Page 41 - 101 Dynamite Answers to Interview Questions

34 Nail the Job Interview!

Knowing that job candidates are coming into job interviews more
savvy about the interview process than ever before, employers want better
ways to identify the prospective candidate who is really the best one for
the job - not just the best at interviewing! The technique now gaining
greater use among employers is to ask behavioral questions. There are
three types of behavioral questions that tend to be asked: self-appraisal
questions, situational questions, and hypothetical situational questions.
Self-appraisal questions ask you to consider and report on your
behavior - not your skulls. For example, the interviewer might ask, “In
what situations have you become so involved in the work you were doing that the
day flew by?77 If you have been explaining how you handled an irate
customer, the interviewer might ask, ‘‘Vyou were to encounter that same
situation now, how wouldyou deal with that customer?” Or, “Ifyou had the choice
of working in our marketing or our public relations department, whick would you
chose?” And after your response, you might get the follow-up question,
“Wy would you make that choice?”
Like self-appraisal, situational questions look for past experience as
indicators of future behavior. “Tell me about a recent time when you took
responsibility for a task that was outside ofyour job description, ’’ might be asked
of an applicant. Or, “Tell me about a time when you took action withoutyour
supewisor’s prior approval. ’’
Hypothetical situational questions differ only in that, rather than
asking what the interviewee has actually done in a particular situation,
these questions ask the applicant what he would do in a hypothetical
situation. Thus they give the interviewer the opportunity to ask questions
about situations the applicant may never have actually encountered in
previous positions. If, for example, the applicant has never held a
supervisory position, and the job he is being considered for would involve
some supervisory responsibilities, the hypothetical situational questions
can provide the interviewer an opportunity to get a sense of what the
candidate‘s supervisory style will be.
So why do employers like behavioral questions? Why are behavioral
questions being used by more employers and with greater frequency these
days? It is generally thought that the strength of behavioral interviewing
is that it allows the interviewer to get at thought processes on past
behaviors as well as at behaviors themselves and that, as a result, job
candidates cannot prepare for these questions as they do for the more
traditionally asked interview questions.