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What Are The Most Common Behavioral Interview Questions

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What Are Behavioral Interview Questions

The Powerful Formula to Answer the Most Common Interview Questions (Story Toolbox)

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.

Related:Situational Interview Questions and Answers

Discuss A Major Mistake You’ve Made And Your Efforts To Remedy It

This question gives the interviewer a glimpse of how tough you’re on yourself when you make a mistake, and how you solve organizational problems. Detail how this mistake shapes you to be a qualified candidate for this role and what you learned from this experience. This can be an important note about how you’ll be managed in the event you get hired for the position.

Example:“I typed in the wrong number on a financial statement while working within an accounting software and set the statement to the Chief Financial Officer . I got an email saying that he doubted the accuracy of my work and to double-check my calculations even though I thought I typed everything incorrectly at the time. It’s my role to make sure the accuracy of financial calculations, but I decided to speak with the accounting manager and he pointed out that the calculation of the total assets is wrong and appreciated that I brought it up to her. I made the correction, looked at the statement again and sent it back to the CFO. He thanked me and told me that it’s all set.”

Interview Questions About Interpersonal Skills

53. Can you describe a time when you had a conflict with someone at work? What did you do?

54. Can you describe a time when you dealt with a co-worker you didnt like?

55. Can you tell me how you communicate with someone who doesnt like you?

56. Can you tell me about a time when you disagreed with a manager? What did you do?

57. How have you maintained relationships with your co-workers? What skill do you use?

58. Was there ever a time that you didnt get along with a customer? What did you do?

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Questions About Morality And Ethics

59. Have you ever noticed a coworker violating company policy? If so, how did you handle it?

60. Have you ever noticed a manager or boss violating company policy? If so, how did you handle it?

61. Have you ever encountered a coworker or boss violating the law, and if so, what did you do?

62. Have you ever had a fellow employee throw you under the bus? How did you handle it?

63. What would you do if you found a manager showing clear favoritism for one employee, or the opposite?

64. Have you ever had the opportunity to duck the blame for something you did? Did you take it?

65. Do you own up to your mistakes when you make them?

66. What is the biggest mistake youve made as part of your job? How did you correct it?

67. Have you ever been part of an ethically questionable business? How did you handle it?

68. Have you ever violated company policy to solve a problem or do your job?

69. Have you ever been told to violate safety regulations to do your job? Did you?

70. Have you ever intentionally violated safety policies to do your job?

71. Have you ever been asked to perform a task that goes against your personal values, but not company or legal regulations? Did you do it?

The 7 Most Common Behavioral Interview Questions

10 of the most common interview questions

Did you know that the average number of people who apply for a job is around 118? Out of those, only 20% of applicants get an interview.

So if you get an interview, know that you’re the skillful few who have caught the attention of companies. But you’re not in the clear just yet.

Whether you’re applying for an internship or job, you need to nail the interview. So you need to be prepared when you walk in for your interview.

To help you out, here are 7 of the most common behavioral interview questions you should know about. That way, you’ll be better prepared!

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Tell Me About A Time When You Were Faced With Conflicting Priorities

Your time management and decision making skills are being evaluated by this question. Make sure you focus on the positive aspects of the situation. Dont go into the negative details.

Answer: My team and I were facing a deadline and my manager was out of the office. Our client was expecting a project to be delivered by 5:00 PM, and I could tell we werent going to make the deadline without making some changes.

I re-organized my own tasks so I could dedicate my entire day to focusing on this project. I took the lead and delegated tasks to the five team members in a way that would utilize everyones strengths best. By pitching in and reallocating work, we delivered the work to the client on-time. I also emailed our manager to let her know we had met the deadline.

Do You Have Any Questions For Me

What They Want to Know: The last question at a job interview is usually one about what you want to know about the job and the company. Be ready with a list of questions to ask. You may seem disinterested if there isn’t anything you want to learn more about.

Do you have a formal schedule and mechanism for performance reviews? How soon after hiring would I receive my first review?

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Top 5 Most Common Behavioral Interview Questions And Answers 2021

The good news is that if you are looking online for best behavioral interview questions, you have made it past the first cuts and have advanced to the job interview part of the hiring process.

The bad news, however, is that you dont know for sure if you will be asked behavioral interview questions or not.

