The most popularly increasing type of questions that are being asked by the hiring managers in modern interviews is the behavioral interview questions. An interview where an interviewee is asked to provide practical examples from real-life scenarios that have happened from the interviewee’s past employment/job of some specific situations and how they dealt with those situations is referred to as Behavioral Questions.
The sole reason behind asking such questions in an interview is that the employers can get a possible idea of how you will respond to future business situations by looking at how you acted and performed in those situations in the past jobs. It can be called a predictor of a candidate’s future performance. This is the perfect opportunity for a candidate to prove their worth, skills, and abilities to the potential employer.
21 Best Behavioral Interview Questions
Question 1. Tell me about a time you went above and beyond the call of duty?
Answer: “I ‘consider going above and beyond is more like my responsibility and it is doing what needs to be done. To me, it means exceeding the expectations that my manager has set for me. In my previous job, I was handed over a project that had to lead and after going through the assigned project, I came to know that the project deadline is in next week and the project required at least 6 days to get completed.
I worked on weekends and overtime to get the project done and the project was a huge success.”
Question 2. Tell me about a time when you made a positive change at work.
Answer: “In my last job, I was a part of the quality improvement team of the company in which there were a group of people working towards making changes in efforts to improve and better the quality of the goods and services provided by the company. The process of making changes was stagnant and no one was coming up with possible solutions to actually improve the product quality.
I suggested they implement a checklist policy where we created a list of things through which the product quality can improve, and check it every time we received some product-related query. The policy was really helpful and appreciated by the team members and helped us make a positive change in our process of dealing with quality checks.”
Question 3. Tell me about the biggest change that you have dealt with.
Answer: “The biggest change I have dealt with in my previous job was the change from morning shift to the night shift. I was transferred to the night shift due to the lack of personnel and the merging of two branches of that company.
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I had to adapt a whole new lifestyle and new process with working under the new manager and personnel, which was quite challenging, but once I became habitual of the routine it all worked out in the end.”
Question 4. Tell me about a time when you had an unexpected event.
Answer: “I was part of a marketing internship, and the business was on small scale. We didn’t expect more than 15 orders to come in a day, but one day unexpectedly we received a large order that was to be fulfilled within 24 hours.
We were lacking resources and had to make so many last-minute adjustments and we finally made it happen and I got to learn the importance of effectiveness and efficiency, no matter how small the business is.”
Question 5. Tell me about a time when you caught a co-worker stealing.
Answer: “I saw a co-worker stealing the data from the computer in my previous job. He was working in the production department and had nothing to do with the IT department and that’s how I got to know that he was stealing. I immediately reported that to the HR and the departmental head.”
Question 6. Give an example of how you set goals for yourself.
Answer: “My approach of setting goals goes two ways. I plan short-term goals for myself which include small achievements both professional and personal and the long-term goals I set for myself are mostly professional and career-related. For example, my long-term goal was to get a job after completing my internship, and I worked as a sales associate in a retail store right after my internship ended.”
Question 7. Tell me about the last time when you worked in a team.
Answer: “I volunteered for a marking campaign few months before and that was the last time I worked in a team. I can work well independently, but when the efforts get doubled and tripled. We were a team of 4 and we successfully turned in 5 clients in a single day for that campaign.”
Question 8. Tell me about a time when you were able to motivate your employees.
Answer: “Retaining an employee is really hard in the competitive world. In my last HR job I really felt that my personnel is feeling demotivated as the company was not really gaining any profits, to motivate them I provided them with off-the-job training so that they could learn something while they gain their motivation to work back.”
Question 9. What would you do if a co-worker disagrees with you?
Answer: “I would to listen to his/her perspective on the decision, and I will try to understand his point of view.”
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Question 10. What is your most important career accomplishment?
Answer: “My most important career accomplishment is to see myself grow intellectually and also see what significant contribution I have given to my work life.”’
Question 11. How do you handle meeting tight deadlines?
Answer: “I love taking challenges and meeting tight deadlines successfully is one the greatest feeling of achievement. I handle tight deadlines by being more effective and multi-tasking as I am pretty good at it. I am also ready to work off-days and weekends to meet the deadlines to complete a task.”
Question 12. How do you handle it when your schedule is interrupted?
Answer: “I tend to handle such situations with patience because we live in a dynamic work environment and not every day at work will be monotonous, I always keep patience and work margin to handle such uncertain events or situations.”
Question 13. How do you deal with workplace conflict?
Answer: “I handle workplace conflicts by talking it out to the other person. In my previous job, I have had a lot of disagreements with my manager but I always try to focus on behaviors and events and I try to identify the conflict points and sort them out with the other person by keeping my point and listening to theirs.”
Question 14. Tell me about a time you had to learn quickly.
Answer: “During my internship as a digital marketer, the period of working was for a very short, like for a month. In that month, I had to learn how to work while simultaneously working on an assignment. But I am a quick learner as I am good with technology, so I really had a great time learning and working as an intern.”
Question 15. Tell me about a goal you failed to achieve.
Answer: “I was working as a Social Media Manager in my past employment, and we were working on creating educational content for parents, but unfortunately we targeted the wrong audience on the wrong platform as more young adults were attracted to our content while we wanted to attract the parents in their 40’s and 50’s. Our efforts got wasted but we took our content to the platform where we could actually reach them.”
Question 16. Tell me about a time you had to collaborate with a co-worker who was difficult to work with.
Answer: “I had to work with a fresher at a job who complained about our projects. But I took time to teach him how things worked at that office and also learned about his personal life, being at the initial stage of his career, he was really tensed. Once I got to know him, he was really ambitious and a great co-worker.”
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Question 17. Tell me about a time you had to choose something else over doing a good job.
Answer: “I met with an accident because of which I had no choice but to take leave from work for a month because I broke my leg, but I haven’t missed a single day of work in two years.”
Question 18. Describe a time when you weren’t satisfied with your job. What could have made it better?
Answer: “There was a time at my previous job when I felt really undervalued and unappreciated by my manager which led to dissatisfaction. I decided to talk about I am feeling to the manager and explained to him that I could work in a much better way and be motivated if he could make me feel valued and appreciate me for my efforts.”
Question 19. Think of a time when you didn’t get along with a co-worker. Did this impact your work?
Answer: “No, I understand that we cannot get along with everyone at work as people have different approaches to work and ways of thinking and I don’t let it impact my work. I would simply maintain my distance with that co-worker and respect his boundaries.”
Question 20. Tell me about a time when you weren’t prepared for something.
Answer: “My manager told me to lead a presentation 15 minutes before the client was about to arrive and I really had to do the last-minute preparation. I went through the PPT and somehow managed to give the presentation.”
Question 21. How do you deal with criticism at work?
Answer: “I try to take it positively as it can help me improve my work and if the criticism is not constructive I try to avoid whatever is being said to me.”
Download the list of questions in .PDF format, to practice with them later, or to use them on your interview template (for Behavioural interviews):
References
https://psycnet.apa.org/doiLanding?doi=10.1037/0021-9010.77.5.571
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