Monday Motivation: Behavioral Interview? Master the Answers Nobody Else Does

This episode equips listeners with powerful frameworks and strategies for effectively answering behavioral interview questions. By focusing on relevant skills and crafting memorable stories, candidates can significantly enhance their chances of success in job interviews.

It all comes down to one critical strategy you NEED to use. Listen to the end!

• Overview of behavioral interview question significance 
• Insights into what hiring managers seek in candidates 
• Introduction to STAR and SBO frameworks for structured responses 
• Actionable steps to identify key skills and experiences 
• Strategies to connect skills with past experiences during interviews 
• Importance of concise and clear communication in responses 
• Tips for preparing impactful and relevant examples

Don’t spend any more time searching through articles, lists, or websites.

Check out Equipped Essentials for your all-in-one, 35-page digital book that offers examples, tips, memory hooks, and easy to follow advice.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:14

Hey everyone and welcome to the Equipped Interview Podcast. With a combined 30 plus years of being interviewed and interviewing thousands of others, we're here to build your confidence, help you stand out and get your dream job. Your hosts are Joshua Tinkey and Linda Kamali. Let's get you equipped. As a reminder, in these short Monday episodes we bring you some motivation to help you keep interview prep top of mind so you can always be prepping. We share quick, hit, practical tips, reminders and steps you can take to start your week strong. For today's topic, we're actually going to cover the best framework you can use to quickly answer behavioral questions and do things that nobody else does in your next interview. Also, if, after today's episode, you want to cut out the endless time researching online and best ways to prep for an interview, I can certainly help out. I spent years doing that stuff and boiled it all down to the most important steps. You can check the digital book that includes frameworks, checklists and almost fill in the blank type stuff for you to just apply your situation. So that's at equippedinterviewcom slash books. Or if you want to get one-on-one coaching, check out the work with me section on equippedinterviewcom. So we try to keep it to five, six minutes on these short Monday motivation episodes. This one might be closer to 10. So just a fair warning, although you probably saw that when you click to listen today. But we'll see how it goes.

Speaker 1: 1:30

Behavioral interview questions are a common type of question asked by most hiring managers that try to uncover specific questions, right behaviors, that you've exhibited in the past. The hope is that they'll be able to figure out if you will act a certain way or have a certain skill, if you've, of course, demonstrated it in the past. These questions typically start with tell me about a time when, or can you give me an example of when, you did X, y or Z? Not everyone's asked these questions, but you certainly want to be ready in the event that you do get them asked. The purpose is a quick kind of if you're kind of curious, why, why even go down this road? The purpose of those types of questions, it's really to uncover how well you have performed in the past and to determine if that's a good indicator of how you'll perform in the future.

Speaker 1: 2:14

So my opinion, most hiring managers, including myself, use behavioral interview questions to figure out three things. First, do you have the relevant work experience where you gained the skills I need? Second, do you know what skills to highlight in your examples, what skills you should highlight? I mean, put another way, are you self-aware? And third, are you able to explain complex concepts or even potentially long stories otherwise in a succinct manner and really only share the necessary relevant details? So if you don't have structure, you will ramble and you'll seriously decrease your chances of getting the job offer.

Speaker 1: 2:53

So instead I recommend use one of the two common frameworks that are commonly used to answer behavioral interview questions. Option one use the STAR format. You've probably heard of it S-T-A-R the situation or task, the action and result or use another one commonly used. Option two is SBO situation, behavior and outcome. The last two there, the result in SAR and the outcome in SBO are often overlooked. So you want to finish your story. There is one very important, key, critical item in those stories that are often even more so overlooked, I'd say, and we'll get to that at the end of the few minutes here today, so stay tuned for that. Back to STAR and SBO. While I recommend using STAR, since more HR professionals and hiring managers are probably familiar with it, feel free to use either, depending on your preference and how your brain works best. Just make sure to use one as a framework for you.

Speaker 1: 3:45

Next, taking time to really think through the role and what the hiring manager is most likely looking for will go a long way. I talk about this all the time. You have to think specifically and intentionally about what you think, either know or think the hiring manager is looking for. So there are two action steps you can take immediately, right now, today. Just think about it if you're applying for a job or getting ready for an interview. One list the top three to five skills you think the hiring manager is in fact looking for. We just talked about that, but write it down. What are the top three to five skills you think they're going to be listening for or asking you questions about, even if it's not evident or obvious in the question? Writing this down this step is crucial for every component of any interview prep process, definitely this one. It may seem simple to you, but it's a very important part of this type of question prep as well.

