Behavioral Interview List of Questions

• Why Behavioral Interviews?
• Behavioral Interview Process
• Assessing the Answers
• Behavioral Interview Questions
  • Core Values
    • Customer-Centricity / User Focus
    • Team First Mentality
    • Ownership
    • Open-Mindedness
  • Behaviors
    • Motivation & Drive
    • Planning & Organizing
    • Prioritization & Big Picture
    • Self-Reflection
    • Resilience
    • Problem-Solving & Data-Driven Approach
    • Proactiveness
    • Reliability
    • Personal Development & Growth
    • Facilitating Development & Growth
    • Process
    • Establishing Partnerships & Negotiations
    • Tech Behavior

Behavioral interviews are a great addition to understanding the candidate deeply on their motivations and overall fit within the company's culture and mission.

The goal is to assess their previous experience and learnings -> the focus is on learnings. We all have had previous bad experiences, the importance is on how fast did the candidate learn from them.

It’s important to note that this type of interview is not limited to engineering roles only. It can be used for a variety of different roles.

It’s important to have the structure well prepared before starting an interview.

I recommend having the interview last around 60 min. The structure should be as follows:

• A brief introduction and overview of the interview (5-10 min)

A quick introduction from the interviewer and the candidate. Make sure that the atmosphere is set correctly.

• Discussion on experience and learnings (45-50 min)

Ask open-ended questions and follow-up questions. Always keep in mind the criteria for assessing the answers. Pick questions, that can help you with the accuracy of your assessment most.

• Candidate's questions (5-10 min)

It’s important to take time to answer any questions from the candidate. This ensures that both sides have all the relevant information to proceed to the next step.

The answers should be in line with the STAR method - Situation, Task, Action, Result.

Always keep that in mind when assessing answers and asking follow-up questions if the answer does not give you the expected outcome.

Some great follow-up questions are:

• What was the impact you had?
• What would you do differently?
• Any lessons learned?

When the candidate is answering questions, there is a good chance that the answer will not exactly fit your expectations.

Make sure to be aware of the next signs:

1. It’s unclear what responsibility the candidate had in the situation

The candidate talks only about the team and not explicitly about what role he/she had in the situation.

Follow-up questions: What role did you have in this project? / What did the collaboration look like with others?

2. The answer is not going in the right direction

The candidate is drifting in a different direction or avoiding the answer.

Repeat or rephrase the question a bit differently to ensure that the candidate firmly understands what is expected.

3. The candidate is selling instead of stating the facts

That’s your feeling based on their answer.

Ask a follow-up question to be more specific with the situation, what they have learned, and what they would do differently. This will assure you that the candidate knows exactly what they are talking about.

4. Too generic answer

Very generic answer, without details and examples in a hypothetical way.

Ask a follow-up question or ask them to be more specific about their situation.

5. Hard time answering the question

The candidate is struggling with the question.

Don’t put additional pressure on the candidate, give them time instead. If there would not be any progress on the answer, move on to the next questions and return to this one again later.

6. Not possible to assess based on the answer

The candidate did answer your question, but you are unable to assess the answer.

Always have a backup/follow-up question prepared to ensure you can assess correctly.

• Describe a situation/project where you had to customize solutions for a customer/user.

• Tell us how you ensure the client's needs are at the center of your decisionmaking.

• Can you think of a time when you had a difficult customer that you had to satisfy? How did you handle the situation? Were you successful? What did you learn from it?

• Can you think of a time when you developed an innovative solution for your customer?

• Can you think of a time when you actively promoted customer-centric culture? What did you do? How did you ensure colleagues and stakeholders were onboard?

• Can you give us an example where a customer had issues understanding your product / didn’t understand the value of your product? How did you act? Were you able to sell your product? Would you make anything differently?

• Can you give us an example where a situation with a customer escalated? How did you resolve the situation? Would you do anything differently?

• Tell us about a time when you worked as part of a team and had to develop internal relationships. What was your role in the team, what actions did you take, how did you impact the business results, and how did you interact with the other members?

• Tell about a situation where you had to work with / align different teams or stakeholders. What were the challenges? How did you overcome them?

• Describe a situation where you faced disappointment when you were part of a project team. What happened - how did you deal with it? What did you learn? What would you do differently in the future?

• Tell us about a time when you had a conflict of opinion with a colleague. What was the situation? How did you solve the conflict? What did you learn in this situation?

• Think about a time when a colleague didn’t deliver what they promised to you / delivered bad quality work and endangered the success of a project. How did you address this situation? How did you interact with our colleague? What was the outcome?

• Can you think of a time when you actively strengthened relationships within a team / fostered knowledge sharing in your team? What did you do?

• Problem-Solving in Teams: Imagine you are working on a cool new project, and you need the assistance of another team to complete it. The other team seems demotivated to support you. What do you do?

