|
|
 |
 |
|
Behavior-Oriented Questions
Many interviewers are moving towards a Behavior-Based Interview (BBI) method. The philosophy behind BBI is that there are certain behaviors that are critical to success in each job. People who demonstrate these behaviors regularly and over long periods of time are most likely to use them as a matter of course. The purpose of BBI questions is to find out whether you exhibit these behaviors on a regular basis.
Typical BBI questions begin with: "Tell me about a time when you..." "Give me an example of your ability to ...."
How to answer BBI questions:
1. Review the job description to discern the behaviors/skills most important to performance.
2. Practice answering BBI questions related to those behaviors.
3. Use the acronym "STAR" as a framework for answering questions.
- Situation - Begin your answer by briefly explaining the Situation you faced that caused you to exhibit the behavior.
- Task - Follow this description with another that explains the Tasks that you decided needed to be performed.
- Action - Explain the Actions you took to solve the problem.
- Results - Describe the Results.
For example:
The interviewer asks: "Tell me about a time when you worked as part of a team."
You answer:
Situation
"In my current job, I'm on teams all the time. Let me tell you about our latest project in which four of us just finished helping a client with its business process."
Task
We realized that we needed to understand the current business processes and to learn from the organization about its goals for revamping the process.
Action
"Our client is a healthcare provider and we decided to sit down with the office staff for a week and follow them through a typical week so we could learn about the process strengths and weaknesses. So, two of us did that while the other two met with several executives from operations and finance to understand their concerns. After that, the four of us met for another week and analyzed the inefficiencies of the current operation and reconciled our ideas for improvement with the needs of the executives. We constructed flow charts and a power point presentation. Through our presentation, we persuaded the executives that our ideas would maximize efficiencies, while causing minimal disturbance to the staff."
Results
"We cut cycle time by 50% and increased the client's revenues by $300,000 annually because staff can now serve more customers. What's more, it took only a week to implement our ideas!"
|