Speaker 1: 4:36

Second, write out specific memorable moments in your last few at jobs or at college if that was prior to your jobs. This could include things like frustrations, disagreements, problems or roadblocks you encountered. How you overcame them key initiatives you led or key performance review comments you received from your manager, your best days of work, your worst days of work, et cetera. But you get. You get the gist. It's you know, memorable things that you did and accomplished. Looking look back, looking back through your yourend performance reviews could be helpful for this too. Your calendar, et cetera.

Speaker 1: 5:07

If you follow those two steps, you now have a list of skills and another list of experiences. So now what? Now it's time to prepare a little differently than other candidates so you can stand out from the crowd. Most people try to come up with the examples part of things and things that they've done, but that's where it stops and where their energy stops. This is where they wish and hope and pray that the interviewer finds some kind of connection between the story they just told and the skills that they're looking for as the hiring manager.

Speaker 1: 5:37

So my recommendation is flip that on its head. Connect the dots for the hiring manager. Don't make any assumptions. So how do you do this? You need to be skills oriented. Use the list of three to five skills you came up with to help you create specific examples that highlight at least one of those skills in every single example that you talk about. I'll put another way. Come up with a solid example for each of the three to five skills hopefully five that you came up with. Once you have your list of examples with an aligned skill, at least one with each one, I recommend organizing and categorizing the minute chart so you can just study that way.

Speaker 1: 6:14

Hey, here you know. Here's on the left, I have my skill of persuasion On the right. Here is at least one example, maybe more for that, that skill that I want to highlight, that skill that comes out of that example. This will help you during your interviews to remember not only your example, but to remember to highlight an important skill you want the hiring manager to know you have. And here's that critical point I mentioned a couple minutes ago. When you try to figure out what skills the hiring manager is looking for, you'll be on alert.

Speaker 1: 6:41

Then, when you get a specific question, do this. Then too, try to figure out what skill the hiring manager. Then, when you get a specific question, do this. Then too, try to figure out what skill the hiring manager is looking for in the specific question that you're being asked, and if you can provide commentary on that skill first before you give your answer. So let that sink in. Try to provide commentary on that skill before you give your answer and tell your story. This will really make you stand out from your competition.

Speaker 1: 7:05

So I'm going to give you an example. What does this sound like? What could it sound like? Let's say you get the question, the sample question, tell me about a time when you had a huge problem and didn't know what to do. How did you handle it? Okay, so you might realize that the hiring manager is trying to determine what? Probably something like conceptual thinking, strategic thinking, ability to handle ambiguity, something along those lines. So here's how your answer could go. You know, that's a really great topic.

Speaker 1: 7:32

There are so many times in my career I've had to deal with ambiguity, I'm sure, like most people. But I love it. I learn something new each time and I really get energized when I get to think outside the norm, outside the box, and use some conceptual thinking. For example, there was a time when dot dot, dot, right. And then you dive into your framework, right, your situation, task, action and result, or SBO. So you first comment on the skill keying in the hiring manager that you understand what they're going for and tell them that you understand what it is and that it excites you, and you understand what it is and that it excites you and you understand what it takes. And then you finish up with your story, which you've already done the hard part. You've already confirmed to them that you recognize it. Now you just back it up with an example. And now maybe that sounds like the hard part to you, but if you've done your homework, you have an example ready to go where you say that you've used, in this case, you know conceptual thinking, say that out loud strategic thinking, or you know ambiguity, like in this example response you did a minute ago.

Speaker 1: 8:34

And before we wrap up, I know it'll make this a little bit longer, but I'm going to share a couple of rapid fire tips for this part of your interview, just based on my years of doing interviews and interviewing others. A couple things to hopefully leave you with that that'll resonate, because I want you to stand out, I want you to get your job, and here are a few ways I think increase your chances Be clear and be specific. Don't ramble. In most cases, your answer should be two minutes or less. Think about that. That's really hard in a lot of cases. So practice ahead of time, out loud and time yourself. See how hard. You'll see how hard two minutes is.

Speaker 1: 9:04

And lastly, it's better to have a good example that's slightly off topic than no example or a bad one that's right on topic, right. So, where possible, stick with your examples and your plan. Stick with the examples that are aligned to a skill on that list of you know five skills or so that you came up with. So to sum it up, if you're still with us one, use a framework in your answer, star or SBO. Two, be skills oriented. Come up with a list of skills you think the hiring manager will be looking for. Three, attach at least one of those skills to every example you prep. And four, say those skills out loud during your responses. Well, we hope you enjoyed this Quick Hit Monday motivation episode. Stay tuned for our regular episodes on Wednesdays and another Monday motivation episode next week. That's all for today, but let's keep the conversation going. Check out equippedinterviewcom. Be intentional, do the work and build your confidence to stand out in your next job interview. Thank you.