Behavioral-Based Interviewing: Finding Terrific Talent

Have you ever hired someone who had a great-looking résumé but struggled in the role? Hiring the right talent is more than just checking off qualifications – it’s about finding candidates with the skills, mindset and experience to succeed in your organization. Behavioral interviewing is a technique that assesses a candidate’s past behavior to predict future performance. By asking the candidate to focus on specific examples, you gain insights into how candidates handle various situations. Here we cover guidelines for conducting effective behavioral interviews, examples of good questions and what to listen for.  

Guidelines for Behavioral Interviews 

Here’s how to conduct a structured and insightful behavioral interview:  

Prepare in Advance: Before the interview, identify the key competencies and skills required for the position. Create a list of questions that target these areas. For instance, if teamwork is essential, ask candidates about the time they navigated a challenging group project. If problem-solving is critical, prompt them to discuss how they tackled a complex issue. Preparing your set of job-focused questions in advance ensures a productive interview highlighting the attributes that lead to success in this role.  

Use a Structured Method: Encourage candidates to respond using a structured storytelling approach in their response:  

• Background/Situation: Describe the background or situation.  

• Role/Task: Describe your role or task. 

• Action: Describe your action or contribution to the situation or task. 

• Result/Implication (broader impact): Describe the results: what worked/didn’t work, challenges faced and actions to overcome those challenges, etc. 

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This framework helps candidates structure their answers and provide a clear narrative. Giving the candidates this framework in advance also helps assess their ability to follow directions. 

Listen Actively and Make Candidate Comfortable: Give candidates your full attention, listening without interruption unless redirection is needed. This creates a comfortable environment and allows for a relaxed conversation that provides valuable insights. Take notes, capture key points and inform the candidate upfront to set expectations. Also, share the number of question and total time – this helps the candidates manage their responses while assessing their time management skills.   

Follow Up as Needed: Don’t settle for vague or surface-level answers. Ask follow-up questions to fill in any gaps, press for more specifics if answers are overly general or vague; and ask about their thought process, specific roles and the impact of their actions. Follow-ups can reveal the candidate’s level of involvement and understanding of the situation, as well as their ability to reflect on their experiences. 

Assess Consistency – But Also Their Range: Look for patterns in responses. A candidate’s past behavior can indicate how they might act in future situations. Pay attention to the consistency of their experiences across different roles or environments. This can provide valuable insight into their character and reliability. It is also important to consider the range of responses – do all the examples come from one job five years ago, or do they reflect a range over several years?   

Evaluate Soft Skills and Political Savvy: Technical skills are important, but interpersonal skills often determine long-term success. Make sure to assess attributes like teamwork, communication, adaptability, problem-solving and political awareness. These skills can be just as important as technical skills, especially in collaborative and dynamic work environments. For example, a candidate who complains about past bosses or roles may complain about you in two years – framing past experiences in positive terms is a sign of political savvy.   

Sample Questions for Behavioral Interviews  

Understanding how candidates have handled situations in the past helps assess how they may respond to your needs and problems in the future. Let’s review specific questions you can ask to assess candidate experiences in a behavioral interview.   

• Teamwork and Collaboration: 

• Describe a time when you worked on a team project. What was your role and how did you contribute to the team’s success?  

• Tell me about a conflict you had with a team member. How did you resolve it? (You can substitute client, boss or customer, depending on role.) 

• Problem-Solving:  

• Give me an example of a challenging problem you faced at work. What was the situation? What steps did you take to solve it? What was the outcome and impact?  

• Describe a situation where you had to make a decision with limited information. What was your approach and what was the outcome? 

• Adaptability:  

• Share an experience where you had to adjust your plans due to unexpected changes. How did you handle it?  

• Tell me about a time you had to learn something new quickly. What was the situation and how did you manage? 

• Leadership:   

• Describe a situation where you took the initiative to lead a project or team. What challenges did you face and how did you overcome them?  

• Tell me about a time you motivated a team (or colleagues) during a difficult time. 

• Communication:  

• Give me an example of a time when you had to explain a complex concept to someone who was unfamiliar with the topic. How did you ensure they understood and knew what to do next?  

• Tell me about a situation where you received constructive criticism. How did you respond and what did you learn from it? 

• Time Management:  

• Describe a time when you had multiple deadlines to meet. How did you prioritize your tasks?  

• Share an experience where you (or you and your team) missed a deadline. How did you address it? What did you learn from that experience?  

• Customer Service:  

• Tell me about a time you dealt with a difficult customer. How did you handle the situation?  

• Provide an example of how you went above and beyond to meet a customer’s needs, without compromising organizational standards or exceeding costs.  

• Goal Setting and Achievement:  

• Describe a professional goal you set for yourself. What steps did you take to achieve it and what was the outcome? What surprised you in the process?  

• Can you give an example of how you tracked your progress toward a specific goal?” 

Notice the pattern here? A great general model for behavior interview questions is: “Describe a time what you needed to exercise or show (fill in behavior). Describe the situation, what happened, what the result was and what the broader impact was.” Use this as a starting point to draft questions for your key desired behaviors. Crafting these open-ended questions that require candidates to describe or tell you about an experience helps uncover a candidate’s problem-solving skills, adaptability and overall fit for your organization.    

Case Study: Launching Behavioral-Based Interviewing 

When Mimi took over as the hiring manager for the customer service department, she noticed a troubling pattern—new hires who often struggled to meet performance expectations, even after completing the company’s training program. Some had great résumés, but once on the job, they lacked the problem-solving skills or adaptability needed for the fast-paced environment.   

Mimi acknowledged that in the past, interviews had been broad and hypothetical: Tell us about your resume, strengths, development needs, how you might handle XYZ and such.    

She shifted her approach from hypothetical questions to behavioral-based interview questions. She started asking candidates to provide real-life examples of how they handled past challenges like what would be faced at the company. She found this approach gave a clearer picture of their true abilities.  She trained her supervisors to craft questions like, “Tell me about a time you had to deal with an angry customer,” and “Describe a situation where you had to quickly learn something new on the job.”   

With the new method in place, interviews became more structured and revealing. One day, a candidate with an impressive résumé faltered when asked about a time they resolved a customer complaint, offering vague answers. Meanwhile, another applicant, whose experience was less conventional, gave a compelling story of how she de-escalated a difficult customer interaction. Mimi and her team saw the value of this approach in action.   

Within months, new hire performance and retention improved significantly. Behavioral-based interviewing transformed hiring ensuring candidates had the right skills to thrive within the organization.  

Next Steps with Pryor Learning 

Effectively using behavioral-based interviewing requires knowing what you need in a position. Pryor’s extensive library of training helps you identify and explore these desired behaviors in more depth.  

• Management & Leadership Skills for New Managers and Supervisors includes a range of skills you need to successfully navigate the different elements of supervision, including human resource management.  

• Emotional Intelligence: The Keys to Working More Effectively with Others helps identify the soft skills needed for a candidate to succeed in your organization. 

• Set Employee Goals and Define Performance Expectations helps refine the list of behaviors you expect in current and future employees.    

• Trainings related Management and Leadership offerings help you develop the effective communication skills needed to implement behavior-focused interviewing.