Tackling the Behavioral Interview

While the majority of candidates typically enter a job interview process prepared to tackle a variety of the standard "tell-us-about-yourself" questions, a growing trend among prospective employers is the use of a process known as behavioral interviewing to determine the strongest candidates for a position.

Behavioral interviewing, which was first developed in the 1970s by industrial psychologists, asserts that "the most accurate predictor of future performance is past performance in a similar situation." Through behavioral interviewing, prospective employers gain insight on how candidates have handled themselves when faced with different challenges or scenarios in their previous work experiences.

Typical behavioral interviewing questions might look something like these:

• Give me an example of an important professional goal which you had set in the past and tell me about your success in reaching it.
  
• Describe an instance when you had to think on your feet to handle a difficult work situation.
  
• How do you decide what gets top priority when scheduling your time?
  Give me an example of a time when you went above and beyond the call of duty.
  
• Have you ever had to "sell" an idea to your co-workers or group? How did you do it? Did they "buy" it?
  
• Can you describe one decision that you regret? What did you learn from the experience?
  

While we wouldn't advise that any of our past or present candidates pursue a life of crime as their full-time career, here is an excellent example of how even a pickpocket can promote his skillset, personality and.. well... lack of morals... by mastering the interview process. While it's a five-minute clip, pay close attention from 1:08 - 1:38 to see the pickpocket address a standard, subjective interview question, and from 3:22-3:43 to see him tackle a behavioral question. *Note* We do not hire for pickpockets, unfortunately. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact Chris Rubacky at chris@cvrsearch.com.

It's Not Casual!

Unlike Tom Drake’s favorite phrase in The Wild Life, one of the first bits of advice I’d have to relay to candidates applying to any type of position in the working world is to simply remember – It’s not casual. In recent memory, I’ve found myself in two different recruiting scenarios where otherwise polished, professional candidates made seemingly trivial mistakes that drastically affected my desire to try to place them.

In the first situation, I interviewed "Jane Doe" for a paralegal position with a top-20 law firm. Aside from the necessary legal background, Jane presented herself with the professionalism, poise and astuteness that the ideal candidate would need to be considered for the position. I was impressed by her resume, and was about to begin the process of checking her references to continue on with the placement process. However, when I had called Jane to ask her a question, I inevitably stumbled on her voicemail greeting, which went something like this:

“Hi, my name is Jane. Leave a message and – if I feel like it – I’ll call you back.”

While her resume was great and her interview with me had gone as well as I could have anticipated from any candidate, one snarky voicemail recording made me completely forget her otherwise professional demeanor. And, although we can all recall those friends of ours who still elect to use the 90’s pop-themed ring-back tones – or, heaven forbid, those relatives that opt to sing their voicemail messages – it’s not such a bright idea if the voicemail your future employer stumbles upon sounds like a recording George Costanza might use.




In the second scenario, "John Doe" and I had communicated back and forth about potential placement opportunities. John was highly qualified and he carried himself very well over the phone, in e-mails, and even in-person. He dressed professionally when I met him and he seemed like a well-rounded individual – a great fit for the position in consideration. However, when John sent me a copy of his resume, the subject line of his e-mail looked like something you might expect to read in a Tweet, rather than in a formal message regarding his work and education experiences. Whether by choice or in an uncharacteristic bout of laziness, John had written the entire e-mail subject line using only lowercase letters.

Don’t get me wrong, social media tools like Twitter and Facebook are excellent – and seemingly less formal – resources for promoting your thoughts, products and written works. However, it’s not such a great idea to base your formal presentations off the same language you might use in a 160-character commentary on the delicious lunch you had or that status update about your latest frustrations with the D.C. metro system.

Lastly, I’d have to point out that one of the greatest perks of my job is my ability to work with recent graduates and prepare them to enter the workforce. I’ve noticed that the majority of the advice I provide to recent graduates stems from the same advice I give to my senior candidates. That being said, while senior candidates typically make fewer mistakes when applying for new positions, my experience has been that candidates of all ages and backgrounds often make the mistake of forgetting that the entire job application process simply isn’t casual.



If you found this post helpful, please feel free to contact Chris Rubacky at (202) 223-1684 or e-mail him at chris@cvrsearch.com.