Here’s a SWAG: over the past 6.5 years I’ve conducted over 2 interviews per week tallying over 650 in total. I performed over 15 in a single week running the Duo Engineering internship program.

The compendium includes systems design sessions, algorithmic coding assessments, and introductory phone interviews. Behavioral interviews were the most prevalent.

Behavorial interviewing posits that past behavior is the best predictor of future success.

Questions often follow the form “Tell me about a time when…” or “Have you ever…?”

Tell me about a time you provided critical feedback to a boss or superior.

I’m not as interested in what you’d do in a hypothetical situation. Instead, I want you to show me what you have done in reality.

There are weaknesses to this approach.

Less tenured candidates may not have experienced different scenarios. An entry-level candidate may never have provided critical feedback to a superior.

A poor interviewee may get filtered out by a poor interviewer: someone who doesn’t continue to probe and ask questions to draw the candidate out.

Yet, I’ve seen workplace behaviors from hires repeatedly prove the value of behavioral interviews.

It makes me sad when I see candidates overthink behavioral interview questions. I’m not trying to entrap the candidate. I’m not looking for one right answer; there are many. I want to hire great people. And I want great people to do well in their interviews.

Below are 3 principles to follow as an interviewee.

Tell a Story

Really. Don’t tell me what you would do (more on that later).

If you can’t think of a story immediately, ask for a moment to collect your thoughts. I’d rather have you sit for 20 seconds in silence. Provide a meaningful anecdote rather than tell me something has never happened to you.

If you can’t think of a story that’s an exact match, tell something that’s proximate. Tell me:

I don’t know if this will be an exact match but I think it will help you understand a similar scenario.

Telling stories involves details.

Yes, you could study and follow the STAR model. Or treat me like a human.

We were working on this project…
This was my role and who else was involved…
Here was the problem…
Here’s what I did and how others were involved…
This is how it ended up…

You know that old saying, if you always tell the truth you don’t have to remember what you told someone? Do that too.

I’ll ask a lot of follow-up questions. I’m trying to paint a picture of how you behave.

You mentioned telling your boss that it hurt morale when they…
Did that conversation happen over Slack, email, face-to-face?…
How did you know it hurt morale?

I get that you might be drawing on a 5 year old event. I’m not deposing you, and you’re not perjured if the details aren’t 100% accurate. But try to recall. If you don’t remember what you did for that situation, tell me in that case what was commonplace behavior.

Stay Positive

All businesses are loosely functioning disasters.

— Brent Beshore

I hire positive change agents. Yes, I asked you to tell me about a time you worked with a difficult coworker or boss.

Yes, they may have been intolerable. Organizations are messy places. We’re not there to solve easy problems. Do you work to make things better, constructively?

It’s not that hard.

9 times out of 10 when someone says:

I don’t want to speak poorly of my past employer.

I know the next word out of their mouth is going to be…

But

Stay positive. If this is hard for you, consider changing this single thought pattern in life.

Take Ownership

Remember that question about the difficult coworker? Did you make an effort to make it work?

No? Ok.

Did you reflect on that and wish you had behaved differently? Yes? Great!

This is your chance to tell me what you did and what you wish you had done differently. This is the one time I want to hear hypotheticals.

One co-worker in particular I worked with early in my career was incredibly difficult. I honestly didn’t have the crucial conversations with them that I wish I had. I ended up quitting. I haven’t encountered anyone as challenging for me as that since then. But I have a few cases where I was encountering friction with a co-worker. I remembered where I fell down and decided to have an uncomfortable conversation. Can I share that with you?

Yes. Yes. Yes. Please do! (Can you tell I’m excited?)

That’s it:

• Tell a Story
• Stay Positive
• Take Ownership

These are three simple principles to follow.

In practice these are hard to internalize and apply. Behavioral interviews reflect people’s behaviors as well as their perceptions. Powerful things to change. So I’m not worried about folks gaming the system.

I hope this post helps even a few people better represent their experiences, interview better, and land in great organizations.