behavioural-based interview questions and answers in my last video what is a behavioural interview i
promised you four example answers to some of the most difficult behavioral-based interview
questions one how do you handle conflict two what makes an effective communicator
three what does success look like to you and four how do you handle failure so in this video that's
exactly what i'm going to do i'm also going to break down the strongest parts of each answer
so that you can use something similar in your own interview i'm Amri Celeste an interview coach and
hr recruitment specialist with over 10 years hiring experience and on this channel i make
videos to help you secure the job that you want by covering tough interview questions and answers and
interview preparation so if you're job hunting do like and subscribe so first what is a behavioural
interview briefly a behavioural interview is where your interviewer is assessing your behaviours and
this covers a wide range of traits so things like communication and they're assessing your behaviors
in different types of situations if you're interviewing it's extremely helpful to fully
understand what a behavioural interview is because even if your interview is not behavioural you will
almost definitely be asked behavioural-based interview questions in your interview so even
if it's a competency interview a situational interview or any other type so if you want to
know how to pass a behavioural interview and what to avoid watch this video it covers all of those
things plus more today's video is a full focus on behavioural based interview questions and answers
and showing you what elements to include in your own answer question one is how do
you handle conflict now i have shared an example answer to a similar question tell me about a time
you had conflict at work in my top 10 situational interview questions and answers video because
conflict-related questions can double as both situational and behavioral interview questions and
i share a solid example answer to that question in that video using the star method which i will
explain later so if you want to see the answer to the situational version then i recommend watching
that video which i'll link in the description below so an example answer to the behaviuoral
question how do you handle conflict is part of my job as a receptionist is to ensure that visitors
are signed into the building this is for security purposes as well as safety reasons for example in
cases of a fire a manager kept bringing visitors into the building for various meetings without
signing them in this caused regular conflict and we became frustrated with each other i realized
in order to handle this conflict and resolve it i needed to understand things from his perspective
i sat down with him to understand why he kept skipping this process and explained how this
made my job more challenging he explained that he found the process slow and frustrating as they
were often accused in reception which made him late for meetings i empathized with this and spoke
to the head of security about how we can make this process mandatory but also faster and more
efficient so it was less frustrating for managers the result was that a set of security barriers
were installed in reception which meant that visitors and staff needed electronic passes to
get into the building which made it compulsory but this also made the process much faster in two ways
first visited details were sent in advance which meant they only needed to collect their pass in
reception instead of pausing to sign in which reduced queues second the new electronic passes
automatically logged visitors as they went in or out of the building instead of us needing to
log this manually which saved time now this answer shows your behaviours in multiple areas but i also
used the star technique also known as the star method to answer the question now if you don't
know what this is star stands for situation task action result and these are the points to address
in your answer to tighten it up it also ensures that your answer is hyper relevant to the question
and covers all of the points the interviewer will be assessing you for it's a brilliant method to
use and i explain the star technique in this video and i include an example answer showing you how to
use the star technique highly recommended it's a powerful tool so i'll link that um up here and
down below in the description now let's look at the strongest parts of that answer and how you
can use something similar in your own interview so first this answer describes why this situation is
an issue before even moving into the task created from that situation so if this person doesn't sign
in visitors it's a security issue and a health and safety issue such as if there is a fire in the
building so in your own answer make it clear what the conflict was maybe a disgruntled colleague
someone not pulling their weight or not adhering to a process that you need in order to get your
job done properly the first time this answer addresses behaviors is where this person
gets frustrated and realizes that they needed to understand things from the manager's perspective
and decides to sit down with them now this is really important because the behavior shown
here is patience and a willingness to empathize rather than to retaliate in a way that could
have made the situation worse so this person could have reported that manager to their boss
or put up a notice period saying you must sign in visitors or send them an angry or passive
aggressive email but by choosing to sit down with this manager they were able to understand
why they did this and ultimately incorporate the feedback into the final result in your own answer
it's important to show that your approach included communication and shows how you opened up a line
of communication with the person you have conflict with in order to resolve it and also show that you
took steps to understand that person before you took any actions additionally when you sit down
with someone it often removes a lot of tension which is why it's such an effective way to handle
conflict so when this person sat down with the manager they listened which is an important skill
to demonstrate because when you're going through conflict with someone that's making your job more
difficult it's often the last thing in the world you want to do but if you show that you took an
active interest in listening to this person it shows your emotional maturity and how you apply