Liz Ryan, career coach for Forbes and author of the book, Reinvention Roadmap: Break the Rules to Get the Job You Want and Career You Deserve, informs her readers that scripted questions rarely give a glimpse into how a candidates brain works. Getting popular in the 1980s, behavioral job interview techniques sustain inequality between the employer and a candidate perpetrating a concept of a job interview as an oral exam.

Meanwhile, Ryan says, Good managers know that the purpose of a job interview is to look for a great match between the candidate and their needs on the one hand, and the employer and its needs on the other.

You never know what type of person you will see in the interviewers chair or whether they will have an old school approach or a new school approach to the interview process. So make sure you are ready for anything, including how to answer behavioral interview questions. Use the following tips and advice as basic guidelines.

Top Behavioral Based Interview Questions And Answers

How to Answer BEHAVIORAL INTERVIEW QUESTIONS Using the STAR Method (TOP 10 Behavioral Questions)

If youre not prepared for a behavioral job interview, the questions you’re asked can seem unnecessarily indirect or abstract.

Since behavioral interview questions can be enormously useful for helping employers determine who to hire, theyre also among the most common interview questions youll encounter. Preparing answers to behavioral based interview questions is essential for anyone who hopes to ace their next job interview.

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+ Behavioral Interview Questions

Youve prepped endlessly for that upcoming interview.

You memorized all of the most common job interview questions .

…But youre not just there yet.

You still need to prepare for the behavioral interview questions.

And in this guide, were going to teach you how!

Read on to learn about:

  • What are the behavioral interview questions and how are they different from the usual questions?
  • How to answer ANY behavioral interview question with the STAR method
  • 21+ most common behavioral interview questions

Sample Questions And Answers

To help you formulate your own responses, here are some sample behavioral interview questions and answers. You will notice that these sample answers follow a similar format. One of the best ways to structure your answers to behavioral interview questions is using the STAR format.

Use STAR to organize the information you include in your answer. This ensures you include just the important information the interviewer needs to hear. It also requires you to remember and discuss a specific situation, task, action, and result in your answer.

Heres more detail on what to include in each element:

  • Situation: Describe the situation. Use who, what, where, when, why and how to help you structure the information. Describe a specific event or situation, not a generalized description of what you have done in the past. This situation can be from a previous job, a volunteer experience, or any relevant event.
  • Task: What goal were you working toward? What were you being asked to do?
  • Action: Describe the actions you took to address the situation with an appropriate amount of detail and keep the focus on YOU. What specific steps did you take and what was your particular contribution? Use the word I, not we when describing actions.
  • Result: Describe the outcome of your actions and dont be shy about taking credit for the outcome. Be sure to mention measurable or quantifiable results. Was there an increase in performance, efficiency, profitability or impact?

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Behavioural Interview Questions To Select The Best Candidate

Its a well known fact that looking at a candidates past behaviour is the best way to predict their future performance.

So dont waste any more precious interview time asking hypothetical questions. Behavioural interview questions will let you understand in detail how a candidate has acted in specific situations.

First, identify the core behaviours youd like your candidates to demonstrate. Then you can then select your specific questions from the list below.

Remember to assess all candidates against the same behavioural criteria!

Free PDF Checklist:

Stop wasting precious interview time asking hypothetical questions. Download the Behavioural Interview Questions Checklist and get your interviews on track.

Most Common Behavioral Interview Questions

How to Answer the Most Common Interview Questions with ...

When looking for your dream job, the only thing between you and your job is the interview process. Every job interview includes behavioral questions to evaluate your personality, way of thinking, and response to different situations.

Right answers help the interviewing team understand how you deal with different challenging situations while at the workplace. Your goal should be to highlight your self-growth, self-awareness, and self-reliance. However, keeping your answers realistic is the best strategy to show your self-confidence.

To help you prepare better for your interview, we have written the most asked behavioral questions and their best possible answers that you can review to explain your personal experience in an interview

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Tell Me About A Time You Disagreed With A Supervisor Or Co

This behavioral interview question evaluates how you view your relationships at work and how you handle conflict. It also shows how you communicate during uncomfortable and uncertain situations. Keep your opinions and emotions out of your answer and state the facts.

Answer: My previous manager had specific ideas about what she wanted in our social media marketing campaigns. She wanted to use text dense graphics. As the lead designer, I believed that a simple call to action was more convincing.

