Behavioral Interview Questions & Answers
Best Behavioral Interview Questions and Answers
Dear Readers, Welcome to Behavioral Interview Questions and Answers have been designed specially to get you acquainted with the nature of questions you may encounter during your Job interview for the subject of Behavioral. These Behavioral Questions are very important for campus placement test and job interviews. As per my experience good interviewers hardly plan to ask any particular questions during your Job interview and these model questions are asked in the online technical test and interview of many IT companies.
1.Tell me about a suggestion you have made?
Have a good one ready. Be sure and use a suggestion that was accepted and was then considered successful. One related to the type of work applied for is a real plus.
This is a behavioral question that is exploring your initiative. You need to think about a situation when you came up with an improvement or change to an existing system or work process.
2. Tell me about your ability to work under pressure?
You may say that you thrive under certain types of pressure. Give an example that relates to the type of position applied for.
Mention pressures you face on the daily, such as dealing with deadlines on a regular basis.
Try not to use an example where you created the pressure yourself, by waiting too long to start something, or by handling a task irresponsibly at the beginning. For example, working under pressure to meet a customer’s deadline could be a good example, but not if you had waited too long to start the project.
3. Tell me about a time when you helped resolve a dispute between others.
Pick a specific incident. Concentrate on your problem solving technique and not the dispute you settled.
4. What are the most difficult decisions to make?
This is one of the most typical behavioral questions in an interview. With this question, the interviewer is planning to examine your behaviors under a problem and how you handle it. You may answer as sincerely as you wish, but there is one tip that you should notice: what you did in the past is not the indication of how you will behave in the future. The key is learning.
First, you address the difficult situation you were in and describe it. Then, tell the interviewer how you did resolve it (or acted under such situation). Remember to keep a positive tone (for example, when you talked about those who had made mistakes) and be specific about details of your solution. Finally, tell the interviewer of what you have learn from such experience.
You may even scan your memory for many problems and consider them as challenges and how you resolved them in a professional manner. But eventually, don’t forget to tell the interviewer what you have learn from all of those.
5. Do you prefer to work Independently or on a team?
You should pay special attention to this question if your potential employer is one that requires much teamwork such as those working in sales & marketing areas.
Best answer:
• I can work well both individually and in a team. I believe your company is recruiting just exact candidates as I have read from the job descriptions, there are some duties that require teamwork while others require individual skills to complete. Therefore, I totally believe that I can do the job well.
• During my high school, I played for a soccer team, where I have built up my teamwork skills very well. I applied those in my part-time works and it turned quite exceptionally well. Therefore, I think I am more of a team player than an individual. I had performed many projects in the past where I worked with many teams, and I believe, my performance in the future will be very impressive.
6. How do you handle stress/pressure?
Following are some sample answers to this interview question:
• I know stress is an important issue at work. Any employee is supposed to face with this issue and any job poses threat of stress to some extent. I have prepared myself very well for this issue. I know many measures to balance the pace at work while maintaining a certain level of stress to keep motivated at work.
• Well, at work, I don’t talk about stress, instead, about situations. I behave in accordance with the situation I am in. You may call some situations as stressful, but I will only tell you that such situations are more challenging and require more of me to fulfill.
• I work better under pressure, fortunately. Perhaps I am more suitable to stressful job as I love challenging responsibilities.
7. How will your greatest strength help you perform?
It is good to look at sample interview questions about your greatest strength while preparing for an interview and work out the most suitable and effective answers for you beforehand. Following the below sample answers will greatly help you with that.
8. Describe a time when your workload was heavy?
Following are some sample answers to this question:
• During the time while I was still working for HKL factory. The factory received a special order of a huge number of j-ball bearings. That was quite a sudden increase in quantity that we had to manufacture in a short period of time. However, as the client was a new but very potential one and we couldn’t afford to lose this one, we had sit down together, me, the production supervisor, the supply manager, and labor union representatives. In several days, we had developed an ultimate plan to maximize the productivity, utilize to the max the supply of materials, and keep the workers working for a moderate number of hours. Under such a pressure, but all of us agreed to cooperate very closely to complete the order.
• I remembered when I was still working for ABC company, the time when it was planning to take over another company. there was much work to do, dealing with internal workforce, workforce of the acquired company, cultural differences, maintaining the relationship with clients. That was quite a stressful situation, however, we managed to get over it very successfully.
9. How will you achieve your goals?
Basing on this question the interviewer wants to know how you plan on achieving your goals for the future and what you are going to accomplish. In order to respond to it you could see examples of good responses included:
• I have intention to acquire additional skills by taking part in relevant class to the job and keeping my involvement with various professional associations.
• I see myself that FPT Corporation is going to offer in-house training for employees and I would prefer to attend related classes to enhance my skills.
• Taking participation in conferences, seminars, meetings and upholding my education will be effective ways to continue my professional development.
10. How did you handle challenges?
Remember to tell your concrete examples in which you handled an extreme difficult circumstance when you answer the interview question “How did you handle a challenge?” Tell how you found out the problem and the way you resolved solution. Below are some examples for perfect answers:
• In a difficult financial time, I could satisfy multiple vendors by discussing repayment schedules.
• I cooperated with the team which brought the schedule back to the right place when the software development of our new product was prevented. We were successful in overcoming with the matters and resolving the problems, within a short duration of time.
• A long-term customer intended to bring their business to a competitor. I met the customer and told him the way we would change to resolve daily issues in order to maintain the business.
11. Have you ever had difficulty working with a manager?
Review sample answer to the interview question “Have you ever had difficulty working with a manager?” Be careful when talking about your previous managers. You don’t want to come across as difficult, and you want to express any of your previous experiences in the most positive way.
