hi there my name is richard from the
interview training website
passmyinterview.com
and in a second i'm going to walk
through this door and undertake a live
interview and i am going to answer a
number of difficult
behavioral interview questions now
behavioral interview
questions assess your ability to meet
the requirements of the job role
that you are applying for so if you have
an interview coming up make sure you
stay tuned
watch the presentation from start to
finish because it will make a big
difference
to your performance at your interview so
let's go into the interview right now
and take note of how i answer these
challenging
behavioral interview questions here we
go come in
hi there nice to meet you my name is
richard hi richard hi
hello richard hi nice to meet you please
take a seat thank you very much thank
you
welcome to the interview richard my name
is andrew and this is my colleague
joshua
and today we're going to be asking you a
number of behavioural interview
questions to assess your suitability for
this role
so with that mike can you tell me about
a time where you worked as part of a
team
yes i have lots of experience working
with other people to
complete difficult tasks and complete
difficult projects and one particular
situation springs to mind recently
where my manager came into the office
and
she said i want you all to get together
as a team
and come up with different ideas where
we can increase the company sales for
the next 12 months
so it was our responsibility and our
task as a team to get together in a team
meeting
and then come up with different ideas to
boost the company sales figures for the
next 12 months
so i suggested that we should all go
around the room
and each member of the team have five
minutes
to come up with different ideas where
they felt we could increase the company
sales figures and i made that suggestion
because i
thought collectively as a team we had
lots of various different experiences
and skill sets
and it would be a good idea to listen to
each member of the team's ideas
so we started going around the room and
my suggestion was based on
online advertising i didn't feel the
organization
had actually capitalized on online
marketing
and i said if we use facebook adverts
google adverts and social media adverts
that way we could target new customers
based on
their age their interests and their
demographics
people thought that was a good idea in
the team and then other people within
the team came up with
alternative ideas for example somebody
suggested
that we should go back to previous
customers because we wouldn't have to
spend any time
on advertising and try and upsell them
company products and services that we
already had because that would be cost
effective
at the end of the meeting we'd actually
come up with six
really strong ideas to help the company
increase its sales for the next 12
months
we presented them to our manager and he
thought they were a great idea
we then implemented those ideas and
three months into the
first 12 months of company performance
sales were up by 12
so it was a brilliant combined team
effort where everyone
got together listened to each other's
ideas and then put them forward so
it was a cracking effort and the company
benefited from that
okay richard thank you for your answer
can you describe a time when you've
worked under pressure
yes no problem i've worked under
pressure in various different roles for
various different companies and i
actually think i perform better
when i'm working under pressure and one
particular situation comes to mind
where my manager came into the office at
nine o'clock
one morning and he said that a member of
our team had called in sick and they
weren't going to be back in for two
weeks
he was asking for a volunteer to step up
to take on her tasks
as well as your own so i volunteered to
be that person
so even though i didn't know how to
carry out her tasks
i wasn't afraid to to step up because i
actually like working under pressure
so my manager gave me a brief of what i
needed to do i then went back to my desk
and i formulated
a list of all the tasks that i needed to
do including my own work
and my work colleagues work and i put
them in order of priority of what needed
to be done
i then cleared my diary so that i didn't
have any distractions at all for the
next two weeks
and i focused intently on my own work
and my work colleagues work to make sure
they were done on time
and to the right standard a couple of
times during the next two weeks i had to
stay behind late after work to get all
of the work done but i didn't mind doing
that and at the end of the two-week
period i managed to get everything done
all of the tasks and
it was great for the team but it was
also good for me because i learned some
new skills
that i hadn't done before by undertaking
my work colleagues tasks and my manager
praised me
for getting everything done and for
working under pressure and for getting
them completed on time so it was a good
experience all round
great thank you thank you can you tell
me about a time where you had to solve a
difficult problem
yes i can about two weeks ago
we'd all been getting ready as part of a
team for a company website sale that was
starting on the saturday morning
and it was late on a friday afternoon it
was about 3 p.m in the afternoon
and the website went down now this was
disastrous for the company because we
had this sale
all set up and ready for 9am the
following morning and obviously without
the website
we would have a major problem because we
wouldn't be able to sell anything
so we had a major problem this was a
difficult challenge because the website
went down
and we didn't have an internal it
company to sort it out
so i said to my manager i didn't have
any
commitments late on friday evening so i
was prepared to stay behind
and help him to get the website back up
and running now because we both didn't
have any
technical experience we were faced with
a challenge late on a friday afternoon
the website had gone down who do we get
to sort it out in time for nine o'clock
on saturday morning
