Ep. 51: Behavioral Interviews

Behavioral interviews test your ability to articulate our cultural values and how you live them in the real world. I offer up some advice from my years of experience interviewing for a diverse set of roles. The behavioral interview is important for any role, but it is especially important for people manager and leadership roles.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

It's important to demonstrate your technical subject matter expertise when you're interviewing for a job. But just as important, and sometimes even more so, is the behavioral part of the interview. So that's the topic that we're going to dive into today. So welcome to the Talk to Me PDD podcast. I'm your host, PDD. It's a podcast we talk about all things knowledge work, technology, and society, leadership, people management, all sorts of fun topics. So today is episode 51, behavioral interviews. So let's dive into it. Please like and subscribe, support the channel, lots of great leadership topics. I'm likely going to write up a companion piece to this. So if you want to make sure you see that, please subscribe to the newsletter. I'll put all the links in the into the comments or show description. PeterDempseywrights.com is the authoritative place to find me. Don't be a slave to the algorithm. So anyway, all that out of the way, let's get let's get into it. So a little bit on my background, why you might want to take some advice or perspective from me on the behavioral side of the interviews. I've done this as a hiring manager for a number of years in a variety of different roles. I also support a number of development programs at a variety of levels of seniorities, some people that are looking to move into people management, other ones that are looking to develop their leadership and their career as an individual contributor. So a lot of practice and practical experience providing interviews and mock interviews support there. Also, something to do more of one-on-one mentoring with some people, helping them prepare for those. So getting perspectives from a variety of different people, seeing how people answer these questions, what works well, where people might stumble. I also volunteer with a couple of organizations where I'll help them doing behavioral interviews for candidates that they're developing and looking to help find jobs. And just as a side, I would say if you have some experience and are comfortable delivering those interviews and you're in an industry that people are looking to break into, it's a great opportunity to give back and help support others, help them grow their career, be more prepared. And it's really going to benefit you as well, growing your network and also your experience interviewing. So if you have that opportunity, definitely take advantage of it. So what are the things kind of at a high level that as a hiring manager or an interviewer that you're trying to assess is the behavioral part of the interview? And we'll see these themes throughout as we go through a couple different categories and examples. You know, is there a sense of self-awareness with the candidate? Is the way that they see themselves matching what you're seeing, matching kind of the actual outcomes as opposed to just a disconnect in what they're saying and what you're actually seeing in the resume or what they talk about having having done? Can they demonstrate some real world experience? Um, having thought about how things will play out, um, oftentimes in the real world things aren't perfect. There's trade-offs, there's compromises. Can they demonstrate that they've had some experiences, even if it's not necessarily in the specific industry or in the specific job, or maybe they're coming out of school, can they find experiences that you can see how they're going to behave in that you know actual situation and translate that into what may happen in the real world? Um, and then lastly, is there uh alignment in culture and various organizations and companies have different cultures and different cultural values? So seeing if the candidate is is a match and understands what those values are, and you think their behaviors are going to demonstrate that and represent your organization's values when they they they come on. Um so now we'll we'll go through um some examples here, and I'll just say that there's it's a little bit different depending on whether you're interviewing for a management or leadership position, or whether you're interviewing as an individual contributor, and then of course, where you are sort of in your maturity of your career, there's going to be different expectations for the experiences that you've had and how you answer these questions. Uh, the first ones I'll go through, I think, are pretty universal. They apply both for manager positions and individual contributor, and then I'll go through a couple at the end that are really more manager focused. Um the first one is usually some variation of the classic what's your biggest weakness question. It often you know comes in the form of a more of a growth mindset question, like for example, you know, what's something that you did and then maybe necessarily didn't work out the way that you thought it would, and then how are you going to learn from that and do something different in in the future? So I'll take a couple different obvious gotchas that you know I have actually encountered in in the real world is you know, one, I don't have any weaknesses. Um, I've had people say this. Um everybody does. You need to think about some some things there, think about something that that you can say that you're willing to talk about. We all have strengths, we also have things that we're not necessarily the best at or or we don't like. So probably not a good answer just to say that you don't