Behavioural interviews
What are they?
Behavioural interviews are a common style of interview - particularly for graduate roles. A behavioural interview consists of questions that require you to reflect on your past experiences and present specific real-life examples to demonstrate your skills.
Why do employers use them?
Research suggests that past behaviour is the best predictor of future behaviour and performance. Therefore employers prefer to hear evidence of how you used your skills in the past so that they can make an informed prediction as to how you will perform in the role for which you are applying.
What do behavioural questions sound like?
Behavioural questions will generally begin with the following phrases:
- Tell me about a time when you had to juggle multiple tasks and competing deadlines.
- Give me an example of when you have dealt with a difficult customer.
- Walk me through a situation that really stretched your skills.
- Explain an instance where you have had to relay complex information to a diverse audience
You can see that all of the above phrases prompt you to tell a story about a time when you have used a particular skill.
The most common mistakes people make are:
- Failing to be specific and telling the interviewer what you would do, rather than what you have done.
- Not talking about their particular role/action/tasks - but speaking generally about the group/team/organisation.
- Giving long-winded answers and unnecessary detail
- Not taking the time to prepare interesting examples. Imagine how many times a graduate recruiter has heard a team work example about a group assignment...
top of pageHow do I prepare for behavioural interviews and avoid these mistakes?
The good news is that you can easily prepare for behavioural interviews by following these steps.
1. Review the key selection criteria. (That's the skills they have listed as essential or desirable for the job.)
- You can use a position description if you have one, the job ad or sometimes the organisation's website.
- If you only have a job advertisement, begin by underlining each skill required to do the job.
2. Prepare examples.
- Using the skills as your guide, think of examples from your past experience that demonstrate each skill.
- Try to think of a different example for each skill so that you have a variety of responses prepared for the interview.
- Most of your examples will come from Uni or work, but don't be afraid to draw on volunteer work, participation in sporting teams or community activities if they provide a good demonstration of your skills.
3. Practice responding to questions. Out loud if possible!
- Use the question prompts listed above to anticipate what you may be asked. This will help you become confident in using your examples.
STAR structure
Careers and Employment recommend preparing your examples using the STAR structure - Situation, Task, Action, Result. This structure allows you to provide a concise, well structured response and helps you avoid drifting off-track if nerves get the better of you!
The STAR method involves these four steps:
Situation
|
Outline what problem or instance you were faced with | Example: Question: Can you tell me about a time when you have solved a complex problem? What steps did you take? During my final year I was doing some volunteer work with a local charity, helping them build a database to keep a record of their volunteers. |
| Task | Explain what your task was within the situation | The night before we were to launch the database and train the staff on its use, it stopped functioning. |
| Action | Explain in sequential steps what your response was to the situation. What did you do? You should include as much information within this section as possible; while still being concise. Don't forget to use "I" not "we". |
We called a meeting to brainstorm, talk through our options and allocate tasks. As the person with the highest level of IT knowledge, I spent most of the night working through the program, trying different options (provide a few examples...) and testing and re-testing the system, I kept a list of what I had tried as I went through it and kept regular updates flowing through to the others who were completing other tasks. I finally found a small programming error that I fixed. I then retested the whole system one final time to ensure it wouldn't happen again and reported back to my team as to the result. |
| Result | Explain the outcome | Everything worked as it should the next day at our roll-out and training. The organisation could start data entry of the volunteer information on time and I received great feedback about my contribution. |
Resources and useful links
- Download the Behavioural Interviews flyer (141KB | PDF)
- Wise Up For Work publication (see Wise up for Interviews section)
- Resources in the Careers Resource Centre