Responding to a Behavioral Interview Question with a STAR

Hello recruiters!

We begin our interviewing and selection module by sitting in the candidate's seat, responding to a behavioral interview question.

Before we get into the specifics of a STAR, let's go back to the core concept behind behavioral or competency-based interviewing:

Past behavior is the best predictor of future behavior. (Kessler, 2012, p. 22). 

Whether siting in the candidate's or hiring manager's seat, this concept is central to competency-based interviewing. We'll spend more time on the manager's perspective next week, so now let's discuss responding to behavioral questions from the candidate's perspective.

As you saw in the interview posed to the candidate in the Fisher College of Business video, a behavioral question asks candidates to provide a specific example from past experience. This example illustrates the candidate's level of effectiveness regarding a particular competency in which the hiring manager is interested.

From the candidates perspective, we always want to (1) understand the question (competency) being asked about, and (2) be sure to answer the question directly, speaking about our own experience.

The question asked of the Fisher candidate is both typical and well constructed. It asks for a specific example from the past. Note that the focus of the question is not to play "gotcha" with the candidate when he identifies a failure, but to understand how he learns from failure and applies that learning in future circumstances.

Many of you picked-up on this in your own responses to the question. Courtney, Janine, Julie, Karson, Lauren, Eddie, John, Greg, Matthew, Ricky and Rob all identified examples of goals not met, but then quickly went on to discuss how those missed goals (failures) were actually learning opportunities. Courtney does a great job setting this stage at the beginning of her post.

Keeping the STAR (situation, task, action, result) acronym in mind when responding to interview questions will help you to answer the question directly and provide a full response. Of course you want to do this when a behavioral question is asked, but doing so when a hiring manager is not asking competency-based interview questions is even better. Providing a behavioral responses in that circumstance will set you apart from the other candidates.

Overall, nice work with your behavioral responses and STARs. You'll have an opportunity to build STARs related to specific competencies next week, as well as examine how to design and execute a competency-based interview from the hiring manager's seat.

See you in class on Monday!