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*UPDATE* The full list of all 893 Behavioral Interview Questions is Now Available! *****
?Time for the next round of Job Interview / career search Behavioral questions!
I’ve got 80 for you this time – the 2010 Thanksgiving Edition – do some Career Search homework this holiday season!!! …so let’s get to it!
| Attibutes | Questions |
| Judgment/Problem Solving | • Give me an example of a decision that you made rapidly and one you took more time to make. |
| Judgment/Problem Solving | • Give me an example of a time you used a contractor or consultant for something that, in hindsight, should have been done internally. |
| Judgment/Problem Solving | • Solving a problem often necessitates evaluation of alternate solutions. Give me an example of a time when you actively defined several solutions to a single problem. (NOTE: Make sure they talk about the tools used–e.g., research, brainstorming–as well as how and why they used the tools.) |
| Leadership | • Give me an example of a time when you were able to foresee an inappropriate course of action a team was moving in and help steer them in the right direction. |
| Leadership | • Tell me about a time you had to have a candid discussion with one of your direct reports regarding a work-related issue. |
| Organizational Awareness | • Give me an example of a time you failed to align the strategic priorities of your department/team with the strategic priorities of the organization. |
| Organizational Awareness | • Tell us about a politically complex work situation in which you worked. |
| Planning & Organizing/Work Management | • Tell me about a time you were faced with conflicting priorities. How did you resolve the conflict? Was it effective? Why or why not? |
| Planning & Organizing/Work Management | • Tell me about the last time you missed a deadline because you were not well organized. |
| Practical Learning | • At some point, everyone gets in over his head. Tell me about a time this happened to you. |
| Practical Learning | • Tell me about a time when you had to learn something new in a short amount of time. What created the situation? What did you have to learn? How did you learn it? |
| Quality Orientation/Attention to Detail | • Describe a situation where you had the option to leave the details to others or you could take care of them yourself. |
| Resilience | • Tell me about a time when your work or an idea of yours was criticized. |
| Risk Taking | • Give me an example of when you took a risk to achieve a goal. What was the outcome? |
| Safety Awareness | • Tell me about the most challenging safety issue you have had to deal with. What, specifically, made it challenging? |
| Teamwork/Collaboration | • Describe a time you led a team of people who didn’t always see eye to eye. What did you do? Why did you choose to do that? How did it work out? |
| Teamwork/Collaboration | • Tell me about a time when you were able to provide your team with recognition for the work they performed. |
| Technical/Professional Knowledge | • Do you have any future plans of attending training classes, etc. to enhance your knowledge and skills? |
| Technical/Professional Knowledge | • What was the most difficult part of obtaining your certification? |
| Tenacity | • Describe a situation when you had to get a job done in spite of an unforeseen problem. |
| Tenacity | • Describe a time when, against all odds, you were able to get a project or task completed within the defined parameters. |
| Tolerance for Stress/Energy | • Give me an example of a time when you could not participate in a discussion or could not finish a task because you did not have enough information. |
| Tolerance for Stress/Energy | • Tell me about a project that required you to work well under pressure. |
| Tolerance for Stress/Energy | • Tell me about a time when ambiguity was an obstacle to you getting a task or project completed. What was ambiguous? How long was it ambiguous? |
| Work Standards | • Give me an example of a time that you had to act with very little planning. |
| Adaptability | • Tell me about a situation in which you have had to adjust to changes over which you had no control. |
| Adaptability | • Think about a time when you were involved in a group project or activity where the others involved were difficult to get along with. What did you do about it? |
| Adaptability | • What do you do when you are faced with an obstacle to an important project? Give an example. |
| Analysis/Problem Assessment | • Give me an example of the most creative solution to a difficult problem you have ever come up with. |
| Analysis/Problem Assessment | • Tell me about the most difficult problem you’ve ever had to solve. What steps did you take to tackle it? |
| Communication | • Describe a situation where you distrusted a coworker/supervisor, resulting in tension between you. What steps did you take to improve the relationship? |
| Communication | • Tell me about a time you mistrusted another employee, resulting in tension between the two of you. What did you do to improve the relationship? Were you successful in improving it? |
| Communication | • Tell us about an experience in which you had to speak up in order to be sure that other people knew what you thought or felt. |
| Customer Service Orientation | • Describe a time you heard someone out, even though you initially disagreed with the person, only to change your mind in the end. |
| Customer Service Orientation | • When is listening important on your job? When is listening difficult? |
| Delegation of Authority & Responsibility | • Describe a time when, even though it was difficult, you kept quiet and let a team resolve problems on its own rather than prescribing a solution for them. |
| Delegation of Authority & Responsibility | • Tell me about a task or project that you unsuccessfully delegated. What happened? What did you learn? How did you apply what you learned to other situations? |
| Delegation of Authority & Responsibility | • Tell us how you go about delegating work? |
| Impact | • Tell me about something you did in your (last/current) position of which you are particularly proud. |
