Want to hire the right people? Ask the right behavioural interview questions.

Behavioural Interviewing is understanding how someone will behave in a certain situation based on how they’ve behaved in the past. Here are four interview questions that will enable you to ‘test’ the candidate and five things you’ll learn from each question if you listen properly. That’s uncovering 20 behaviours and/or personality traits in just four questions! At the end of the day, you’re recruiting a person, not just a skill set.

Bernadette Eichner

Aug 4, 2020

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Interviewing job applicants can be a very stressful exercise if you aren’t trained to do it. This is partly because human beings like the sound of their own voice more than anything else (except Beethoven, perhaps) so they talk more than listen, and partly because we’re generally not that curious about other people. And all that adds up to us not asking enough questions. When we don’t ask enough questions we can’t find out what we need to know. When we haven’t found out what we need to know, we don’t have enough information to make a good decision without an element of doubt creeping in, making the whole exercise stressful.

Then we learn that’s not the way forward. Most importantly, we learn that asking more questions makes us appear more interested in others and that makes us more likeable, a good start to any relationship. But then we realise that the more questions we ask, the more information we get and the better able we are to make a confident decision. Everyone wins – the applicant feels that you’re interested in them, so they like you and open up even more, and you’ve gathered the information you need to make a good hire. Put simply, hiring the right people begins with asking the right questions.

Introducing Behavioural Interviewing

While asking questions is all well and good, we haven’t got all day to get to the nub of a conversation, so what specific questions should we be asking?

Well, that all depends on what you’re trying to find out. Are you wanting to know how the person might manage a stressful and fast-paced environment? Do you need comfort around whether they’ll step up and take the lead when a situation calls for it? How important is their willingness to be accountable for their actions? Perhaps you’re more interested in how they will get along with others in the team.

This is what we call Behavioural Interviewing – understanding how someone will behave in a certain situation based on how they’ve behaved in the past. And the best approach to use is the STAR method – Situation, Task, Action, Result. Ask the person to recall a specific situation and task, what action they took and the result that was achieved.

It’s all about asking the right questions

With this approach, we can “test” for multiple behaviours with one carefully crafted question. Once we’ve assessed someone’s skills, work experience and qualifications (pretty easy to do), what we really want to know is whether they will be “the right person”, i.e. a good fit for our team. We are keen to understand how they process and communicate information, how they work in a team, whether they can work alone and unsupervised, whether they have good initiative, can solve work under stress and solve problems rather than add to them, and so on.

While it’s ideal to learn how the person behaves in a work setting, it doesn’t really matter whether their examples are personal, work or community situations. What we’re really wanting to know is whether their behaviour and personality style is “right” for our team and its work culture.

It only takes four questions

Here are four interview questions that will enable you to “test” for all these things and five things you’ll learn about your applicant from each question if you listen properly. That’s uncovering 20 behaviours and/or personality traits in just four questions!

1. Tell me about a situation where you’ve been caught in the middle of a dispute or argument of some sort. What was the situation, what was the task/thing you were doing, what action did you take and what was the result?

Listen carefully to their answer. The 5 things you’ll learn are:

• What they consider to be a dispute or argument, which will tell you a lot about their emotional maturity and capacity to being over-sensitive.
• Whether they have a tendency to get involved in things that don’t have anything to do with them.
• What their approach to conflict resolution is – take sides or maintain the middle ground and try to diffuse.
• Whether they run to a Manager or someone else in times of stress or uncertainty.
• Whether they are able to resolve conflict and move on.

2. Tell me about a situation when you really messed up and got something wrong. What was the situation, what was the task/thing you were doing, what action did you take and what was the result?

Listen carefully to their answer. The 5 things you’ll learn are:

• What they consider to be “getting something wrong” – again, tells you a lot about their emotional maturity and capacity to being over-sensitive.
• Whether they can easily talk about a time they got something wrong – tells you about their openness and willingness to take responsibility.
• Whether they’re a person who tends to look for blame outside their own actions – not an ideal team player.
• If they’re someone who will ask for help if they’re not sure of something or push on regardless, sometimes creating problems others have to clean up.
• Whether they’re a person who can acknowledge they’ve made a mistake and learn from it.

3. Tell me about a situation when you have disagreed with your Manager or someone else on the team. What was the situation, what was the task/thing you were doing, what action did you take and what was the result?

Listen carefully to their answer. The 5 things you’ll learn are:

• On what basis they disagree with others – fact, fiction or fantasy?
• How they articulate their opposition – gently or in a hostile, adversarial fashion.
• Whether they are open to hearing both sides of an issue before stating their position.
• How they manage their feelings of discomfort with other team members.
• How they continue to support the company line even when they disagree.

4. Tell me about a situation when you realised someone in your team has messed up and got something wrong. What was the situation, what was the task/thing you were doing, what action did you take and what was the result?

Listen carefully to their answer. The 5 things you’ll learn are:

• How observant they are to what is going on around them.
• How understanding and compassionate they are.
• What initiative they have – do they step in and help?
• What leadership skills they display in times of trouble.
• Whether they have a tendency to “throw someone under the bus”.

Getting the human component right

Understanding the human component of a candidate is key to just right recruitment outcomes. It ensures you’ll hire a high performing and harmonious team of “right people” with the skills, qualifications AND behaviours you need..

We can’t learn about someone else if we do all the talking. Spending time crafting your interview questions ensures you get the best information possible to help you make the right hiring decisions. Asking open-ended questions and getting candidates to walk you through specific examples of times in their life when they have dealt with various situations will give you an insight into their character. At the end of the day, you’re recruiting a right person, not just a skill set.