Job Interviews: Behavioural Interviews

You’ve just been offered a job interview and during the conversation you were told that it will be a ‘behavioural interview’.

In this article we discuss what a behavioural interview is and provide some insights into how to respond to the interview questions.

Behavioural interviews are based on discovering how a candidate has acted in previous specific employment-related situations.  The logic behind these interviews is that how a candidate has ‘behaved or acted’ in the past will predict how they will ‘behave or act’ in the future.  In a nutshell, past performance predicts future performance.

Behavioural interview questions usually start with something like, ‘tell us about a time when…’; ‘ explain to us what you did…’.    

When you are asked questions that start this way, the expectation is that you will talk through a situation and explain what you did.  It is really important to listen to the question, think about what the hiring manager is asking, and provide a suitable response.

Hiring managers make their decision on a candidate’s suitability to a role based on what they are being told by the candidate.  If a candidate doesn’t provide an answer to their question then it makes it very difficult.

Remember, that a behavioural interview is not an interrogation, it is merely a tool that hiring managers use to find out whether a candidate has the required skills and experience for the role they are recruiting for.

This article is one of a series on job interview techniques.

Written by the Your People Recruitment team