99. Master Behavioural Interviews: Storytelling Using A Story Toolbox, STAR Method, & More

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So let's ask the question. What exactly is a behavioral interview? When do you do it? Why do you do it? And what are some of the things you have to do? Let's start with what. What is a behavioral interview? Have you ever done one? When have you done it? Welcome to Upskill Talks, I'm your host, Michelle Shaw, lead Upskill at Upskill Community. Upskill Talks is a podcast for leaders, leaders who are actively seeking innovative and creative ways to interact. Lead themselves and others in every episode through real life stories and enlightening conversations, we will explore the challenges and opportunities real leaders face in today's everchanging workplace. We will present you with real strategies. For you to leverage your soft skills and produce transformative results. Thank you for joining me on this journey. Let us begin. In this week's episode, we're looking at behavioral interviews. Behavioral interviews are one of the most popular forms of interviews, but they're not the only form of interview. Technical interviews look at your knowledge, your strength, in what we refer to as the hard skills, the techniques of your job, what you do, whether that's driving, nursing. Computing, accounting, it looks at the specific skills. The interviews that we're referring to as behavioral interviews are interviews that test the soft skills. They test behaviors. They look at whether or not past behaviors can predict how you may perform from one industry or career or area to another. What if you found yourself in a particular situation, how would you respond? How would you behave? What would you do? If you were working in one organization and you had great problem solving skills and you could explain that in a way to demonstrate that skill, it would give an indication to an interviewer that you may likely be able to bring those problem solving skills into the new environment. So the type of jobs that will usually ask for behavioral interviews are people facing jobs. So people facing jobs are ones that work with other people. So whether you are in customer service, or if you are in a leadership position, if you are a team lead, if you are in management, or if you are a supervisor, these are jobs where you need to have strong soft skills. So you will be asked behavioral type questions in some form or another, even if the interview doesn't explicitly say that it is a behavioral interview, chances are, you will be asked questions where the interviewer is trying to see, okay, how does this person deal with other people? How do they handle conflict? Are they cooperative? Are they collaborative? The reality is there is likely not a job anywhere in the world right now where. Interviewers are not interested in how you deal with other people, whether you're doing nursing, plumbing, it, it just, even the jobs that people traditionally think you just need to sit behind your desk and do. People want to make sure that you know how to deal with other people. There's a risk of bringing people into your organization that are not able to work with others. And the risk has increased in the context of greater diversity in the workplace, where it becomes even more complex and the demands and the expectations are higher. And so it's really important that you understand the value of investing time in. Curating your stories? Brainstorming the skills you have because the other person who may have less skills than you, less experience than you and less of everything can practice and take you out of your seat when you least expect it. That's so funny that you say, um, the person who has less experience than you, who is less qualified, but who can package it better will be the person who can take the job because. Um, like, I think I've done that in the past when I landed my first finance internship at a bank. I literally sold them my stories from working at Little Caesars making pizzas. But it was the way that I told the stories that sold them because I made it very clear how the behavioral aspects, the soft skills were transferable to any job. Like, whether I'm a banker or like a financial analyst or a plumber. And that's absolutely critical because yes, these skills are transferable. And one of the things that trips up a lot of people, for instance, you're going to a big bank and you're coming from a pizza place, you let your confidence get in the way. And you don't feel like the experiences that you already have are worthy of this new role and you're focusing on the role or the name of the organization rather than the fundamental skills that you are developing. We develop skills everywhere, at home, social activities, team sports, classrooms, learning environments, traveling. In the workplace, out of the workplace, we develop skills everywhere, just by reading, just by playing games. We develop skills every single place and all of the experiences that we have, if we are clear on the fact that we are developing skills. Firstly, because not a lot of people even know that this is a skill or that they have developed the skills. So if you become aware of the skills you have and understand the circumstances or the situation in which you are developing the skill and you're able to articulate that and tell that story effectively, it doesn't matter where you developed that skill. The point that the leaders, the organizations are looking for are people who bring these skills. And you can bring them from another country. This is another thing that we noticed that newcomers to Canada bring great skills from their countries, but are not feeling like those skills are valid here. Yes, if you have strong communication skills, conflict resolution skills, teamwork skills, wherever you bring those skills from, we can support you with packaging. And articulating those stories effectively to be able to compel an interviewer that you have