so i said to my manager i will start
calling around
all local i.t companies to see if we can
find one of them
to help us get the website back up and
running so i started calling around
nobody was available so i then had to
use my initiative to solve the problem
so i started to look online
and i found a website called upwork.com
and i then started to find web
developers
and some it experts who could look into
the problem for us
now i managed to find someone who had
good reviews and ratings
and he was available to look into the
website for us i gave him a specific
brief
told him what had happened to the
website and he then started work
now it took him about three how three
hours to solve the problem but
eventually he came back he said he'd
found the issue
and he managed to get the website back
up and running again so by remaining
calm
by using my initiative and focusing
intently on the task in hand
i was able to to find somebody to get
the website back up and running in time
for 9 00 am on saturday morning so it
was a great result and i managed to
achieve it just by remaining calm
and staying focused on the task in hand
so it's a great result
thank you can you tell us about time
where you went above and beyond for a
customer
yes i can i actually think it's my
responsibility in any customer facing
role
to always try and go above and beyond
for the customer because then that helps
your
organization from a commercial
perspective so one situation
recently occurred where a customer
called me on the telephone
and they wanted to ask a number of
questions about some of the products on
our website
and also how to place the order now the
customer was elderly
and she never used online ordering
systems or websites before
so she was nervous and she was confused
and i felt it was my responsibility to
go above and beyond for her
and to take my time to walk through the
entire process and talk to her about our
products
now the issue i had was we had strict
company call handling timelines
which meant i had to get through each
call within three minutes now clearly
this call was going to take a lot longer
than that but i thought i had a
responsibility
to look after the customer so i did i
listened to her concerns and i then
asked her a number of questions about
which type of product she wanted to
order
i then explained the online ordering
system how it worked and i reassured
reassured her that our website was 100
secure i then walked her through the
online payment system
and i told her how to place her order
online now the call took
eight minutes in total to complete but
it was important here that i went above
and beyond for the customer
to allay any fears that she had and it
actually turned out to be a good thing
because that customer went on to be a
really good repeat customer for our
company
she used us lots of times in the future
so it was great all round so that's just
one example of where
i was willing to go above and beyond for
a customer to the benefit
of the organization that i was working
for can you tell me about a time when
you had conflict with a co-worker
and how you resolved it yes thankfully i
have not experienced that much conflict
with co-workers because i feel i'm a
good team worker
however if it does happen i will always
try and resolve it myself
i wouldn't ordinarily go to my manager
or my team leader and say i'm having
conflict with someone would you resolve
it because i feel i have a
responsibility
to sort it out because my manager or my
team leader would always be busy
one situation comes to mind when i
joined a previous organization
and i was sat in a team meeting with
other co-workers
and i was coming up with ideas and
different suggestions to help
the team progress with its project and a
senior member of the team
kept being dismissive of my ideas and my
suggestions
and he did this on no fewer than three
occasions so i felt i had two options to
resolve the conflict the first option
was i could challenge him professionally
in the room in front of everybody else
i didn't think that was a good idea the
second option was that i could speak to
him
outside of the team meeting to get to
the bottom of this conflict
so i decided to choose a second option
when the meeting was over
i went up to him in private and i said
to him in a respectful and professional
manner
you know during the team meeting i felt
you were quite dismissive
of some of the ideas that i was putting
forward and i wondered
why that was the case now he was quite
taken aback by what i had said
and he apologized and said it wouldn't
happen again now we actually went on to
become really close friends both in work
and outside of work and i felt
that that only happened because i had
the confidence to challenge the conflict
in a professional manner
so by stopping the conflict straight
away and preventing it from
deteriorating further it was a really
good thing it had a positive outcome so
i'm not afraid to deal with conflict but
i would always do it respectfully and
professionally and in a manner that was
of benefit
to the team thank you thank you for your
answer tell me about a time where you
improved a process
i think as an employee i have a
responsibility to always try and improve
systems and processes where appropriate
and one particular situation comes to
mind it was a monday afternoon
and i'd finished an important project
early and i had a few hours
available where i didn't have much to do
so i decided to make good use of that
time
something had concerned me for a lengthy
period of time whereby
we would order office supplies such as
paper and different resources
and we would order them in small
quantities which on the service was a
good thing to do because it saved the
organization
however i felt i could improve that
process by making a suggestion
to my manager where by we ordered a
larger quantity
of office supplies for a cheaper amount
now even though we would have
a more expensive outlay initially we
would save a lot of money in the long
term
so i carried out some research online
and i managed to find an organization
where the minimum order quantities of
office stock
