7 Applications in Behavioral Interviews

7.1 FAQs about Teamwork

Q1: How do you feel about working in a team environment?

What They Want to Know: This question is a clear indicator that, should you be hired, you will be expected to be able to work well in a collaborative team environment. Keep your answer positive, and mention a few of the strong teamwork skills you could offer your employer.

Q2: Do you prefer teamwork or working independently?

What They Want to Know: Different people have different comfort levels with teamwork; the hiring manager is interested in your personality, your preferred method of doing your work, and your ability to work without direct supervision.

Q3: Give some examples of your teamwork skills.

What They Want to Know: The employer wants to learn about your teamwork skills, and whether you enjoyed participating on a team. Share examples, shows how you’ve developed skills that will help you succeed on the job.

Q4: Tell me about a time you worked well as part of a team.

What They Want to Know: Your interviewer will be interested not only in your response to this question, but also in your tone of voice and positivity. Be prepared with an upbeat response that demonstrates your appreciation of the value of teamwork.

Q5: What role have you played in team situations?

What They Want to Know: Some people are natural leaders, while others are excellent followers. By asking this question, an employer is trying to gauge both how you would fit into the department’s current team dynamics and to assess whether you are someone they should flag for eventual leadership responsibilities.

Q6: Have you ever had difficulty working with a manager or other team members?

What They Want to Know: This, like most teamwork questions, addresses your collegiality and your ability to work on a team and accept supervision. Keep your answer upbeat and avoid complaining about previous managers or team members (you don’t want your interviewer to peg you as a negative whiner).

Q7: Tell me about a challenging workplace situation that you had to deal with.

What They Want to Know: Employers want to know how you handle stress in the workplace, particularly when it involves other team members.

Q8: What strategies would you use to motivate your team?

What They Want to Know: How you answer this question will demonstrate whether you have the personal leadership qualities employers are seeking.

Q9: What would you contribute to our team culture?

What They Want to Know: Interviewing, hiring, onboarding, and training new employee costs both time and money for employers, so they don’t want to have to repeat the process because an employee proves unable to adapt to their corporate culture. Research the organization ahead of time so that you can present yourself as someone who would fit seamlessly into their team culture.

Q10: How would you handle it if there was a problem with a member of your team not doing their fair share or work?

What They Want to Know: Team dynamics can often be challenging, particularly when resentment brews over people who may not be pulling their own weight. Be ready to provide a viable solution to this common work situation.

7.2 FAQs about Leadership

Q1: Tell me about a time when a mistake occurred at your job and you took initiative to solve the problem.

What They Want to Know: A hiring manager may ask about how you’ve handled past mistakes to assess your response to errors. Many employers appreciate hiring employees who are proactive about finding solutions to their errors. To answer this question, think about a time when you’ve taken responsibility for your mistakes and worked hard to correct the problem.

Q2: How do you solve a disagreement between two members or fractions of your team?

What They Want to Know: One important leadership ability is conflict-resolution skills. A hiring manager may ask you to discuss your approach to employee disputes to gauge how you respond to conflicts within the workplace. Answer this question by providing an example of a time when you successfully mediated a dispute between two coworkers or subgroups within a team. If you haven’t had this kind of experience before, think about a time when you mediated a non-workplace conflict or how you would approach this situation productively if you were to encounter it.

Q3: What values do you have as a leader, and how do you try to embody those values?

What They Want to Know: A candidate’s leadership values can affect their workplace behaviors and interactions with others. An employer may ask about your leadership values to determine your work ethics and management style. When answering questions about leadership values, think about what morals or principles guide your workplace interactions with team members.

Q4: Have you ever served as a coach or mentor to anyone, whether officially or unofficially? How did you provide them with guidance?

What They Want to Know: Serving as a coach or mentor can help you develop many valuable leadership skills, such as how to offer others constructive feedback. A hiring manager may ask about your coaching or mentoring experiences so they can evaluate times when you’ve exercised these skills. Learning more about your professional or personal relationships through mentorships might also help potential employers assess how you interact with others.

Q5: Tell me about a time you interacted with a challenging customer. What challenges did the customer pose, and how did you handle them?

What They Want to Know: Leadership abilities affect not only how managers interact with their employees but also how they interact with customers. Understanding how to negotiate, diffuse tension and be patient are all leadership skills that can help managers navigate challenging situations with customers. When thinking about how to answer this type of behavioral question, try to focus your answer on your strategies to solve the issues.

7.3 FAQs about Communication

Q1: What methods do you use to build rapport with others? Can you give me an example?

What They Want to Know: Building rapport with other people is a critical skill for any job. It requires you to be sensitive to the other person’s communication style and able to use your communication skills to create a positive relationship with them. Employers look for this skill in the people they hire so they will be assured you will be able to get along with your co-workers, management team, partners, and clients.

