Interview Chatter

Behavioral Interviewing: An Introduction

by Gina on June 20th, 2008

Behavioral Interviewing is an interviewing technique where the potential candidate is asked to tell the interviewer a story of a time in their career where they demonstrated a particular skill.

The premise of this interviewing technique is that, it’s easy to tell an interviewer what they want to hear when responding to a particular question but it is much more difficult to do when the candidate is required to give a specific example of a time where they actually used the skill. The questions usually start out with “tell me about a time when you…”

The great thing about behavioral interviews is that, not only do they give you a better idea of the suitability of the candidate, they are also telling exercises in the candidates ability to think critically.

In preparation for the interview, most hiring managers go though a process where they analyze the position for which they will be interviewing, then develop one question that will assess the candidates skill level for each skill.

For those who have not participated in behavioral interviews, they can be very intimidating for the potential candidate and interviewer himself. If the potential candidate has not prepared for this type of interview, then suddenly required to think of and articulate an example, they often become extremely anxious and may even be unable to come up with an example, especially if they have heavily prepared for a completely different kind of interview. This nervousness is not necessarily indicative of an unsuitable candidate, therefore it may be helpful to try to put the candidate’s mind at ease prior to beginning. To do this, simply explain the behavioral interviewing process. Here’s one way to do that.

The kind of interview we’ll be conducting today is called a behavioral interview. Have you ever participated in one of those? We’ve determined what particular skills are the most important ones for this job and we’ll be asking you questions to assess your appropriateness for each skill. Instead of telling us what you would do in a certain situation, we want you to give us a specific example of a time when you utilized the skill we are asking you about. You can use your current job or a previous one, or even an example from your personal life like family or church. The source of the example is not nearly as important as the details of the story.

If you find that the candidate is struggling, help them along by suggesting areas of their life or career that they might be able to tap for a story based on the experience listed on their resume.

Next up, we’ll pick a skill, tell you a great question that you could ask targeting that skill, as well as what to look for in the response.

Find more great information about behavioral interviewing here.

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