Behavioral questions
Nearly all interviews will include competency-based, or behavioral, questions. This lesson will help you deal with them effectively.
Behavioral-based interview questions focus on how you handled various work situations in the past. Your response will reveal your skills, abilities, and personality. The STAR technique is a perfect way to approach these kinds of questions.
Tell me about a time when you solved a problem to a tight timescale.
The STAR technique can be extremely valuable in helping you to answer this kind of question in a structured and effective way. STAR stands for Situation-Task-Action-Result.
Situation
Here, you set the scene, providing a context and background to the situation.
Useful language:
- I remember once in 20XX when…
- Around X years ago…
- I was working as…
- A few months ago...
- In my previous job...
Task
Here you describe your personal responsibility in the situation.
Useful language:
- My responsibility was to…
- It was up to me to...
- My task was to…
- It was my duty to...
Action
Here you describe what you actually did in the situation.
Useful language:
- What I did was to…
- The first thing I did was to…
- My first step was to…
NOTE
Sequence words can be very useful in this part of the process:
- First of all…
- Next…
- After that…
- Finally…
Result
Here you describe the outcomes generated by your action.
Useful language:
- In the end…
- My action led to…
- The outcome was that…
- The upshot was that…
- As a result…
Use the STAR technique to answer these questions:
-
Tell me about a time when you performed well under enormous pressure.
-
Have you ever gone above and beyond the call of duty?
- What do you do when a team member refuses to complete his or her part of the work?
- Tell me about a time you showed initiative on the job.