Examples of Behavioral Interview Questions

Employers today are starting to move away from traditional interviewing techniques. The resume interview is becoming a thing of the past. Behavioral interviewing is gaining popularity because of the nature of the questions. Using behavioral based questions allow the employer to dig deep for a more personal look at each candidate. The idea of behavioral interviewing is simple: “Past behaviors tend to predict future behaviors.” The way you behaved in a certain situation in the past will help predict how you will behave in the future if put in a similar situation.

Behavioral interview questions are a little different than other questions you might expect during a job interview. Here are some examples of the questions that may come up in a behavioral interview:

1. Describe an instance when you motivated yourself to complete an assignment or job that you really did not want to do?
2. Tell me about a difficult boss, co-worker or other person who you worked with. What made that person hard to work with? What did you do to successfully interact with this person?
3. Describe to me the riskiest decision that you have made.
4. Tell me about an occasion where you were required to work with a group large or small to get a job done?
5. Talk to me about a time when you worked with someone who did things very differently from you. How did you work together to do the job right?
6. Explain your three greatest accomplishments.
7. Illustrate for me a situation when you had to learn something new in a short time. How did you proceed?
8. Tell me about a challenge that you successfully completed.
9. Review a situation where you effectively persuaded others to do something or to agree with your viewpoint.
10. Provide an example of when your perseverance had the biggest payoff.

The questions mentioned above are just a sample of the kind of questions that may be asked in a behavioral style interview. The best advice to follow in order to have a successful interview in this type of atmosphere is to really know yourself inside and out. Do a lot of soul searching before you go to the interview and review the personal experiences you have had in your job environment.

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