Keep that career search going, people!
*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… so let’s get to it!
Click Here to Learn How to Answer These Questions and More
| Attibutes | Questions |
| Initiative | • Give me an example of an important goal you have had and tell me about your success in achieving it. |
| Initiative | • Give me an example of something that you have done to make your job easier or more interesting. |
| Initiative | • Tell me about a time when you demonstrated too much initiative? |
| Initiative | • What sorts of projects did you generate that required you to go beyond your job description? |
| Innovation | • When is the last time you had to introduce a new idea or procedure to people on the job? How did you do it? |
| Interpersonal Skills/Influence | • Have you ever had to persuade a peer or manager to accept an idea that you knew they would not like? Describe the resistance you met and how you overcame it. |
| Interpersonal Skills/Influence | • How do you get a peer or colleague to accept one of your ideas? |
| Leadership | • Describe a time you were able to provide your boss with recognition for the work he performed. |
| Leadership | • Tell me about a time you had to motivate a group of people. |
| Leadership | • Tell me about a time you refrained from saying something that you felt needed to be said. Do you regret your decision? Why or why not? |
| Leadership | • Tell us about a time when you influenced the outcome of a project by taking a leadership role. |
| Leadership | • Think about a time when setting a positive example had a highly beneficial impact on people you worked with. How did you determine that a strong example was needed? What did you do? What was the effect on the people? |
| Organizational Awareness | • Describe a politically sensitive situation that you were in and how you handled it. |
| Organizational Awareness | • Give me an example of a time when your ability to read an organization’s culture enabled you to be successful at something. |
| Organizational Awareness | • Tell me about a time you recognized a problem before your boss or others in the organization. What was the problem? What was the result? |
| Organizational Awareness | • Tell me about a time your willingness to play politics made you successful. |
| Planning & Organizing/Work Management | • Describe a time when your plans didn’t work out. What did you do to recover? |
| Planning & Organizing/Work Management | • Describe a time you had to deal with a particularly difficult resource management issue regarding people/material/assets. |
| Planning & Organizing/Work Management | • Relate a specific instance when you found it necessary to be precise in order to complete the job. |
| Planning & Organizing/Work Management | • Think about the assignments you completed over the past few months. Tell me about the one that required the greatest amount of effort with regard to planning and organizing. |
| Teamwork/Collaboration | • Tell me about a time you recognized a team member for having made a valuable contribution to the team. |
| Technical/Professional Knowledge | • What sorts of things have you done to become better qualified for your career? |
| Tenacity | • Give me an example of a time when you tried to accomplish something and failed. Why did you fail? If you had it to do over again, what would you do differently? |
| Tenacity | • Tell me about a really tough day that you had recently and what you did to get through it. |
| Tolerance for Stress/Energy | • Describe the worst on-the-job crisis you had to solve. How did you manage to maintain your composure? |
| Adaptability | • Describe a situation where you, at first, resisted a change at work and later accepted it. What specifically changed your mind? |
| Adaptability | • Give me an example of a time when you helped a direct report or other person in the organization accept change and make the necessary adjustments to move forward. What were the change/transition skills that you used? |
| Adaptability | • Tell me about a time you avoided forming an opinion of someone based on his outward appearance. |
| Analysis/Problem Assessment | • Give me an example of a disappointment you had to handle in the past year. How did you cope with it? |
| Communication | • Describe a situation where you used humor to ease tensions. |
| Communication | • Describe a time when you had difficulty communicating your thoughts clearly to another person or group. What message were you trying to convey? Where did the difficulty in communicating lie? How did you end up getting your point across? |
| Communication | • Give me an example of a time on the job when you disagreed with your boss or a higher level manager. What were your options for settling the conflict? Why did you choose the option you did? Were you able to get your point across? How successful were you in settling the conflict? |
| Communication | • How do you keep subordinates informed about information that affects their jobs? |
| Communication | • Tell me about a presentation you made to a large audience. What was the purpose? How did you prepare it? |
| Communication | • What would your co-workers (or staff) say is the most frustrating thing about your communications with them? |
| Communication | • When you have difficulty persuading someone to your point of view, what do you do? Give an example. |
| Delegation of Authority & Responsibility | • Give me an example of a time that you should have delegated a task/project, but chose not to. |
| Developing Organizational Talent | • Give me an example of a time you were unwilling or unable to make the necessary sacrifice to achieve a goal. |
| Developing Organizational Talent | • Tell me about a time you coached or mentored someone to a higher level of performance or a higher level position. |
| Information Monitoring | • Tell me about a time where your failure to gather sufficient information resulted in your making a decision or action that you probably should not have done. |
