Behavioral Interview Questions

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Behavioral interviews assess how you’ve handled real situations in the past. Use the STAR method (Situation, Task, Action, Result) to structure your answers.

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Conflict & Challenges

Handling Conflict

Have you ever faced any challenges/conflicts with colleagues?
Tell me about a situation where you had a conflict with someone on your team. What was it about? What did you do? How did they react? What was the outcome?
Tell me about a time when you solved a conflict at work.
Have you handled a difficult situation with a coworker? How?
Tell me about a time when your teammate didn’t agree with you. What did you do?
Tell me about a time when you had conflicting ideas with your teammates and how did you resolve them?

Disagreeing with Management

Challenge with manager when you had to disagree with your manager and manager agreed with your point.
Challenge with manager when you had to agree with manager even though he was wrong.
What you could have done for above so that you could have convinced your manager?
What do you do if you disagree with your boss?
Time when you pushed back a decision from your management for better long term benefits.
Tell me about a time when you took a decision on your own without the manager’s prior approval.
Tell me about a time when you had to decide upon something without consulting your superior.

Overcoming Obstacles

Describe the project that you had the most trouble with. What would you have done differently?
Tell me about a time you faced an obstacle and how you overcame it.
Tell me about a time when you faced a difficult challenge.
A time when you faced a setback initially but still achieved the goal.
Tell me about a time when you felt under pressure that you wouldn’t be able to get something done or had to take a pivot at the last minute.

Deadlines & Pressure

Time Constraints

Time when you were working on a project on a time constraint.
Tell me about a time when you couldn’t meet your deadline.
Time when you didn’t meet a deadline.
Tell me about a time when you did not meet your deadlines for a project.
Tell me about a time when you had to face tight time constraints during a project.
Handling a tight deadline.
A time when you had to cut corners to meet a deadline.
Time when you failed to meet your commitment.

Working Under Pressure

Have you ever been in a situation where you had to make a choice among a few options, but did not have a lot of time to explore each option?
Talk about a time where you had to make a decision in a lot of ambiguity.
Tell me about a time where you had limited time and how it impacted.

Leadership & Initiative

Taking Ownership

Have you ever gone out of your way to help a peer? (ownership)
Time when you went above and beyond your job responsibilities.
Name time when you went out of your way to help someone?
Time when your team members were not supporting something but you pushed and went for a more optimal solution.
Tell me about a time when you thought of an unpopular idea.
Tell me a time you took some on some risk.

Decision Making

Have you ever had to make a tough decision without consulting anybody? (bias for action)
Time when you did not have enough data and had to use judgement to make decision.
Tell me about a time when you took important decision without any data?
Tell me about a time where you had to make a decision based on limited information and how it impacted the outcome.

Motivating Others

How do you keep your team engaged?
Share an example of how you were able to motivate employees or co-workers.
Time when you helped someone grow in career and it benefited them.
Time when you helped someone grow but did not benefit them.

Helping Others

Supporting Teammates

Give an example of when you saw a peer struggling and decided to step in and help. What was the situation and what actions did you take? What was the outcome?
Tell me about a time you had to help a team member struggling with a task.
Time when you helped someone in their work.
Tell me about a time when you helped one of your teammates.
How would you help a new employee who is facing technical difficulties?
Time when you needed help from somebody.
Tell me about a time when you needed help from someone during a project.

Collaboration

Situation when you had to agree with your junior.
Tell me about a time when your earned your teammate’s trust.

Innovation & Learning

Innovation

Tell me about a time when you invented something.
Time when you came up with novel solution.
Tell me about a time when you innovated and exceeded the expectation.
Tell me about a time you had multiple solutions and you had to select an optimal one.

Learning & Growth

Tell me about a time when you learned new technologies.
What websites do you spend a lot of time on?
Tell me about a time where you did not know something and how you tackled it.
What do you do when the requirement from the stakeholder is vague?
What do you do if you don’t know the solution for a certain problem and nobody can help at the moment?

Experimentation

How do you experiment?
How do you know a feature you have built is working?

Self-Reflection

Strengths & Weaknesses

What is your biggest strength and weakness?
Your improvement areas.
Recent improvements which helped your in professional and personal life.

Failures & Feedback

Talk about a time when you failed.
Have you ever failed at something? What did you learn from it?
Tell me about a time you committed a mistake.
Received negative feedback from manager and how you responded.
Time when you were 75% through a project and realized you had the wrong goal.

Career Goals

Where do you see yourself in next 5/10 years?
What was the biggest takeaway from your current job that you’ll carry with you throughout your career?
Why do you want to change jobs? Why now?

General

Tell Me About Yourself

Tell me about yourself.
Tell me about a project you’re working on.
Tell me about one of your projects.
A project you’re proud of.

Communication & Organization

How do you make a case for your vision and opinion?
How do you stay organized?
Give an example of an occasion when you used logic to solve a problem.

Suggestions & Impact

Tell me about a time when your suggestions brought positive changes/impact to the team.
Give examples of situations where you have shown effectiveness, empathy, adaptability, and humbleness.