have any weaknesses. Uh this the second thing is that you uh it's not a great example to demonstrate where you made uh a poor decision, and then even if you learn from it and did it differently, you still want to demonstrate that you have thoughtful decision making. Um so while maybe it's not terrible to have made a a mistake with a poor choice and learn from it, it's probably not the best answer. So I think the at least for me, the best way to answer this question is to have a something that you tried to do that made sense, was well reasoned, but then because of real-world environmental factors maybe didn't work that well in that situation, um, and then understanding that there are trade-offs and adaptations, and then how you were going to learn from it. And it should be something that's authentic to you. So a way that I would answer this is that one of my um, you know, values as a manager is to try and provide clarity to the team that that I manage and the individuals that report to me. Um so that would be an example of something that I would try to do. And then a way that maybe that doesn't always work out is if you're in a very dynamic environment where there's a lot of change and things that I've run into is that if I try and go straight to that clarity, sometimes it creates more confusion because if changes are happening so so rapidly. So my learning and takeaway from that is to you know to have a balance between those two and understand in a dynamic environment, um, there's only so much clarity that that you can have, and you want to make sure you don't necessarily rush into that to create more confusion. So um I think that's a reasonable answer. It's um I think always a good value and good decision to try to provide clarity, but then also understanding that you know that's not always possible in some situations, and if you just try and fight for your first instinct, you may make the situation worse. So I think it's a good answer for those reasons. It's authentic to me. It demonstrates having real-world experience, navigating teams that are in dynamic environments for things that are changing. So there you go. You could hopefully that's helpful. You can kind of think of your own examples in that area, whether it's weakness or sort of a growth mindset type scenario. Um, the next one will be sort of around how you work with others, how you're going to work with your colleagues and teammates. Sometimes this takes more of a diversity and inclusion angle, depending on the organization's values or the that you're interviewing with, but really, you know, thinking about how you're going to help make the team effective, not just as an individual. Um and then this kind of goes back a little bit to the previous one, understanding your strengths and weaknesses, where you can compliment people, where you might need others to compliment you. Um you may get questions around you know how you can work with people who have different styles than you or different um, you know, skill sets than you or different approaches. So be thinking about those those things. Um, you know, for me, an example of the way that I might answer this is that you know, I think my strengths are more in terms of actual execution versus maybe building a lot of PowerPoints or diagrams or documentation and things on that. So for me, integrating into a team where maybe I can complement somebody who's really good on that sort of design presentation um side with my execution is is an effective, creates an effective environment. And it's not necessarily something that is a skill set that I feel like I excel at, um, but it's something that I that I value and would want to be uh paired up with somebody who has that skill set as well to complement kind of my different areas. Um this is also an opportunity where you can try and demonstrate some cultural awareness depending on the team, especially if you're managing a global team or working with global customers, having an understanding of sort of different cultural norms in different environments, especially in a business setting. Um, that can be important. Again, it depends on the type of team that you're you're looking to join. Um, and then kind of a last one under this category of working with others is thinking about how you can work across different organizational boundaries and how you can get different teams to that are maybe have different missions to to work together to help you accomplish goals. Um again, if you're not coming in from an industry experience, you may be able to find kind of group work or different projects in your academic journey that can translate to this, but just showing how you can organize different people who have different goals and motivations to try and um accomplish what you're looking to accomplish. Um, you know, in the next category, a kind of the third one here, maybe something around, you know, how do you think about doing the work? Sort of what is um excellent work look like if you're in a customer-facing role, maybe something around customer service or how you're going to support customers, or that sort of thing. Um so often people will answer this one where so they have examples of going above and beyond, or you know, quote unquote going the extra mile. And I those are good, and that's definitely something that that you want to have and support customers. And I think, but I think a better way, and just something to consider when you're answering the this question, or something that I think about as a hiring manager, right, is that if you're going above and beyond for a particular customer, what are the trade-offs there? Are you aware that you might be neglecting other work? Are you just going to try and work more all the time, which only scales so much and can lead to burnout and maybe lower performance in the