A behavioral answer is always the best interview answer

Randy Guthrie, PhDMicrosoft Research

“Me in 30 Seconds Statement”◦ Answers the question: “Tell me about yourself”

Demonstrates most critical behaviors or experience Uses a work-related experience to demonstrate behavior

Does not mention interests, experiences or behaviors not related to job Do not mention family, hobbies, personal situations

Prepare 2 or 3 of these Practice saying them to friends & family DO NOT EXCEED 30 SECONDS!

2

Behavior: passion for technology

I’ve always loved computers. I built my first from-scratch computer in 9th grade , and I starting writing C programs using MatLab to help with my math homework when I was in 10th grade. I earned some of the money for college by creating web sites for local businesses. I believe that information technology can change the world, and I want to be the person at the cutting edge doing it

3

Used by many large companies Used by almost all consulting firms Assumes your past behaviors predict your

future behaviors Consist of questions about past challenging

situations you have faced◦ “I’ve never faced that” is a wrong answer

Do an Internet search on “Behavioral Interview” for detailed (essential!) information

4

Tell me about a time when you had to deal with an angry customer

Tell me about a time when you had to tell your manager she was wrong

Tell me about a time when you had to make a sacrifice to make a commitment

Tell me about a time when you had to deal with personality conflicts on a team

Tell me about a difficult decision you had to make this past year

Situation/Task: describe situation or assignment◦ Must be a specific (real) event, not hypothetical◦ Give just enough detail so the interviewer

understands the situation◦ 15-20 seconds in length

Action: describe the action YOU took personally (don’t say what the team did)

Results: describe the positive outcomes (including lessons-learned) from your actions

Situation: I was asked to join a team that that had been trying to build a software system for two years with little success

Action: I discovered that they did not have a specification or plan. I wrote a draft specification and insisted that we ratify or modify it and agree to it.

Result: We finished the system within 90 days of my joining the team. I was asked to be the project manager for the next version

Think of 20 or 30 plausible / likely behavioral interview questions you might be asked◦ Think of jobs, internship, club service◦ Try to avoid family & spiritual service examples

often do not generalize to work situations Write out a SAR answer for each question Practice giving the answers to family / friendsNote: you can often use the same situation for different

questions depending on how you spin it; ie: teams problems can be spun as a sacrifice to reach goals

When asked a non-behavioral question, answer with behavioral answer

Example: Q: What would you do if….. A: I had a situation like that. Here is what

happened…

Resume focused on accomplishments will likely drive interviewer to ask questions that you have prepared answers for

Interview is focused conversation that YOU the interviewee have a great deal of control over what is asked and how it goes◦ If your resume is written to focus on

accomplishments◦ You are well prepared

Think “rehearsal”

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