Q2: Tell me about a time when you were able to break down a complex issue and explain it to a customer.

What They Want to Know: A common challenge in any position is explaining complex issues and ideas to people who may not be as familiar with the topic as you are. This requires strong communication skills and simplifying the issue while communicating the fundamental concepts, features, and benefits. Being able to provide the interviewer with an example of how you’ve done this will demonstrate your communication skills.

Q3: Walk me through an example of how you persuaded someone to agree to your suggestions in a business situation.

What They Want to Know: Being able to persuade somebody to agree with your suggestions, ideas, or recommendations will help you succeed in any profession. This applies to people who deal with customers, individuals from other departments, or members of your team. Persuasion is one of the most critical communication skills you can develop.

Q4: How would you go about explaining the solution to a complex problem to a client who was already frustrated with the situation?

What They Want to Know: We are often asked to resolve an issue that involves somebody being frustrated, angry, or uncooperative. This takes a special type of communication skill. Not only do you have to convince somebody to agree to an idea or take a course of action to which they may be resistant, but you also need to do it when the other person is not at their finest. The best approach to this situation is remaining calm, having empathy for the other person’s position, and communicating simply and clearly.

Q5: What steps did you take to resolve a situation where there was a communication breakdown between you and a work colleague?

What They Want to Know: Disagreements often occur because of a breakdown in communication rather than a difference of opinion. Recognizing this and taking steps to resolve it is the easiest way to overcome a difficult situation and reach a solution which both parties support. Having a strategy to resolve issues that result from a communication breakdown is a key quality that will differentiate you from other candidates who are interviewing for the same position.

7.4 Additional Questions

Questions about critical thinking

Describe a time when you had to make a difficult decision. What were the results?

What would you do if you noticed a team member made a mistake?

Have you ever presented a new idea to solve a common problem at work?

Tell me about a time you anticipated a challenge and found a solution.

Questions about negotiation skills

Can you give me an example of when you successfully negotiated a deal?

How do you convince others when presenting an idea?

Have you ever experienced an unsuccessful negotiation?

How do you build trust with others?

7.5 Principles for Answering Them

Have a story bank ready

Story banks are a collection of your past experiences that you build before an interview so that you are able to provide a real-life example for a variety of behavioral questions. Since many questions of this type start off with “Tell me about a time when…” it is crucial that you are locked and loaded with a handful of stories that you are very familiar with and know all the details of. Remember to choose stories from your life that are flexible and multifaceted enough to be used for a variety of different question types.

Take your time

Do not get flustered if nothing comes to mind right away, instead, keep your composure and keep thinking. If you just start rambling right away and don’t have a moral to the story, the interviewer will not be impressed. It is better to say, “that’s a very good question” and then ask for a little bit of time to think.

Research the job position for desired skills

This will come into play when building your story bank since you can choose stories that highlight your fit for the job. Also, it will help you choose how to answer the questions once you get into the room with your interviewer.

Do not pretend that you have never failed

When an interviewer asks you about your greatest weakness, don’t say something like, “I just work too hard.” Instead, give them an honest and authentic answer and then tell them how you are working on yourself to improve in the area of weakness. In truth, this particular question is so common that you should have a prepared answer for it, but that is not true of every possible question.

Be polite and display positive mannerisms

Remember to smile, shake hands, don’t sit until invited to do so, make eye contact, and bring a positive attitude. Dress appropriately to show the interviewer that you care about the job and value their time. Do not be late. If they show up in a bad mood, or they show up late, that is not your fault. Do your best not to get rattled and try to bring a positive attitude to the room.

7.5.1 STAR Framework

The first method you can use to answer these types of questions is the STAR method. Begin by describing the situation; give context, background, characters, and so on. Next, move onto what was the task you were working on. This could be from a professional experience, school, or personal life. Then, describe what actions you took to be successful. Make sure your actions highlight your teamwork skills, communication skills, or whatever the question is asking for. Finally, mention the results! Be clear about how your actions connected to the positive outcome. Many people forget the action or the result part. The action and result parts are much more important than the situation and task, so don’t forget them!

7.5.2 ACR Framework

This is not a structure for behavioral interview questions as much as it is for your resume. When you create bullet points on your resume, start the sentence with a verb, something like “innovated,” or “coordinated,” or “collaborated.” You start with the action because it is more important than the context and resume bullet points are short. Next, move onto the context of the situation and keep it as short as you can. Finally, like in the STAR framework, connect your actions to the positive outcome. Give data whenever you can, for example, ” and this caused sales to rise by 10% …” Data-backed results are the most powerful results for someone reading your resume.