• Tell us about a time when you needed the expertise of another team/colleague to solve an issue. What was the situation? What did you do? Would you change anything about the approach?

• Tell us about a time when you proactively took responsibility for a project / an idea that had an impact on the business's success. What did you do? Did you involve others? What was the impact?

• How do you make sure that you reach your commitments? Please give us an example from your previous jobs.

• Describe a situation and your actions where you had to overcome an obstacle to complete the work and meet expectations. Did you find a solution on your own? Did you involve others? What was the outcome? What did you learn?

• Tell us about a time when you failed to deliver what you promised. How did you handle this situation and what was your reasoning behind your approach?

• Tell us about a challenging and draining project you worked on. How did you keep yourself motivated and engaged to see it through?

• Tell us about a time when you were new to an organization. How did you gather knowledge about your business unit and your organization's business practices?

• How do you manage your workload? Please give us an example of a time you have had to adapt this plan.

• Tell me about the most challenging project you have managed successfully. What made it challenging? How did you ensure the project was completed successfully? What would you do differently next time? How did you monitor and measure success?

• Think about a time when you disagreed with a colleague about the best way to reach a shared goal. How did you handle the situation? How did you try to resolve the conflict? Which approach was chosen in the end and why? What did you learn?

• Describe a situation in which you have had to work in a multicultural environment and the challenges you had. How did you approach the situation, and what was the outcome?

• Give us an example of your past where you actively fostered and strengthened an open feedback culture.

• Tell us about a time when you openly expressed your opinion or disagreement to a superior.

• Tell us about a time you had to communicate a difficult message. What was it and how did you handle it?

• Tell us about a time when you had to face a situation of uncertainty and adapt to changing circumstances. How did you cope?

• Tell us of a time when you had to work under a lot of pressure. How did you handle it? How did you ensure to keep up your motivation and drive?

• Tell us of a situation in which you had to present your team with a major change that would impact their work (reorganization, new system, relocation...).

• Tell us about a time when you proactively implemented or strengthened a culture of diversity and inclusion in your workplace.

• Have you worked in an international environment before? Give us an example where you had to adapt your thinking to accommodate a different cultural perspective.

• What motivates you for the role? Why do you find these aspects motivating?

• Describe a time that you felt particularly motivated and why?

• Tell us about a situation where you felt demotivated. What did you do to get your drive back?

• How do you manage your workload

  • ... Please give us an example of a time you have had to adapt this plan?
  • ... Would you have done anything differently if the same situation arose again?

• How do you prioritize your tasks/projects?

• Tell me about a situation where you received multiple urgent requests from different stakeholders. How did you prioritize them?

• How do you ensure to keep the big picture while working on multiple projects?

• Can you describe a situation where you made a mistake that affected the outcome of a project / affected a potential customer/ partner?
  • What did you learn from it?

• Can you describe the moment you realized a substantial decision you made had been incorrect?
  • What was the decision?
  • How did you know it was a mistake?
  • How did you handle the situation?
  • What did you learn?

• Tell us of a time when you had to work under a lot of pressure. How did you cope?

• Tell me about a project that you solved creatively. What was the challenge?
  • How did you approach the problem
  • How did you ensure the project was completed successfully?
  • How did you monitor and measure success?
  • What would you do differently next time?
• (if a candidate can’t think of a creative solution → talk about the most challenging project)

• Tell us about a time when you proactively took responsibility for a project / an idea that had an impact on the business's success. What did you do? Did you involve others? What was the impact?

• Can you think of a time when you improved an internal process? What did you do? What was the outcome?

• Tell us about a time when you were new to an organization. How did you gather knowledge about the product, your business unit, and your organization's business practices? Would you do anything differently this time?

• Can you think of a time when you realized you were not able to achieve your KPIs / goals? What did you do? Did you learn something from the experience?

• Can you give an example where you were not able to keep up a promise to your customer or stakeholder (eg deadline, individual product settings,...). How did you react?

• What do you do to stay up to date in your field?

• Can you give an example where you facilitated growth/development in your team or a team member?

• How did you actively improve the learning culture in your company? What did you do? What impact did it have?

• Can you walk us through a specific project and tell us all the different steps you went through?

• Tell me about a time when you successfully convinced a difficult customer/ partner of your product’s value.

  • How did you establish the relationship with the customer/ partner?
  • How did you convince them?
  • Did you have to negotiate with the customer/ partner? How did you prepare for it?

• (If the candidate has no customer example, think about a situation where a stakeholder had to be convinced)

• What steps do you take to ensure code is of high levels of quality and performance?

• When does the responsibility of the developer in maintaining the code end?

• What was the last technology framework you selected and why?

  • ... What don’t you like about it?

Any questions you'd like to add, feel free to open a PR! I am looking to make this a most complete list of questions for behavioral interviews.