The basis of Behavioural Interviews, or Competency Interviews, is that that past behavior is the best way to determine future performance.

Behavioural interviews are hard on the candidate but they do introduce an increase in the likelihood of hiring a better candidate.

We in the online hiring community like them because they are more scientific and can be scored, or ranked. Using behavioural interviews with an Applicant Tracking System (ATS) results in better hiring and, more importantly, proof that this is actually happening.

Unfortunately, behavioural interviews are often not done very well.

The Basic Behavioural Question

At this point in time everybody in HR in China knows that the basic question in behavioural interviewing is, ‘Tell me about a time when……’. For example, these are good behavioural interview questions:

Tell me about a time when you managed a project. What was the project and what was your role?

Tell me about a time when you had difficulty communicating with someone. How did you solve it?.

Tell me about a time when you had to explain a challenging concept or idea to a co-worker. How did you communicate it to them to ensure that they understood?

Tell me about a time when you were required to speak before a large audience. What was the situation, how did you feel about doing it, and what was the outcome?

Tell me about a time when you had to speak up in order to get your point across. Be specific.

Tell me about a time when you had to persuade your manager or co-workers to adopt one of your ideas. What was the idea and what was the result?

Tell me about a time when you had too much work to do and not enough hours in the day to get it done. How did make the necessary choices?. Did you succeed?.

Doing Behavioural Interviews

So the idea is not that clever or difficult. It emphasises the practical and pushes candidates to demonstrate a deep understanding of an issue using their previous experiences.

Those who have shallow experiences give shallow answers and try to expand on their limited knowledge with exaggerations and half-truths. If you probe a little deeply these responses can easily be broken down. But those who have a strong understanding of the issue can easily respond and the depth of their knowledge is seen is the depth of their response.

However, we have to take into account the fact that most candidates in China have not experienced this kind of interview before. Even for those who have it is difficult, so it is doubly difficult for many in China.

So you need to prepare candidates before hand.

If you have an online hiring system you can add an automated email that informs the candidate of the kind of interview he will be doing with you. It specifically tells him that he will be doing a behavioural interview and is given an interview ‘Spiel’. Then he is told what it will look like, even to the extent of telling what question will be asked.

However, many of you are not using such system so you need something on paper. Today’s download is a Behavioural Interview Introduction which you can use to ’sensitize’ the candidate before you actually interview him. Added to the questions above you have enough to begin experimenting with the use of behavioural interviewing.

                 Behavioural Interview Introduction  –  Behavioral Interview.doc

One proviso. Before you start, you also might want to ask a practice question, and a good one for this is:

       ‘Tell me about a time when you had difficulty communicating with someone’.

This is the easiest of the behavioural questions. If the candidate has not understood your introduction he will tell you that he never has any difficulty communicating with people. Candidates often do this to protect their ‘face’. You can quickly point out that this is a normal process, it happens to us all etc. and ask him to begin again.

Then you can begin the real interview.