It was a scene straight out of a nightmare…well...not exactly nightmare but the news that my brother was called for an interview gave us the shivers. Our concerns were not just for him for ourselves too! We can still recall the days of note-keeping, grooming, confidence building that otherwise turned our well kept home into an interview-preparation-coaching-mess!
With his last debacle at the interview table, my sister decided to give him a one-on-one session on behavioural interviewing! ‘Am I not on my best behaviour? Why do I need one?’ That was his attitude.
Armed with all the information that my sister had gleaned from a recent article that had caught her interest, she proceeded to teach, preach and impress. According to her research, behavioural interviewing has rapidly become one of the most popular ways to interview in the US.
1. You have set your alarm clock to wake up but it fails to go off and you lose two precious hours. How would you handle that kind of situation?
My brother’s immediate response was that he would work overtime to compensate for the lost time. The answer seemed partly good, but will that impress the interviewer? Most likely not! As the question was intended to see how a negative scenario could be turned into a positive one, my sister proselytized that the likely best answer would be what immediate steps would a person take in such a situation. Step one could be to call up the office and inform them of your coming in late. Step two could be assigning pending work to a co-worker, finally make up for the lost time by working late.
2. How would you adapt to unexpected changes? What would you do if you were asked to step in and plan, coordinate a project from start to finish due to your senior falling sick?
My brother was a bit perplexed as he had never undertaken a project; leave alone planned or coordinated one from the start to finish. In such circumstances, my sister advised him to frame his words carefully so that the interviewer would be impressed. She told him to honestly inform the interviewer that even though he had never had the opportunity to execute a project from the start to finish; with a little help he could carry it off with great élan.
There were some that were based on the peremptory questions on salary, another on the preparation of the interview, on adaptability, on ambition, on analytical thinking and so on.
Thus continued a full blown interview preparation dialog between the two based on the behavioural method of interviewing.
With his last debacle at the interview table, my sister decided to give him a one-on-one session on behavioural interviewing! ‘Am I not on my best behaviour? Why do I need one?’ That was his attitude.
Armed with all the information that my sister had gleaned from a recent article that had caught her interest, she proceeded to teach, preach and impress. According to her research, behavioural interviewing has rapidly become one of the most popular ways to interview in the US.
1. You have set your alarm clock to wake up but it fails to go off and you lose two precious hours. How would you handle that kind of situation?
My brother’s immediate response was that he would work overtime to compensate for the lost time. The answer seemed partly good, but will that impress the interviewer? Most likely not! As the question was intended to see how a negative scenario could be turned into a positive one, my sister proselytized that the likely best answer would be what immediate steps would a person take in such a situation. Step one could be to call up the office and inform them of your coming in late. Step two could be assigning pending work to a co-worker, finally make up for the lost time by working late.
2. How would you adapt to unexpected changes? What would you do if you were asked to step in and plan, coordinate a project from start to finish due to your senior falling sick?
My brother was a bit perplexed as he had never undertaken a project; leave alone planned or coordinated one from the start to finish. In such circumstances, my sister advised him to frame his words carefully so that the interviewer would be impressed. She told him to honestly inform the interviewer that even though he had never had the opportunity to execute a project from the start to finish; with a little help he could carry it off with great élan.
There were some that were based on the peremptory questions on salary, another on the preparation of the interview, on adaptability, on ambition, on analytical thinking and so on.
Thus continued a full blown interview preparation dialog between the two based on the behavioural method of interviewing.
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