long run? Um, so if you want to get a little bit more advanced here, just make sure you're thinking about what are the trade-offs, how do I balance out sort of doing everything possible for one particular customer or one particular deliverable? While that's admirable and the right decision in some cases, you are trading off for others. So just understanding that that nuance there and thinking about where you spend your time and how you can do effective prioritization. Um, so lastly, you know, get into a couple areas that are more specific to managing. Maybe if you're a senior individual contributor or sort of more of like a leadership role as an individual contributor, you might get these as well. Um one would be around sort of how you plan to model and reflect and support the company values that you're a part of. Um, a lot of the times the question under this that I like to ask or that I see asked is around you know how you would behave if you saw somebody on your team or somebody that you're working with behaving outside of those expected cultural behaviors. Um the most common way that I see people answer this is to try and address it in sort of a private one-on-one setting with whoever that person was, which I think is fine, is a fine approach, but then you also want to make sure that you mention how that situation might affect other people that were there, whether it's a team, a customer, um, other uh you know, other people outside of your immediate team. So making sure that you're addressing it not just sort of at an individual level, but with anybody who was was impacted if there is something that happened outside of the expected cultural values, because if you don't address it in the broader group, especially with your own team, then there may be an expectation that's that that that is okay, even though you addressed it one-on-one with the person who had that behavior. And then specifically if you're in a manager role, making sure that you're aware that there may be particular compliance or mandatory reporting things that you're responsible for. So you're not necessarily going to know exactly what that is when you're interviewing for another company that you may not work at, um, but at least mentioning that at a high level, I think adds more to, you know, makes this a better response and shows that you're more aware of those considerations. Um next is sort of getting trying to get a sense of how you're going to relate to the actual people that you manage on your team. If you're a people manager, um and you know, as if I'm the hiring manager there and it's hiring a manager into my org, I'm thinking about is this the way this person relates to the team going to align to sort of the the culture that I want in the org? And it's it doesn't have to be exactly the same, obviously, um, but is it going to kind of support the overall organizational culture and vision? And I think for managers, what I think is the most important here is understanding the difference between coaching and feedback, or you could also bring up you know themes around direct versus indirect authority and how you manage. So feedback sort of telling the person what to do, directing them, um, you know, maybe giving direct criticism on work, which is important, but it's not the only way to manage, whereas coaching is techniques to help the person sort of figure out their own individual problem and then their own individual solution, um, and understanding the differences and when to use one versus the other, and that going into feedback too quickly may be a faster solution, but it may not be the right solution and it may not get to the to the root of the problem. Um, and then lastly, kind of in our topics overall, and the last one for people managers as well, um, getting a sense of how you're going to help develop the individuals on your team, how you're going to support their career growth and progression. Um so things that I would want to hear here is one, um, setting up ways that you're going to listen to your directs. That could be some of the structure, like how you build one-on-ones, even just you know, saying how that listening is important and providing time in that one-on-one to do that. Um, also think the concepts of trust is important, especially with career development. Someone who reports to you may not be comfortable saying that their career goals are to move to a different team or a different type of role, unless they've established that trust with you and you they know that that's something that you would support them doing. Um, and then the last piece you can mention some specific artifacts, like maybe you have a career planning journey or document that you would help them build out, mentioning using formal reviews or check-ins, depending on what that cadence is like in the organization. But having those structured check-in times to work on that can help build that trust and make it easier for people to do it. So I think those are some things that I would look for a candidate to mention there. Um, so hopefully it's still helpful in um preparing for for interviews. Um, and I would just say, you know, be off be authentic, um, be able to articulate your values, and that's all you can do. And then hopefully it will be the right match. You want it to be a good cultural match for you as well, not just for the organization that you're going to. And it may or may not align, um, but hopefully you can kind of share your perspectives, your values, and demonstrate how you've shown them in real world experience. And then whether it's a match or not will just kind of depend on the organization. So hopefully uh that helped. Uh, please like and subscribe, support the channel, check out the newsletter, peterdempseywrights.com, and thank you, and I'll see you next time on Talk2Me PDD.