| Information Monitoring | • Describe a situation where you delayed providing others with information that would have been valuable to them. |
| Initiative | • Give me an example of a project where you came up with the idea and managed the process start to finish. |
| Innovation | • When was the last time that you thought “outside of the box” and how did you do it? |
| Integrity | • Sometimes it is important to disagree with others in order to keep a mistake from being made. Tell me about a time when you were willing to disagree with another person in order to build a positive outcome. (NOTE: Make sure you find out who the person was they disagreed with, what the outcome was, and whether the outcome was positive–or if not, what happened to keep it from being a positive outcome.) |
| Judgment/Problem Solving | • Describe for me your biggest error in judgment or failure in your (current or last) position. Why did you make it? How did you correct the problem? |
| Judgment/Problem Solving | • Give me an example of a time when you had to make a decision and policies/procedures were not in place. |
| Leadership | • Tell me about a time when you were able to give an employee what she needed to maintain or regain her motivation. |
| Management | • Give an example of a time in which you felt you were able to build motivation in your co-workers or subordinates at work. |
| Organizational Awareness | • Tell me about a time where you were able to successfully navigate through a tough political situation. |
| Organizational Awareness | • What have you done in order to be effective with your organization and planning? |
| Planning & Organizing/Work Management | • Describe how you develop a project team’s goals and project plan? |
| Planning & Organizing/Work Management | • Give me an example of a time when you had to juggle several important activities and projects in a limited amount of time. Did you stay on top of all of them? How? |
| Planning & Organizing/Work Management | • Give me an example of a time when you set a goal and were able to meet or achieve it. |
| Planning & Organizing/Work Management | • Give me an example of a time when you were effective in doing away with the “constant emergencies” and “surprises” in your work environment. |
| Planning & Organizing/Work Management | • How many hours a day do you put into your work? What were your study patterns at school? |
| Planning & Organizing/Work Management | • Tell me about a time you had to handle multiple responsibilities. How did you organize the work you needed to do? |
| Planning & Organizing/Work Management | • Tell me about an important goal you failed to achieve. |
| Planning & Organizing/Work Management | • With fax machines, e-mail, and other technology speeding up processes, time seems to be something we are always running low on. Describe some things you have done to organize your work in the past to meet the various time demands. |
| Quality Orientation/Attention to Detail | • Have the jobs you held in the past required little attention, moderate attention, or a great deal of attention to detail? Give me an example of a situation that illustrates this requirement. |
| Quality Orientation/Attention to Detail | • Tell me about a time when you caught an error that others had missed. |
| Risk Taking | • Tell me about a time you took action based on your own convictions rather than giving in to the contrary pressures of other’s opinions. |
| Teamwork/Collaboration | • Describe a time where, had you not been able to get another person’s or group’s cooperation, you probably would not have been successful. |
| Teamwork/Collaboration | • Give me an example of a time that you used one of your strengths to help another person or team succeed. |
| Teamwork/Collaboration | • Tell me about a time where, if it hadn’t been for teamwork, your goal might not have been achieved. |
| Technical/Professional Knowledge | • Tell me about a time where your understanding of a (social/organizational/technological) system helped you be more successful than you would have been otherwise. |
| Tenacity | • Tell me about a time when you stayed with an idea or project for longer than anyone expected you to. |
| Analysis/Problem Assessment | • Describe a situation where you had a conflict with another individual, and how you dealt with it. What was the outcome? How do you feel about it? |
| Analysis/Problem Assessment | • Give me an example of a time that you were provided with information that enabled you to stop a potential problem from occurring. |
| Analysis/Problem Assessment | • What are some of the problems you have faced; such as between business development and project leaders, between one department and another, between you and your peers? How did you recognize that they were there? |
| Communication | • Describe a time you used verbal communication to get across a point that was important to you. Were you successful/unsuccessful? |
| Communication | • Give an example of a time when you made a mistake because you did not listen well to what someone had to say. |
| Communication | • Tell me about a job experience in which you had to speak up in order to be sure that other people knew what you thought or felt. |
| Communication | • Tell me about a time where you used humor that backfired on you. |
| Communication | • Tell me about a time where your active listening skills really paid off for you. |
| Communication | • Tell us about the last time you had to negotiate with someone. |
| Communication | • What kinds of oral presentations have you made? How did you prepare for them? What challenges did you have? |
| Customer Service Orientation | • Give me an example of a time you effectively used your people skills to solve a customer problem. |
| Customer Service Orientation | • Tell me about a time when you did your best to resolve a customer or client concern and the individual was still not satisfied. |
| Delegation of Authority & Responsibility | • Give me a specific example of how you have empowered your staff to make independent decisions. |
| Information Monitoring | • Give me an example of a time when you were slow to share information with your direct reports or team members and this had a negative impact on one or more or them. |
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