Behavioral interview is commonly employed in various selection and recruitment processes. The purpose of this interview is to seek concrete examples of skills and experiences related to the required post. You are required to handle a situation, and respond with an explanation to justify your stance. Behavioral interview questions intend to see how you have handled various situations in the past. Your response reveals your skills, abilities, agility and personality.
You can respond to questions with specific examples of how you have previously handled the asked situations. Your answers can also be in the form of a brief anecdote that illustrates your strengths. You need to provide background on the situation, the specific actions you took, and the results.
How to answer behavioral interview questions:
Follow the STAR technique to respond to interview questions that require an anecdote. There are four steps to answering using this technique:
(S) Situation: Describe the situation/background in which the event took place.
(T) Task: Tell about the task you were asked to complete. If there was a particular issue you were required to resolve, describe that.
(A) Action: Explain what action you took to complete the task or resolve the issue.
(R) Results: Tell about the result of your actions. For example, if your actions resulted in completing a task, resolving a conflict etc., explain this.
Review examples of the questions you may be asked during a behavioral interview and think about how you would answer them. This way you'll be prepared ahead of time, rather than having to think of a response on the spot during the interview.
