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Acing the Behavioral Interview
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| Are you ready for a
college recruiter who asks you, "Tell me how you dealt with a situation
where you were working with a team and one of the members wasn't contributing as
expected." This is an example of a behavioral interview question,
and this type of question is becoming more popular with college recruiters.
Behavioral interviews are based on the premise that the best way to predict
future on-the-job behavior is to review past behavior in similar situations. |
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How
to Prepare for the Behavioral Interview
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The first thing you
do for any job interview is research. To be successful, you need to
understand
- the job description;
- what knowledge, skills and abilities are
required or desirable;
- where the job fits into the company's organizational
plan;
- the company goals; and,
- how the employer measures success.
This isn't
all you need to know before you have your interview, but these are the main points to research in preparing for a
behavioral interview. Review Researching the
Company for a more complete list .
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To demonstrate that you have the appropriate knowledge, skills, and abilities, you will need examples of past behaviors that prove you have them. Katherine
Hansen writing for Quintessential Careers offers the following list of behaviors
that employers will try to determine through behavioral interview questions.
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Situation or
Task |
Describe the situation you were in or the task
you needed to accomplish. Be specific and provide sufficient detail. Think of it
as telling a story that has a beginning, middle, and ending. |
| Action |
Describe the action you took and keep the focus
on what you did, even if it was a team experience. |
| Results |
What happened? What did you accomplish? What did
you learn? Even if you feel you did not handle the situation as well as you
could have, telling what you learned and showing how you applied that
learning in another situation will work also. |
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| A STAR response to the question
posed at the beginning of this page might go like this: |
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| Situation or Task: "I
was assigned to a team in my marketing class to propose a method for increasing
revenues for a particular business by 10%. One of the members of my team wasn't
attending many meetings and didn't have his assignments prepared." |
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| Action: "I decided
to talk with him; in private, about how the group needed every member to complete
their assigned tasks, and asked what he needed to get back on track. He told me that he was having trouble with one of
his other classes and it took up most of his time. With his consent, we talked about this with the other members of the team.
The team recommended that he ask the Student Tutorial Center for help on his
other class, and we would help him get caught up with our team project. He agreed." |
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| Result: "It took a
couple of weeks for him to catch up, but after he did, he completed his
assignments on time and our group got an A on the project. He also thanked the group
during his part of the presentation for helping him do well in both of his
classes." |
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| Preparing Your Own STAR Statements |
- Review the sample behavioral
interview questions provided through the link below.
- Identify six to eight
questions that seem to fit the closest to the behaviors and skills required for the position you are seeking.
- Think in terms of examples that demonstrate your top strengths.
- Prepare a STAR
statement for each using the most recent examples you can.
- Remember, all the
examples should end positively, either because of the action, the result,
or what you learned.
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| See the Interview
Questions page for sample behavioral interview questions. |
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 Go
to Mastering the Telephone Interview
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 Go
Back to Successful Interviewing Techniques |
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| This document is
maintained by: Kathleen Bristow (kbristow@csuchico.edu
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| Last Updated: October 30, 2007 |
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Adaptability