In my last blog article, I talked about how to use the S-T-A-R (Situation or Task, Action you took, Results you achieved) method to answer any interview question, behavioral or not, with behavioral answers.
The reality is that very few interviewers use true behavioral questions. So does this technique only apply when interviewers ask you a behavioral question? No. Just as a behavioral question is the best type of interview question, a behavioral answer is the best type of interview answer. So as you start your response with the classic: “Let me give you an example…” you still need to have an example. And not just one example, but a large number of them. If you are answering behaviorally, you may need 10, 15, or even 20 during the course of just one interview. And even more for multiple interviews. You might be thinking, “I really don’t have that many examples in my life.” The reality is that you have far more examples, since examples are simply experiences and we have experiences every day of our lives. The key is having good examples. Your best examples are compelling stories from your life. Stories from work, stories from school, stories from your extracurricular activities, stories from your human interactions. We all have stories. They are fun to tell. And fun to hear from others. You need to turn these stories into compelling examples tied to the interview question. In order to be ready to respond with your examples in advance, you need to think about potential examples to use in advance. Here are a few broad categories:- Work examples. These are always the best. If you have work experience that applies, use it.
- Volunteer examples. Whether you got paid for the work isn’t important. The specific example is what is important.
- School examples. This could be classroom, but more likely may be a special project which went above-and-beyond the classroom.
- Extracurricular examples. Extracurriculars often give you an opportunity to build stories and examples which are uniquely yours.
- Is it the example most closely related to the competency of the question being asked? Listen to the question closely and you will hear what type of example is most appropriate. That is the competency in question.
- Is it an example which helps to differentiate you from others? The best examples are the ones where you clearly went above-and-beyond and produced stellar results.