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Posts Tagged ‘Technique’

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The Interview Book is the definitive manual of interview preparation and technique, written by James Innes, the Founder and Managing Director of The CV Centre the UK’s leading CV consultancy based on his many years’ hands-on experience within careers consultancy. The advice given is tried, tested and proven on a daily basis within The CV Centre. The Interview Book takes the reader through planning, preparing and organising a winning strategy on to an explanation of… More >>

The Interview Book: Your definitive guide to the perfect interview technique

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.

No, behavioral interviewing has been around since the 70’s when industrial psychologists developed a way of “accurately” predicting whether a person would succeed in a job. They concluded that if candidates were asked questions that requested examples of past behavior it would be an indicator of their future behavior.

So, employers began using this interviewing technique to determine whether you were a good fit for the job. The technique is of growing interest to companies who would like to choose the “right” candidate, especially in today’s market with so many candidates for them to choose from.

The types of questions that are asked using this technique are used to find out how and what you did in the past and the skill sets you used in the process – if you did it before you can do it again!

The difference between a behavioral question and other questions is what the question asks for. A behavioral question will be very specific. For example when asked, “Tell me about a time when you solved a problem,” the key words are “a time.” This answer calls for a “specific” example of a “specific” incident.

When traditional questions are asked they usually include the word “if.” When “What would you do if…” questions are asked you can use your imagination to come up with an answer. For example, “What would you do if you had a problem to solve?” The word, “if,” is the clue word that indicates the interviewer wants to hear your thought process – how you think through a problem. This question does not require a past experience example.

While preparation is important for every interview, it is essential to prepare for the behavioral interview. You must have examples or stories for anything you have claimed on your resume or that you say in an interview.

One example would be, if you claimed you were very organized on your resume. A natural question for the interviewer would be: “Tell me about a time when you organized a project.” It is now your task to let the interviewer know that you have had success when organizing a project or event. In other words, prove what you said you did by providing an example.

There are several methods and acronyms suggested for formatting your stories but the main point to remember is that any story has three key elements:

A beginning – “There was a time….”

A Middle – “The action steps I took were…”

An Ending – “The end result was…”

Stories should be interesting and full of action. Give the interviewer something to remember about you. A savvy interviewer will be able to hear skills from the stories and judge your behavior from your past actions. The more details and skills you can work into your story, the more convincing your story will be.

Preparing your stories before the interview will take the mystique out of behavioral interviewing and allow you to tell the success stories you want your interviewer to hear. Through your examples the interviewer will begin to get a clear picture of you and be able to decide whether you are the right person for the job based on your past experience and successes.