Past behaviour is a good indicator of future behaviour – therefore many interviewers want to gather in-depth examples of your past behaviour.
“The best predictor for future job performance is past performance. So the trick is to answer behavioural questions in a way that encourages open discussion about what you’ve done. This helps eliminate risk and maximise insights.”- Christien Winter, Senior Associate, Sheffield North Island
Examples of behaviour-based interview questions
- “What have you done to make your team more efficient and organised? Can you provide a specific example?”
- “Tell me about developing and leading a change management programme, what did you find most challenging and why”
- “Describe a time you had to convince key stakeholders to implement an initiative they did not support. How did you convince them? Would you have done anything differently?”
- “Describe the most complex problem you have been asked to solve recently. What did you do? What alternatives did you consider?”
To answer these types of questions you’ll need to cover the following 3-steps
- Describe the context / situation.
- Explain what you did to address the situation – how you handled it.
- Describe the outcome or result.
A behavioral-based example that demonstrates strategic decision making might look like this:
1. Describe the context/situation
We needed to develop a strategic plan for a new business initiative, and I was leading the process.
2. Explain what you did to address the situation
We had an initial brainstorming meeting with our executive team to carry out a SWOT analysis and agree on the long-term goals for the initiative. I then met with our Finance Manager to pull the data out and I did some scenario modelling in Excel. I met with the key managers one-on-one to show them the modelling, and using their
feedback, I developed a draft paper. In particular, I was able to get a lot
of competitor information and some good intelligence about the longer- term market forecasts. I presented the draft at an executive team meeting and incorporated their feedback into the final draft.
3. Describe the outcome
The CEO was very pleased with what I developed and it went through to the Board for approval without any changes. The Board approved it and the recommendations have been implemented. So far, it’s all on track.
Top Tips
- review the position description or advertisement for the job you have applied for
- select the competencies or key result areas that are most likely to be covered at the interview and review your experience against these competencies
- make sure you have considered all the areas in the position description
- try to develop at least ten good examples. Some of them may include challenges such as a difficult client or a project you needed to turn around. Make sure these ‘top ten’ cover the range of competencies that you are likely to be asked about
- practice your ‘top ten’ examples. You want to be able to state exactly what you did, how you did it and what happened. At the same time, you want to make sure you don’t provide so much detail that you ‘lose’ your audience.