the skills to come to their organization and support their goals. The next question I want to ask is then how exactly do we answer these kinds of questions? What are the questions? What do they look like, sound like, and how do we answer them? The reason we do these sorts of interviews is because, you know, we're only getting the person in the room with us for, I don't know, 10 to 30 minutes, maybe an hour if it's some crazy long interview process, but You know, it's a very short amount of time to choose someone to bring into your organization. It's a pretty big deal. So you're trying as best you can to get a good sense of who this person is and what they would be like when they are working for you, potentially. So you're kind of like taking little bits of information of what they've done or what they say they might do in certain situations and like extrapolating it to try to get a better sense of who they are, what they would be like. And that's because we have a lot of people who are looking for the same job. So not only do you have a little bit of time to make the determination, you also have a large pool of candidates in many cases to choose from. So it's how do you compare all of the candidates that you have, how they stack up against the role that you have, which person or persons would do the best job for you. How do we approach it? Personally, for the behavioral interviews that I've done, I just practice a lot. I think practice makes perfect. And even though the employer is trying to get a gauge of personality, sometimes if you don't practice, you can get nervous and fumble and you can come off like completely not showing what you're actually like. So I like to be very intentional with how I approach behavioral interviews. Um. Yeah, so actually I have a little story is when I was practicing for interviews and the questions were kind of behavioral oriented, like, tell me about yourself. What do you do? How would you handle the situation? I had a list of common questions and I had answers that I would rehearse over and over again to the point where you could wake me up in my sleep and I would have the answers for you. I would do it every night with my mom for two weeks, every day for an hour. So I'd practice over and over again. It's probably a bit excessive, but I, for me, practice really helped. And I followed certain structures as well to my answers. Um, one that was really helpful for me was the star method, which we can talk a little bit more about later. So that's my experience. Because in an interview, when you're asked the question, yes, you can take a moment to think, but you don't have a lot of time to sit down and write and rewrite and edit your responses. That's the toolkit that you're going to pull from when you're asked to share something, you can go right to that story and start from there. You don't have to do brainstorming when you're in the middle of an interview. I really like the concept of a toolkit. Um, when I was practicing or when I was rehearsing for my interviews, I had kind of a story toolkit and this was a set of stories that I had practiced over and over again that I could pull out at any time and apply and slightly tweak to different kinds of questions because a lot of these behavioral questions, um, are similar or overlap. For example, tell me about a time that you got into a conflict, I could use the same story as tell me about a time that you felt personally challenged at work, like different forums of the same question, but they're testing kind of for the same thing, like your ability to problem solve and be collaborative. So I would have one story that I could reuse and kind of change up the details. That story toolkit really helped me. What you are flagging up there, Flora, is that one story highlights more than one skill. And so, a conflict resolution story could also be a problem solving story, could also be people skill story, could also be initiative taking story, could also be a leadership story. It depends on the story. So it's really important for you when you brainstorm the story to also think about what skills does this experience demonstrate and I'm not going to add to the point before about how like, in interviews it's important to prepare because, if you like stumble upon your words a few times that's fine. But like if you, are constantly taking like five minutes to answer, to think, to think about each question. And it looks like you aren't prepared for the interview. You don't know the organization and for example, you're reciting your resume rather than like highlighting your other skills. In comparison to another candidate who came in and is prepared like you were saying right now beforehand. And that is absolutely right. That we always have to keep in mind that we're not the only person that they're seeing, that they have many other people who may come in really, really super prepared. The other thing that you touched on Tara, which is really important is that these stories don't show up on your resume. So the interview is not. The opportunity to reread your resume to them. You must make the assumption that they have read it unless they ask you to walk through your resume. And it doesn't mean you can't link to any experience on your resume, but this is an opportunity for you to go to those things that don't really have room on your resume, but really elevate you I think on that note, um, people hire people and your resume is just a piece of paper. And that's why, what I think is, that's why so many jobs. They're offered internally or offered to people that we know, and that's why networking is so important is because when we see a piece of paper, we don't see you as a person. We don't understand. your personality, So that's why these stories and, these things that aren't highlighted on your resume are so important to showcase because your resume is just like, it tells maybe 1 percent of your story as a person. Correct. Correct. And these stories are, as you just