that to work situations then in this answer i've shown how this person took time to think about
how to make that process less frustrating for the manager so still thinking of the other person not
just the outcome they need so thoughtfulness is another important behavior to show in your answer
then in the result there were new security barriers so that this person could make sure
they're doing their job properly and logging visitors but the process was faster in two ways
which would help to resolve the conflict as it was a smoother and more modern process so in your own
answer if you can show how you took initiative to modernize a process or how you handled a conflict
by creating multiple solutions that will really boost your answer but if you can't think of
multiple solutions and you can just think of one simple solution that's fine too i always say that
if in doubt keep it super simple because it will streamline your answer and it will make sure that
it's concise and meaningful let me know your thoughts on whether you're finding this answer
helpful just leave a comment in the comments below and let me know also if you're getting value from
this video please do click like it makes a massive difference and ensures this video is shown to more
people struggling with behavioral based interview questions and answers question two is what makes
an effective communicator now the answer to this will highly depend on the role you're interviewing
for but no matter which role it is effective communication will be required if they ask this
question it's only the type of communication needed that will differ for example if you're
interviewing for a role where you would be communicating with people in different countries
that speak multiple different languages your communication skills would need to be different
than if you were interviewing for a role where you were working with say the elderly or with children
if you were in a sales role for example your communication style needs to include confidence
and persuasiveness if you were in a technical role you might need to know how to communicate
very technical terms in a clear and simple way to people who are not tech savvy so this answer
will cover a few key areas of what is commonly expected from an effective communicator i've used
a customer service role in this example because customer service covers covers a wide range of
different communication styles i think in order to be an effective communicator you need three skills
first is effective listening skills i think that strong communication begins with effective
listening in a customer service role such as this i believe you really need to listen to customers
not just hear what they say but understand what they mean and let them know that you understand
so that you can assist them in the best possible way i imagine one of the most frustrating things
for a customer is to explain a query or a problem and feel as though the person on the other end of
the phone is not really listening or doesn't really care second is empathy or at least some
level of emotional intelligence i think this is important because i don't think you can achieve
the first skill of effective listening if you're not empathetic i believe they're both tied in
together as empathy is the skill of understanding the emotions and therefore the motivations
behind someone's words or actions third is flexibility in your communication style i
think you can only communicate effectively if you can communicate with different types of people
some people are very emotional or expressive some are very loud or they talk very fast some people
don't say much they only use a few words but they may still be feeling very emotional they may just
not express it in the same way as somebody who outwardly expresses their emotion with lots of
words so it's important to understand your own communication style so that you can be flexible
and change it to match the person you're speaking with in order to connect with them
in the most effective way for example with my communication style i'm quite expressive
so i use a lot of hand movements a lot of facial expressions sometimes i talk very fast
so it's a good thing that youtube has a setting to slow down the video for when i get carried away
but i know this because i'm self-aware when it comes to my communication style and i've become
this way through psychometric tests feedback from colleagues clients friends and family
over the years and i encourage feedback so that i can learn and grow i've even had comments left on
a couple of my videos and i was talking very fast so of course if you also have feedback then do pop
it in the comments below so i would describe my communication style as flexible expressive because
even though i am very expressive with my style if i'm communicating with somebody who speaks
very slowly or they're very quiet i am not very loud with lots of big wide hand movements i will
mirror their style a little bit closer so that i can connect with them in the most effective way
now after that answer you might be wondering how can i discover my own communication style i would
recommend starting simple and typing the question into google and you'll have a ton of personality
and communication quizzes that pop up and we'll give you the results but also on a kind of more
simpler way you can also just ask for feedback from colleagues friends family or your boss if you
have regular one-to-one meetings at work so one of the strongest things about this answer is that
it's in three parts so you're almost giving three answers in one when you say there are multiple
things that make an effective communicator they're all linked in together because you can't flex your
communication style or listen effectively if you can't empathize all of which are included in the
answer but it doesn't just give the skills it explains each skill so you might notice that
i did not use the star method here this is because this is a three-part answer and it would be an
inappropriately long answer in an interview to add a situational example to each one of those three
skills so instead you're explaining the meaning behind each skill why you need them and how they
link to effective communication which creates an answer just as powerful as one that includes a
star technique because you're still demonstrating your understanding of each of the behaviors
if you're really liking these answers so far you can grab a copy of my top 20 interview answers
guide this guide is packed with answers for your job interview it includes answers to difficult