• I had an unsmooth beginning with a manager, because we didn’t have the same thought for the flow of the workday. When we discussed about it, we recognized that our targets fitted each other, and we were able to cooperate successfully together for many years.
• I have realized that if I spend my time discussing with my manager at the beginning of the project, we could make it easily go through every challenge.
12. Give me an example of a time when you had to think out of the box?
The interview is expecting to see if you are a man of initiative, innovation and dynamism or not. You are supposed to not only demonstrate your creative idea, but also describe how you came up with that idea, and how that idea helped your success. But remember, not every idea is suitable in answering this question. You should screen your memory for an example of idea which may be useful to the current job so as to prove to the interviewer that you are totally able to think of something for the new job.
• I am able to say that I have rarely had a trouble with anyone. I try to find out the common between us and then adapt with everyone’s different personality.
13. Tell me about a project you worked on that required heavy analytical thinking?
This is one of those behavioral interview questions about your competency.
The best way for an interviewer to examine if the potential candidate possesses the right analytical mind for the job is to consider a real example stated by the candidate and raise question. Not only the interviewer is able to hear a situation that the candidate dealt with his analytical skills, he is also able to witness the demonstration of such skills by the candidate himself by answering those questions raised by him. As a candidate, you should be double-careful with this type of question.
Related questions to this interview question may be: what formal and informal analysis did you do? How did you scan the situation? how did you do to overcome such obstacles? What did you think is the best lesson from such experience.
14. Tell me about a time when you failed?
It is certainly that anyone fails sometime, especially at work. For example, fail to comply with the regulations, fail to meet the deadline, fail to persuade others, fail to meet the goals….What matters more is what you learn from such failure, and the interviewer is planning to investigate that.
There are various reasons to failure: objective or subjective, a fraud, a wrong action, an omission or a lack of capacity…you don’t need to be too cautious about these, as if you learn from your failure, then there is nothing to worry about.
In answering this question, first, state a situation when you fail to do something (It is better if the reason is not your subjective intention). Then state how you realized that and dealt with that. And finally, how you learn from that.
15. Tell me about a time you faced an ethical dilemma?
In this question, you have to demonstrate your high ethical standards and honesty personality.
Telling that you haven’t met any ethical issue is not a good way to deal with this question. In fact, people always face with the problem of ethic sometimes in their life. For example, when you discovered a wrongdoing, or a fraud by anyone, any violation of regulations, any cheating or any lie, all are ethical to you. So, don’t avoid this question.
At work, ethical problems are frequent, subject to your knowledge of them, though. An accountant makes a wrong statement, a security fails to comply with the procedures, a director fails to delegate, or a colleague makes some personal gain by cutting corners on a project.
In answering this question, you may mention the problem, but don’t mention the name of the person or else it may generate negative feelings. You should be flexible in dealing with the problem: some may require immediate action to stop, but as for others, you may act gently and resolve the problem in peace.
16. How would your past experience translate into success in this job?
You may tell from the interviewer’s tone whether he is suspecting your past experience or examine if your experience is valuable to his organization.
Be careful with this question as it is one of those questions that define the outcome of your interview. You should consider this question beforehand or it will become a disadvantage of you to attend an interview.
First, start by listing several requirements of this job. Then tell the interviewer how you may meet the requirements. Alternatively, you may start with demonstrating your qualification background and indicate how you are suitable to the job. Either way, don’t forget to name the potential challenges and developments that the job may pose and offer.
17. Tell me about an assignment that was too difficult for you. How did you resolve the issue?
There are many objectives behind this question. For example, the interviewer is investigating how you define “difficult” at work; Or alternatively, he may be testing if you have the skills to be able to handle problems or not; or he just tends to want to know more about you. So, this is the chance for you to impress the interviewer with your problem solving skill and abilities by a right answer. However, making a wrong answer and you will lose your chance. Look through your memory to scan for the most challenging situation you have been in and able to handle, the time when it got to your limit but you successfully dealt with it. That’s the suitable situation to sell yourself in this question.
Don’t overestimate yourself by saying you don’t see any task as too difficult. Discuss a situation and demonstrate how you improve your skills and abilities and learn from your experience is a much more beneficial way than saying that “I can handle any problem”.
18. How do you deal with conflict?
As everyone knows, conflict is a common issue at workplace. It occurs in every organization now and then. An employee cannot perform his duties well all the time if he is unable to deal with the smallest conflict at work. What about you? Do you have the necessary skills to deal with the most basic conflict at work? Do you avoid it or face it? what do you think are the best techniques to deal with conflicts at any time?
You should know that there are various types of conflict at work. It may be a small disagreement between two colleagues, or a total misunderstanding of the boss, or a frustration caused by other’s behavior. In this question, you should first state a conflict at your level, choose an example and adopt your skills in resolving such conflict. Then demonstrate how you do it to the interviewer.
19. Tell me about a time when you faced a major obstacle at work?
A:In answering this question, you may refer to the question about the most rewarding experience in doing your job (if possible!). Otherwise, you should know that the real intention of the interviewer is to examine your behavior in a certain problem and to check if you have the ability to overcome difficulties at work.
So, first thing to do is to pick up on out of your experiences about a major difficulty you have to face in the past. But make sure the outcome of such situation was a positive one. It might be an unrealistic task, a key personnel, a strict boss… anyway, the next step you must do is to explain the process how you handle such situation. Just be as detailed as possible.
Finally, include your analysis as a closing. Point out how that situation is a major problem, how you reacted, how you decided the solution, how the outcome turned out to be, and so on. One more tip for you is that breaking the answer into clear sections will help keep the interviewer’s interest with your story.
20. A customer is using a product of the rival company how would you convince him to use a product of our own enterprise?
Always remember while answering this question you need to be careful about addressing points, don’t move into the negative side because it can give out negative vibes. Explain to him about the advantages and disadvantages about the product.