accurately highlighted, an opportunity not only to give facts, but also to showcase your personality, to show your thought process, to show how organized your thinking is, to show sort of the strategies that you use, to show your relationship with other people. this is a. Huge opportunity that your resume cannot provide you. But remember that the fact that you're in this interview is that the resume has already done its job. The job of the resume is to get you in the door. The resume has done the job to say you have been selected to come in. So that means the resume may not be able to take you any further. You are already in, and now we've got to show them that. You are more than what the resume says. But as a minimum that I do meet the standard of what's on the resume. The stakes are high for the organization as they are for you. If this is your dream job or a job that you're really interested in, or a program that you really, really desperately want to get into or anything like that. It's also, on the other end, our people. As Flora says, people choose people. On the other end are people choosing people thinking about how can I find the right people for what we have here. That's the challenge that they have. So your challenge is really to make sure that they see that what they desire is what you bring to the table. So you're going to look at the skills that they desire, the experiences that they desire, the thinking that they desire. And look at what you have. That means you're going to have to take time to do some of your self awareness work. What are the strengths that I bring to the table? What are the things that I value? What are the areas that I need to develop? What are some lessons that I've learned that can really, really, now that I've learned them, I can come here and implement. The new ways of being. One of the challenges that we have with interviews is that a lot of times people think you've got to make sure everything about you seems perfect. You can't show that you've ever made a mistake. You can't show you've ever failed at anything. And actually people are a little bit nervous about perfect people. And that is why, as we say, we hire people internally because there needs to be trust. You're taking a risk. Does what the person have on this resume really meet the standard? What this person is telling me right now, can I trust it? Can I believe it? And if you are so perfect that you never make a mistake, you have nothing that you've ever learned from. You've never failed at anything. Not every environment is looking for someone so perfect. And you could walk yourself. out of the opportunity by not being honest. So bringing some level of honesty. These are the things that I do really well. These are the things that I'm working on developing. These are the areas where I have made mistakes in the past. Whenever you make a mistake, whenever you highlight a failure, you must pull the lessons from that. Show the lessons that you've learned and then show how you've gone forward to turn the page, to move away from that kind of mistake, to turn that failure into something positive. That's what they're looking for. They're not looking for people who never make a mistake because we all do. They're looking for people who, when they make a mistake, learn from the mistakes and are able to turn the page and move that in a positive direction. Michelle, I think what you're saying is so important and I couldn't agree more. I think that this is probably the biggest takeaway, like the number one mistake that people make during behavioral interviews is trying to be perfect or trying to make themselves seem good or better because they're trying to get hired, right? Like we all want to get hired. So we want to make ourselves seem like the best. Um, I have a friend last week who was doing a pitch competition for their company. And the feedback that they got from the panel judges was that he exaggerated too much and made himself, made the company sound too good. The judges and the panel said that it didn't seem realistic, that they were the best and they were the only company who was doing this in this space. Because when you say these kind of things, it automatically puts distrust, because it's not realistic. Right. It's not rooted in reality that you can have absolutely no competitors and you're that you're the best. We don't know any of these things and it brings up suspicion, which is the last thing that you want to bring to someone who is judging you or interviewing you. So it has the opposite effect of what you want. So that's why it's so important to kind of bring them along your journey of this is what I learned. This is the mistake I made, and this is how I got here If you want to develop your skills in bringing your listener onto a journey, episode number 56. Episode 57, 58 to 59 are all, um, an intro to storytelling. Fabulous. Fabulous. And storytelling is the curse of behavioral interview. If you're not able to tell stories effectively, you will not be able to do behavioral interviews well. But every story has certain things in common and so go back and review those stories and how we develop stories if you really want to make sure you have a toolkit that's substantive deep and broad and ready to hit any behavioral interview As Flora shared, whether you're pitching, whether you're interviewing, whether you're preparing for a program, whether you're promoting, looking at an evaluation situation where you're sitting down with your supervisor or manager to talk about your behaviors, your accomplishments, all of these are behavioral interview situations. And so you needed to get in. You need it to stay in, you need it to advance in, and you need it to get out. These are really important ways that we use behavioral interviews. So make sure you are getting really good at storytelling. Anything to add? Yeah, I think for me something that's, uh, I think I stumbled on this idea of storytelling, like, without really knowing it in