questions like how do you handle pressure at work why should we give you the job and what is your
greatest weakness plus i've included an important bonus question and what you should be asking your
interviewers at the end of your interview it's completely free and you can grab yours
by clicking the link in the description below this video question three is how do you handle failure
an example answer is i think that failure is subjective what one person considers failure
another person considers success let me give an example in my previous role i was given a
revenue target if you don't know what this means this is when an employee normally in sales or
a senior level position is told to bring in or essentially make a certain amount of money for
the company so let's say your revenue target was 5 000 pounds then you need to bring in 5 000 pounds
that month for the company so let's get back to the example answer so in my previous role i
was given a revenue target that was very ambitious the company had big plans and expected me to bring
in more than i ever had in the past so there was an immense amount of pressure to meet this
huge target and achieve a high volume of sales in the end i did not meet my target so i could have
considered this a failure however when i reviewed how much work i had actually done it turned out
that i had surpassed the amount of sales i had ever achieved and set a new record i surpassed any
of my previous targets and i went above and beyond in order to try to meet this new revenue target
i worked late and i attended networking events that i wouldn't normally attend in my role
i knew this target was something i had never achieved before so i would likely need to take
actions i hadn't taken before in order to meet that goal when i look back at what i had achieved
the contacts and connections i made through networking the new ideas i came up with just
from trying these new things i saw that although i didn't meet the monetary target there was success
along the way so i shifted my perspective to consider the successes throughout the experience
there are a ton of strong points you can use in this answer so even if you've never been given a
revenue target or worked in sales if you've worked in a job the key points in this answer can still
work for you or even if you don't have experience you haven't worked in a job but you've worked in
a project whether at college maybe at uni or even if you have a personal hobby like for example you
wanted to learn to play the keyboard you can use a time from any of those examples where you didn't
meet the original goal that you were set or that you set for yourself but along the way you went
through certain experiences maybe you made new connections learned a new skill or met a new
contact or a new set of people maybe you learned a new or more efficient way of doing something
on this channel for example i wanted to share the knowledge that i gained after doing thousands of
interviews and helped struggling candidates become a candidate of choice with bags of confidence
where they could strut into an interview and feel really confident that they were going to get an
offer and i intended to upload videos daily or at least a few times a week but it's safe to say that
i did not meet that goal but i learned a whole host of other things like research and editing and
things like that so in your own answer if you can show how you shifted your perspective just like in
this answer and list out things you learned along the way that's a great demonstration of how you
handle failure or at least perceived failure so the next question is what does success look like
to you a strong example answer is i believe that success is open to interpretation one person's
success could be a promotion to a leadership position within a year for another it could be
earning over 50 000 a year for example if someone worked in a role for 10 years without a promotion
but was genuinely happy in a job they've always wanted they always performed well had a great
relationship with colleagues and another person started alongside them but was regularly promoted
and ended up as head of that department 10 years later i wouldn't consider the head of department
more successful because both people achieved their long-term goal in terms of what success
looks like for my career i would feel successful working in a role where i can contribute and make
an actual difference to the company i would love to have great working relationships with my team
a rewarding working environment and know that the company that i work for has strong values
particularly relating to their staff and customers now of course your idea of success is likely to
be different to this example but this is a strong template for how you can begin to form your answer
so let's just look at the strongest part here so first of all it starts off in a similar way
to the answer to the question about failure simply because success and failure are both
open to interpretation again i didn't use the star method here because i wanted to show how you can
form well-rounded and effective answers without necessarily needing to lean on the star method
every time so this answer does of course include an example but it's not a situational example
it's an example that gives a bit more life to your opinion that success is subjective and dependent
on how each person sees success but then i finished off at the end here with a more specific
answer that will give the interviewer what they are looking for by giving examples of how two
people can see success very differently and as a bonus tip if you were going to include something
about the company values being important to you remember to link the relevant company values
to your own values that are important to you so for example let's say that a company has a goal
on their website or somewhere online like a press statement about becoming carbon neutral
or actively being more inclusive or something specific like addressing the gender pay gap or
whatever values are important to you remember to include those ones that resonate with you in your
answer because not only does it show your values and behavior it personalizes your answer and shows
that you've done your research and looked at their website or their linkedin company page
or somewhere online and you care about what company you apply to thanks again for watching
if you haven't like subscribe and if you're job hunting i'll see you again in the next video
you