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.