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136 Boost Your Hiring IQ

industrial psychologists developed a way of “accurately” predicting
whether a person would succeed in a job. They concluded that if candi-
dates were asked questions that requested examples of past behavior, it
would be an indicator of their future behavior. The difference between
a behavioral question and other questions is that a behavioral question
asks for a very specific answer. An example would be, “Tell me about a
time when you solved a problem.” This calls for a specific example of
when the candidate solved a particular problem.

Why Behavioral Interviewing?
Research conducted over the last three decades indicates that in situa-
tions in which only traditional interview questions are asked, up to 75
percent of the people hired do not meet performance expectations once
they start the job. Some candidates interview well, but when it comes to
performance, they aren’t what they claimed to be. According to Busi-
nessWeek, companies that adopted behavioral interviewing techniques
in the interviewing and hiring process claim to make better hiring deci-
sions and have as much as five times better success with retention and
performance than they were using the traditional interviewing style.
Because of costly hiring mistakes, employers have become more cau-
tious about hiring on the basis of “gut feelings.”
When you use behavioral interviewing techniques to draw out spe-
cific examples of a job candidate’s past behavior, you can determine
more accurately the candidate’s ability to perform under similar circum-
stances. In other words, what past behavior can this person bring to this
company—what successes will be repeated in this job? Can this person
save the company time, money, or work effort?
The more recent and similar the example to the job you are attempt-
ing to fill, the better the information you will have to make a decision
about this candidate.

Sample Behavioral Questions
Behavioral questions always asks for a specific incident. Following are
ways to lead into such questions:
• Tell me about a time when . . .

• Can you give me an example?
• Describe a situation . . .
• Describe a time when . . .

• Recall a time that . . .