After much discussion, we compromised, and ran each campaign for one week. We then collected the insights related to customer engagement. It turns out that my campaigns performed better so from that point forward, she allowed me to manage our social media independently.

Behavioral Job Interview Questions About Leadership

Question #1 – Tell me about a time when you successfully delegated tasks to your team.

Situation: Well, at my first job as a team lead, I had to really get to know most of my team in order to delegate tasks appropriately.

Task: Most team members were new to the company, so I didnt have much to go with.

Action: So, I sat down with each team member individually, and really got to know them and their strengths and weaknesses, and distributed tasks based on their personality.

Results: Team members were pretty happy with the tasks they got, and started off their relationship with our company on a positive note.

Question #2 – Can you tell me about a time when you had to perform a task or work on a project you had no previous experience before? How did you approach this situation and what did you learn?

Situation: In my previous position at Company X, my manager had to leave unexpectedly for about a month due to a medical condition. Fortunately, she was able to give us a week’s notice.

Task: Because of that, our director asked me to fill in as the interim manager. I was familiar with the basics of management on a theoretical level, and I had worked with my manager closely before, but I certainly wasnt trained to be a manager yet. Though, I wasnt going to say no, and I, more or less, felt confident about my ability to take on the new challenge.

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Research The Company And The Industry

The first thing you want to do when preparing for any job interview is to thoroughly research the company or organization. If you are new to the industry or field of work, you need to look into these as well.

This research is essential, as it will provide you with valuable clues about the specific skills, traits, and experiences that are likely to be the target of the behavioral questions you will get during your interview.

Tell Me About Your Experience Of How You Have Worked Under Pressure

7 BEST Behavioural Interview Questions & Answers!

This question is asked in almost every interview because every job involves some stressful situations. The interviewer is interested in knowing how you respond to that situation and what the outcome was.

Example:

I was working on a project which was due in a week. My supervisor came to me and told me that I have to speed up the process and submit the project within 3 days. It was a challenging situation, but I managed the situation pretty well.

I devised a new plan, divided the tasks, and added extra working hours to the schedule. Successfully, we got the job done right on time. I think my effective task allocation saved us all and helped in the successful completion of the project.

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Iii Why Behavioral Interview Questions Matter

While your CV and resume tell your potential employer all about your formal qualifications, they say next to nothing about your personality, soft skills, and day-to-day experiences at your previous jobs. One of the best ways for a recruiter to get to know this side of you other than actually working with you is by asking behavioral questions.

Samples On How To Best Answer Behavioral Interview Questions

Many of the behavioral questions follow a pattern where each have certain soft skills in mind.

A key to handling these questions is to anticipate which skill sets they will likely ask about and have answers ready.

I have provided some popular skills along with related questions or thoughts for you to consider as you develop your answers:

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Talk About A Time When You Made A Mistake That Affected A Colleague How Did You Handle It And What Was The Outcome

The employer wants to see that you own your mistakes rather than mounting a defense or deflecting blame. Admit something you did, and explain how you corrected the mistake.

I contacted a lead that my colleague was already working with and ended up taking his sale. When I caught the error, I realized that Id forgotten to check the client database before reaching out to the lead. I apologized to my colleague and split the commission with him. Then I put some measures in place so that Id always remember to check the database before getting too enthusiastic about client outreach.

Behavioral Interview Questions 6

How to answer the most common interview questions

If the role youre interviewing for works with clients, definitely be ready for one of these. Find an example of a time where you successfully represented your company or team and delivered exceptional customer service.

  • Describe a time when it was especially important to make a good impression on a client. How did you go about doing so?
  • Give me an example of a time when you did not meet a clients expectation. What happened, and how did you attempt to rectify the situation?
  • Tell me about a time when you made sure a customer was pleased with your service.
  • Describe a time when you had to interact with a difficult client. What was the situation, and how did you handle it?
  • When youre working with a large number of customers, its tricky to deliver excellent service to them all. How do you go about prioritizing your customers needs?
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    How Do You Evaluate Success

    What They Want to Know: Your answer to this question will give the interviewer a sense of your work ethic, your career goals, and your life goals. Tailor your response to fit what you expect to achieve if you were to be hired by this employer.

    When I wake up each morning enthusiastic about going to work, then lock the clinic at night knowing that weve made a difference in peoples lives, I figure the day has been a success.

    More Answers: Job Interview Question: How Do You Define Success?

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