interviews in the past. Like, uh, for me, I was not really a person who prepared a lot in terms of, like, memorizing what I would say necessarily. It was more like I just kind of think about what I've done and think about what they're looking for. And it was very, Uh, kind of random, honestly, I don't think it was the best approach to interviews, but one thing that I think that I did well that at least worked for me in a few cases was highlighting things in a sort of storytelling format, because I thought, oh, it's just going to be boring if I tell them kind of factual things, kind of as if they're just reading my resume again. So definitely storytelling is so powerful. I mean, not just in interviews, but everywhere. And it kind of sounds like the way you were describing it, Michelle, was that people should sort of have like a tool belt of various stories from their life that they can sort of pull out and use in different situations, whether it's an interview or something else. When we use the language of story, sometimes we misunderstand what that means and think we're telling anecdotes and we can just keep talking forever. Sometimes, you know, you have that friend where you're hanging out and they start a story and that's the entire evening. That story does not come to an end. The value of a story is that it has a definite beginning. A middle and an end, every story has a very clear structure. The S in story is for the structure. And so when we come to behavioral interviews, behavioral interviews have a very definite structure. The STAR method is a really important method that's used for behavioral interviews. You may see it show up in different ways. Some people may call it a CAR method, that's Context Action Results. Some people may say SAR, which is situation, action, results. Some use STAR, situation, task, actions, results. That's the most popular one. In the book we published at Upscale, we use STAR with the R squared. A capital R and a lower R. And it's situation. Task, action, results, and we've added relevance because no point in telling a story when you cannot tell us, why are you telling me the story? What is the value of the story to the opportunity that you are pursuing? And so we've added on the R, the little R for relevance onto this star method. Why do you need to know? The STAR method, the STAR method is a framework that guides you to tell your behavioral interview stories. Here is the importance of this framework. It tells you when to start and where to start. So no rambling. It tells you what to cover. Talk about the situation. Talk about the tasks and the targets. Talk about the actions and activities. Talk about the results. And then tell us the relevance. And what that means, it's telling you when to stop. That is the end. So you don't continue to talk forever and lose the opportunity because you've passed the story and gone on to rambling. I can tell you, I sat on an interview panel and had this one interviewer who was well liked, resume was Top notch was highly favored going into the interview. First question was great, second question was great, third question, and this question was heavily weighted. And this person started, answered the question, and we almost wanted to say, Stop! Stop! Stop! You did it! You did it! You nailed it! Stop! And this person continued, and continued, and continued. And continued and undid the great job that they had done at the beginning. There is a way that if you don't know when to stop, you can erase a good quality question, or a response rather, or water it down and destroy the opportunity. So not only should you know when to start, you also need to know when to stop. Most interviews provide guidance around how long your responses should be. Many interviews for competitive situations say, give us one minute. Most of them go to a maximum of three minutes. And so there's some guideline around how long you should be spending on answering each question. That, therefore, brings us back to the importance of preparation. Because you've got to cut out the noise out of your, your story, cut out the noise, get clarity, get clear, make sure that the steps are clear. The key information is included irrelevant. Fluffy stuff is left out and that anyone can follow you from start through the middle and to the end, the situation is clear. The tasks are clear, the actions are clear, the results are clear, and they can definitely see the relevance of this story. So this episode, we looked at what a behavioral interview is, why we need it, and how we go about it. And we talked about strategies for you to come to a behavioral interview, ready, comfortable, and confident, and understand the importance of preparing in order to nail it. It's the one method that you can use to take skills that you learn across your life. Inside the workplace, inside school, in your sports teams, in another country, in any situation, and package it and articulate it in a way to help you to advance in your career. We introduced the STAR method, the method that's used to organize your behavioral interview stories. And next time, we'll begin to share specific stories and think about how we can make our stories land better to get us. What we want, whether in a program, an evaluation or an interview. Thank you for listening to this episode of Upskill Talks. We bring you new episodes every Monday. Please take a moment to subscribe. Leave a five star rating and a written review at Apple Podcast or follow us on Spotify, Google podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts. Don't forget to share Upskill talks with other leaders like yourself, so they too may gain the skills and insights to produce amazing results. Please go to upskill community.com to review show notes, and learn how you can join a community of leaders from across the globe. Collaborating to lead in a more meaningful and impactful way. I'm your host, Michelle Shaw, and again, thank you for joining me on this episode of Upscale Talks.