were higher but the saving was
considerable in the long term
and i calculated over the year we would
actually end up saving about 3 000
pounds
which was a great saving i then
presented this to my manager and i said
this is what
i found we can improve this process of
ordering and it would save the company x
amount of pounds
over the year and he thought it was a
fantastic idea so we then went forward
and informed the administrative staff of
how to order moving forward and that
saved us a lot
of money so i'm the type of person who
will always look to identify ways of
improving processes
and systems to the benefit of the
company great thank you
so you will see there that i answered a
number
of common behavioral interview questions
in a confident manner
and before i give you some more example
answers to difficult
behavioral interview questions here are
some important tips
to help you tip number one behavioral
interview questions are in my opinion
the hardest
to answer however when you respond
to them make sure you use the star
technique
now the star technique stands for
situation
task action and result
so you start off and you briefly
describe the situation you are in
you then move on and outline the task
that needed doing
you then detail the action that you took
to complete
the task and you then finish off and
explain the results
following your actions so let me quickly
give you
an example answer to the behavioral
interview question
tell me about a time when you had to
overcome a challenge
using the star technique of situation
task
action and result so here is my example
answer
tell me about a time when you had to
overcome a challenge
in a previous role i was given the task
of arranging
an important meeting at a hotel venue
two days before the meeting was due to
take place
the hotel experienced storm damage
and they had to cancel the booking now
it was my task
to quickly find another suitable venue
before contacting all the meeting
attendees
to give them the new details and the
travel arrangements
now finding another suitable and
convenient venue
was challenging however i remained calm
i persevered and i stayed behind late
after work to get everything arranged
quickly
and to give the attendees as much notice
as possible about the new venue
now eventually i managed to find an
alternative venue for the meeting
and i created a new set of instructions
and a meeting agenda
that i sent out to all attendees i then
gave
all attendees my mobile contact number
so they could call me
if they had any problems or issues
finding the new meeting venue
now the meeting then went ahead at the
new venue on time
and as planned that is a brilliant
answer
to that tough behavioral interview
question tell me about a time
when you had to overcome a challenge and
it uses
the star technique situation task
action and result so tip number two
my advice is to prepare answers
to the most common behavioral interview
questions
before you attend your interview
so what are common behavioral interview
questions
here they are take a note number one
tell me about a time
when you had to work under pressure tell
me about a situation
where you had to solve a difficult
problem and that answer that i gave you
in the previous slide
is perfect for that type of question
describe a situation
when you had conflict at work give me an
example
of a goal that you achieved and also
tell me about a time when you made a
mistake at work now that last one
is very very difficult to answer and
again i will give you a sample response
to that question
very soon now tip number three
always be on the lookout for behavioral
interview questions
that are asked in any of the following
three ways
now the most common way an interviewer
will ask you a behavioral interview
question
is tell me about a time when you
but there are two other ways they may
ask you
and these are describe a situation you
were in
where you and also explain a time
when you had to so be on the lookout
for the behavioral interview question
starting in
any of those following three ways so
let's now take a look at a
sample answer to the difficult
behavioral interview question tell me
about a time
when you made a mistake at work here we
go in my previous role
i was asked to undertake a time
sensitive task
for my manager now she needed me to get
together
some historical company sales figures
which
she would be using for an important
presentation
the following week now it was my task
to make sure i collated the sales
figures quickly and
accurately before presenting them to my
manager on time
but unfortunately i did not listen
properly to the brief my manager gave me
and as a result i made a mistake with
the figures
which then resulted in me being late
with presenting them to her
now as soon as i realized i had made the
mistake i
informed my manager i apologized and i
asked her for an extra day to get the
figures together
now i then made sure i carried out the
task correctly
and my manager went ahead with her
presentation
i learned a tremendous amount from that
mistake and in some ways
i am glad it happened because my
intention to detail skills
from that day on improved significantly
now it's really important when you
answer that
common behavioral interview question
tell me about a time when you made a
mistake at work
that you actually give a situation where
you did make a mistake do not say
i've never made a mistake before it's
important to show that you own up to
your mistakes
you put them right and then and you then
improve
so it does not happen again so that's a
great way in my opinion
to answer that tough behavioral
interview question
now if you would like a copy of all the
answers
that i have covered within this
presentation and in total
20 great answers to behavioral interview
questions click that link
right now in the top right hand corner
of the video go over to my website
passmyinterview.com and you can download
my full set
of 20 great answers to tough behavioral
interview questions
including the ones we have covered
within this presentation today
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brilliant day