It provides a good baseline. Finally, these questions require detailed answers, which, hopefully, speak to your specific impact. As we know, quantifying your accomplishments and focusing on the specifics is crucial to a successful cover letter, resume, and interview.
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Behavioral Interview Questions And Sample Answers
Here are some common behavioral interview questions you may be asked during a job interview. Review the responses and consider how you would answer the questions, so you’ll be prepared to give a strong answer.
As you can see from the sample responses, it’s important to be ready with specific examples and anecdotes.
While you don’t need to memorize answers, have a sense of what experiences you would share and how to describe them to the interviewer. You’ll want your examples to be both clear and succinct.
What Accomplishment Are You Most Proud Of And Why
Make a list of specific achievements you have accomplished and then narrow it down to relevant examples for your desired role. Dont be afraid to share an example that gives the interviewer insight into who you are outside of work. Consider providing examples from previous jobs, promotions, academics, sports, philanthropy and goals obtained through passion and hard work. If you choose to explain a personal accomplishment, tie it back to how it can be applied in that particular company.
Sample response:
S: At my last company, I noticed there was no formal development program to help my peers that were promoted to a supervisor role for the first time.
T: I spoke to my manager about starting a leadership boot camp, and he told me to challenge my thinking and come up with a strategy to implement it.
A: After collaborating with my leader and business partners, I was able to formulate a curriculum for a leadership development track, teaching my peers fundamental leadership skills and how to manage their teams efficiently.
R: I was able to successfully bring the program to life, allowing me to channel my passion for leadership while serving the community. Given the opportunity as your firms organizational development manager, I would love to carry the invaluable skills I learned to help future leaders at your organization.
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‘tell Me About A Mistake You Made During A Project Or At A Certain Point In Your Career’
Think of this behavioral question as a more specific way to ask an interviewee: “What are your greatest weaknesses?” By asking candidates this question, you can discover many important things about them that you wouldn’t learn from their resume.
Listening to a candidate describe a mistake they once made can show you how much self-awareness they have. The best answers indicate both their thought process in making that mistake and what they learned from it. Just because it was a mistake doesn’t mean the candidate was being negligent — encourage them to explain their choice and what they’d do differently today.
Overcoming Challenges: Describe A Time When You Overcame A Challenging Situation
Context: At my last company, we went through a very challenging time and I was asked to find a way to reduce staff costs and save money within a short timeframe.
Action: In determining the best way forward, I looked at a range of options: to reduce headcount, cut departmental budgets, freeze wages, change our capital structure and accounts policies. I conducted cost-benefit analyses for each option and weighed up both short-term and long-term consequences and risks.
Result: Laying off staff is never easy, but in this case it was a necessity. But by implementing a multi-pronged approach with a raft of changes and allowing some employees to move to part-time hours, I was able to minimise headcount loss and therefore IP loss, and dilute any negative effects to the companys operations and staff morale.
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