Human Resources Glossary / Behavioral Interviewing

Behavioral Interviewing

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What is behavioral interviewing?

Focusing on real-world experiences and the application of soft skills, behavioral interviewing is a modern assessment technique that eschews theoretical questions and answers in favor of practical insights to determine a candidate’s suitability for a job. The premise is that the applicant’s past results and their ability to recount specific situations, conduct and knowledge allows a hiring manager to draw conclusions as to the candidate’s future performance at the company.

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Why is behavioral interviewing important?

Behavioral interviewing breaks with the traditional interviewing format in that it prevents candidates from offering general, “canned” responses to open-ended, hypothetical questions. Although this was a popular means of interviewing candidates in the past, it does little to offer specific insights into the individual’s mindset or ability to use their skills to overcome particular challenges.

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In contrast, behavioral interviewing is based around a structured series of questions that elicit spontaneous responses based on the candidate’s previous real-world experience. This past performance is taken as an accurate indicator of how the candidate will perform in a future role — from how they will respond under pressure to their capacity for working in a team or delivering results by a set deadline.


By amassing a wealth of verifiable evidence, the hiring manager is better equipped to make an informed hiring decision. As well as having the candidate’s resume and evidence of their hard skills on file, they experience firsthand which soft skills the candidate values in themselves and how they use those skills in the workplace.

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How to use behavioral interviewing

Conducting a behavioral interview differs from a traditional-format screening. It calls for a step-by-step approach that starts prior to the interview and encourages collaboration between key stakeholders as well as flexibility during the interview.

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Step 1: Prepare questions in advance with relevant input from colleagues

Before meeting the candidate, write down specific questions that will prompt the candidate to discuss soft skills, behavioral patterns, and professional qualities in real-world settings. Do this as a collaborative process, with input from the hiring manager, interviewer (if not the same person), onboarding manager, and team leader.

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Step 2: Review the questions

After formulating the questions, go over them to confirm that they are specific enough to prompt the candidate to describe a real-world scenario in detail.

The more specific the answers, the more information the interviewer will have to work with later when deciding whether the candidate is suitable for the role.

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Step 3: Decide on a competency rating scale

One good way to keep track of the answers provided by the candidate during the interview is to employ a competency rating scale. This makes it simple to jot down initial impressions while the candidate is recounting a situation. Here is an example scale:

1 – Very poor
2 – Poor
3 – Average
4 – Above average
5 – Exceptional

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Step 4: Allow space for deviation from the planned questions

Given the spontaneity of the behavioral interviewing format, it is not necessary to adhere strictly to the script in all cases. Asking follow-up questions relating to a specific scenario offered by the candidate is a common and useful way to glean more insights.

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Advantages and Disadvantages

For the hiring manager, the information they receive from behavioral interviewing is highly focused, without relying on jargon or rehearsed answers. They get to see the person behind the resume while gaining a better overall picture of the soft skills — empathy, adaptability, teamwork, initiative, time management — they would bring to the position.

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On the candidate side, it provides them with a much more realistic perspective of what the job entails. By receiving feedback on their real-life examples, they can also decide whether the role seems right for them.

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Finally, this assessment technique demonstrates to the candidate that the company is keen on finding out who they are, not which one-size-fits-all answers they memorized for previous interviews. This is an indicator of a company with a modern outlook on employment where the individual — rather than hard qualifications — comes first.

The risk of behavioral interviewing is that the interviewer may rely too heavily on a candidate’s past experiences to determine their future performance. Some candidates (e.g., students or individuals who are changing careers) may not have much experience to draw from, despite being highly qualified.

Best practices

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For best results, prepare a list of interview questions and a ratings system prior to meeting the candidate.

Think hard about what the job entails, and which skills (other than academic) are essential to guarantee success in the role. The questions should go beyond the scope of prepared answers to prompt the candidate to think in detail about different scenarios and outcomes. Follow-up questions are a good way to discover more about the candidate, while multiple questions that tackle related issues from different angles enable the interviewer to better identify behavioral patterns. All of these techniques provide a more well-rounded picture of the individual, their attitude, conduct, and mindset.

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It is also recommended to take the time to make the candidate feel comfortable before diving into the prepared questions.

After all, behavioral interviewing may be new (and perhaps daunting) for some individuals, making it all the more important to set them at ease from the beginning — this will encourage them to open up about mistakes, difficult situations, and problematic colleagues or customers.

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Additional information or example

To finish off, here are a few example questions that fall under the behavioral interviewing format: practices for doing so include:

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  • Give me an example of a time when you experienced a conflict with a customer and how you handled it.
  • Tell me about a time you made a major mistake in a job and what the fallout was.
  • Describe an occasion when you were running behind on a project with a deadline fast approaching. What did you do?
  • Detail a project that you once worked on that had multiple goals. How did you prioritize each goal and what were the results?

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