| Initiative | • Give me an example of an idea you tried to sell to management that was not adopted. Why do you think it wasn’t adopted? If you had it to do over again, what would you do differently? |
| Initiative | • Tell me about your career plan and what you have done so far to accomplish it? |
| Initiative | • We all have periods of downtime at work. Tell me about a downtime you had, why you had it, and what you did with that time. |
| Innovation | • Tell us about a suggestion you made to improve the way job processes/operations worked. What was the result? |
| Integrity | • Keeping information confidential is very important. Describe the last time someone asked you for information that they should not have access to. What did you do? |
| Integrity | • Tell me about a time when you had to resolve a difference of opinion with a coworker/customer/supervisor. How do you feel you showed respect for that person? |
| Interpersonal Skills/Influence | • Tell me about a time you were unsuccessful in a negotiation because you chose not to back off of something that was part of the negotiation. |
| Judgment/Problem Solving | • Describe a time you had to make a quick decision with incomplete information. |
| Judgment/Problem Solving | • Tell us about a time when you identified a potential problem and resolved the situation before it became serious. |
| Judgment/Problem Solving | • We all make decisions that turn out to be mistakes. Describe a decision you made at work that you wish you could do over. What would you do differently if you could do it over again? |
| Leadership | • Tell me about a time when you had to take charge and start the ball rolling to get a job done. What were the ramifications if the job didn’t get done? What did you do? How did it turn out? |
| Leadership | • Tell me about a time you had to handle a tough morale problem. |
| Leadership | • What was your most difficult decision in the last 6 months? What made it difficult? |
| Management | • Tell me about a time you had to confront and handle the negative behavior of someone who reports to you. What was the situation? What did you do? What was the outcome? |
| Management | • Tell me about the best hire you ever made. |
| Organizational Awareness | • Tell me about a way that you have championed the concept of corporate citizenship/stewardship within your team/department/organization. |
| Practical Learning | • In your current (most recent) position, tell me how you developed an appropriate depth of knowledge and skill about the company’s procedures/services. |
| Practical Learning | • Tell me about a time you anticipated the need to improve a technical/functional skill and took action proactively. |
| Quality Orientation/Attention to Detail | • Tell me about a suggestion you made to improve the way job processes/operations worked. |
| Resilience | • Describe a situation in which you received constructive feedback about your work. What was the feedback about? What was your assessment of the feedback? What did you do with the information you received? What changes did you make? |
| Risk Taking | • Describe for me the riskiest business decision you have ever made. Why did you make the decision? Were you successful and why or why not? |
| Teamwork/Collaboration | • Describe a time when you had to have coworkers with different work styles or ideas work together on a project. What specifically did you do to pull them together? |
| Tolerance for Stress/Energy | • Tell me about a time you lost your temper/cool/composure. |
| Tolerance for Stress/Energy | • There are times when we are placed under extreme pressure on the job. Tell me about a time when you were under such pressure and how you handled it. |
| Work Standards | • We all feel that we are unique in our accomplishments. Tell me an accomplishment you have had that you feel is unique. |
| Adaptability | • Tell us about a situation in which you had to adjust to changes over which you had no control. How did you handle it? |
| Analysis/Problem Assessment | • Give me an example of a time an employee came to you and was anxious about something. How did you handle the situation? What was the result? |
| Analysis/Problem Assessment | • Tell me about a time you had to give the benefit of the doubt to someone at work. |
| Analysis/Problem Assessment | • Tell me about a time you missed an obvious solution to a problem. |
| Communication | • Describe a situation where you had to collect information by asking many people a lot of questions. |
| Communication | • Give me an example of a time where, by speaking management’s language, you were able to convince them to do something that they might not have done otherwise. |
| Communication | • Sometimes people hear but don’t listen. Tell me about a time when you misunderstood someone. Why to you think you misunderstood? How did you resolve the misunderstanding? |
| Communication | • Tell me about a sensitive or volatile situation that required very careful communication. |
| Communication | • Tell me about a time you had to use your presentation skills to influence someone’s opinion. |
| Communication | • Tell me about a time you used your sense of humor to diffuse a potential problem. |
| Customer Service Orientation | • Give an example of a time when you went above and beyond the call of duty. |
| Developing Organizational Talent | • Tell me about a specific developmental plan that you created and carried out with one or more of your direct reports who was not performing up to expectations. What were the components of the developmental plan? What was the timeframe? What was the outcome? |
| Integrity | • Give me examples of how you acted with integrity (walked your talk) in your job/work relationships. |
| Integrity | • Tell me the one thing about you as an employee that you hope your current or last boss doesn’t tell me during a reference call. |
| Interpersonal Skills/Influence | • Tell me how you persuaded someone to support an unpopular project or idea. |