Tip for January 2011- Get Set for the Behavorial Interview

As we prepare our clients for interviewing, we must help them with the dreaded behavorial interview. We do them an injustice if we don\’t cover this style of interviewing. If your clients can master this, they can get through any interview process.

I recently had the opportunity to participate in a selection process for a position in California (I was a semi-finalist — did not make the final 2 — oh well) and found myself in great review of behaviorial interviewing. This kind of interviewing really gets you to thinking about specific situations, what you did to address them and what outcomes you achieved.

Wow! This was a great review for me because I began to look at some key management experiences and outlined 4 to 5 key situations that I had significant positive outcomes. You want to help your clients focus on the job description and then pull out their experiences that relate to skills referred to in the job description. They should write out the following:
1. Describe the situation that is relatively recent, maybe in the past 3-5 years.
2. Write out the actions that they took to address and resolve the situation.
3. Describe the positive outcome of that situation.

The key is to be succinct and confident. Quintessential Careers refers to this as SAR (Situation (S), Action (A), and Result (R)).

Although I did not land the job, it warmed me up for the next opportunity!