Killer Interview Tips.com

Posts Tagged ‘Behavioral’

Employers want to know about more than just your skills and experience–they want to know how you’ll get along day-to-day.  How will you react in stressful situations?  What will you do when a customer gets cranky, or there’s some issue with the product?

One way for hiring managers to get to that information is to use behavioral interview questions, sometimes known as the STAR technique.

STAR stands for (thanks to http://www.quintcareers.com/STAR_interviewing.html for the chart):

Situation or Task

Describe the situation that you were in or the task that you needed to accomplish. You must describe a specific event or situation, not a generalized description of what you have done in the past. Be sure to give enough detail for the interviewer to understand. This situation can be from a previous job, from a volunteer experience, or any relevant event.

Action you took Describe the action you took and be sure to keep the focus on you. Even if you are discussing a group project or effort, describe what you did — not the efforts of the team. Don’t tell what you might do, tell what you did.

Results you achieved What happened? How did the event end? What did you accomplish? What did you learn?

What this does is, it provides the manager with real-world detail about how you do your job.  You can’t just get by with “standard interview answers” here.  But it also gives you a fantastic opportunity to set yourself apart from other candidates and demonstrate why you’re the best candidate for the job.

You should always be prepared for these kinds of questions in your job interview.  They really are a great way for you to highlight your experience, and many hiring managers in medical sales, laboratory sales, medical device sales, pathology sales, imaging sales, pharmaceutical sales, clinical diagnostics sales, and biotech sales like to use them because they’re so effective.  Your best way to prepare is to think back over your career.  What situations can you think of where you resolved some issue, or successfully addressed a problem?  Make a list.  As you’re preparing for your interview, think about which of these stories best fits the requirements of the job you’re interviewing for (since you always tailor your answers to fit the job).  Be sure to emphasize the positive outcome that was a result of your actions in each situation.  Here’s a link to an article with an example of how to create a STAR Interview story.

Also, don’t miss this transcript of my interview with a sales manager, sales trainer, and a vice-president of sales and marketing.  We discuss behavioral event interviews in-depth.  It’s a great resource for you.

Have you ever experienced brain freeze during a job interview? You are asked a question and your mind goes blank—it’s horrifying. You lose composure as well as confidence. Your interview goes down hill from there. Brain freeze most often happens as a result of behavioral or situational interview questions that are not anticipated before hand. As a career coach, this is the most common interview problem I hear about from my clients. With the right preparation you can avoid the nightmare of brain freeze and improve your interview performance greatly.

First of all, it’s important to understand what a behavioral or situational interview question is. It is any question that start with:

Tell me a time when …

Give an example of …

Describe a situation when …

Employers ask these types of questions with the assumption that past behavior indicates future performance. These questions reveal a lot about a candidate, including a candidates ability to think fast on their feet. Given that interviews are inherently stressful, many job seekers find it extremely difficult to think fast during interviews. Here are four steps that will help you prepare for any interview question.

1.Take inventory of your accomplishments.

This requires more than a cursory mental note of the good stuff you’ve done in the past year. Take a systematic approach by asking yourself what challenges you’ve faced in each of your positions over the past five or more years. Try asking yourself

What processes have I improved?

How have I made work easier for others?

How I saved money?

When did I find a solution to a departmental problem. How did I save time?

When did I go beyond the call of duty to solve a customer problem?

Write out your answers to these questions. Remember to include the quantitative details when appropriate. Include dollars saved, hours cut, percentage increased etc.

2.Study the job description.

With your list of accomplishments in hand you are ready to turn your attention to the job description. Study the requirements to determine the all possible challenges involved with the job. It helps to look at other similar job descriptions that may include more requirement details. Additionally, ask others who hold similar positions what their greatest challenges of the job are. Write out your list of anticipated challenges.

3.Create a list behavioral questions.

Turn your list of challenges of the position into a list of questions that start with:

Tell me a time when you …

Describe a situation when …

Have you ever had to …

Your list will look something like:

Explain how you cut costs from your annual budget.

Describe a situation when you had to fire a friend.

How would you go about repairing a relationship with a disgruntled client?

4.Use your list of accomplishments to answer your behavioral questions.

Ask a friend to help you role play your interview answers. You should feel very comfortable communicating your success stories. The more time you practice actually talking about your accomplishments the faster you’ll be able to recall your stories in your next interview.

With interview performance more important than ever before it pays to prepare, prepare, prepare. You can never over prepare. Follow this easy method of interview preparation to gain confidence and skill for your next interview. The better you interview the faster you’ll be at your new job.

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