behavioral questions help Forum

[Anonymous User]

Behavioral questions in interviews such as "tell me about a time x happened" trip me up every single time. Even if I prepare with some scenarios ahead of time, they manage to ask me for new scenarios that I haven't thought of. Or, they ask for a scenario that I haven't experienced.

I don't think such questions should be asked in the first place because in order to recall a time something happened, one would have to reflect back on one's entire life and remember such a situation. This isn't always possible to do on the spot. Interviews should be based on the present (skills and interest) and only the past relating to the resume itself, not some random past events that the person has to think of without notice.

Anyway the point is, what is the deal with these questions and how can I stop getting tripped up by them?

[Anonymous User]

I just finished up interviewing 20 some candidates at the local school's OCI, and I asked those types of questions frequently. Here's why. Out of the roughly 20 candidates, 15 or so were K-JD with GPAs that were clustered around the same number. I need to find some way to separate the chaff from the wheat, so I ask them about whether they have the foundations for skills that I know will be valuable in their first couple years of practice. I try to avoid just dropping a "tell me about a time" question, but it usually goes like this. "Junior attorneys in our litigation group are expected to be able to pick up work that they're unfamiliar with and do the requisite research and analysis without hand holding. Can you talk about how you have approached similar situations in the past?"

Most have a decent answer reflecting back to an internship or a prior job where they were "tossed in the deep end" and figured things out. The ones who struggle are the ones who haven't really worked or done a TA or undergrad research before. They simply don't have the experience to answer the question and it invariably falls into some story about a group project at school that falls flat.

For us, all we care about during the interview is that you seem like a pleasant person, you sound like you have some level of life experience, and you're interested in the types of law we practice.

By the way, most of the time the behavioral questions are the softballs. I'm giving you an open ended opportunity to talk about yourself and your experience. Don't be afraid to take the question and run with it a little bit.

[nixy]

Ideally, these questions are asking about experiences/skills that are pertinent to the job you’re applying to, and it’s not likely that something pertinent will arise out of your childhood, so it’s not really requiring you to review your entire life on the spot. That said, they’re a pain in the ass, and all I can say is try googling to find examples you can prep for, and maybe work on how you can spin examples you can think of to fit different possible prompts.

[bana79]

Yesterday I had an interview where the partner tossed me a couple behavioral questions and was clearly scoring my answers to my face. He told me he was just taking notes but that's pretty hard to believe when you can see someone checking numbered boxes and can see what score they're giving you.

Fuck that firm.

[Anonymous User]

Most have a decent answer reflecting back to an internship or a prior job where they were "tossed in the deep end" and figured things out. The ones who struggle are the ones who haven't really worked or done a TA or undergrad research before. They simply don't have the experience to answer the question and it invariably falls into some story about a group project at school that falls flat.

It's unfortunate that candidates will get dinged for this. Not having prior experience doesn't mean they won't be great attorneys at the firm. I went straight through and have done, as far as I can tell, quite well in my career so far.

Edit: Accidental anon. User is yodamiked

[soft blue]

Probably the stories you have come from 2-3 experiences, you should be able to just use those experiences to answer whatever question. The questions you've prepared for are also probably pretty similar to the ones you're getting and can be easily adapted on-the-fly. For example, if you prepared an answer to "discuss an experience you had working on a team where members strongly disagreed," you should be able to use that answer for "discuss an experience you had where you had to choose between multiple compelling options" or "discuss an experience working in a stressful environment" or "discuss an experience where you had to do work in a way you disagreed with."

You're not reinventing the wheel with each question. You're adapting the stories you've prepped slightly to fit the precise question asked. I know that, for any behavioral question I'm asked, I'll be using one of three stories and adapting it to the question.

[Aeroplane]

Probably the stories you have come from 2-3 experiences, you should be able to just use those experiences to answer whatever question. The questions you've prepared for are also probably pretty similar to the ones you're getting and can be easily adapted on-the-fly. For example, if you prepared an answer to "discuss an experience you had working on a team where members strongly disagreed," you should be able to use that answer for "discuss an experience you had where you had to choose between multiple compelling options" or "discuss an experience working in a stressful environment" or "discuss an experience where you had to do work in a way you disagreed with."

You're not reinventing the wheel with each question. You're adapting the stories you've prepped slightly to fit the precise question asked. I know that, for any behavioral question I'm asked, I'll be using one of three stories and adapting it to the question.

My approach is similar to yours, in that I prepare a limited number of experiences to adapt to multiple possible questions each, but I don't think 2-3 is reliably going to be sufficient because you can't repeat stories and some interviews can be heavy on the behavioral questions.

If you really care about a particular interview, here is what I recommend.

1. Google behavioral questions and come up with a list of 40-50.

2. Come up with at least 6 scenarios, at least one of which should involve you failing (more like failing initially before turning things around).

3. Go back through your long list of behavioral questions and check off the ones that you think are plausibly covered by one of your 6 experiences.

4. If you have any uncovered questions left over at the end, either come up with experiences to cover them or a way of pivoting your answer to a question that you do have experience to cover. Like "I've never had to work for a difficult manager, but there was this one time where my immediate manager really disagreed with what I wanted to do..."

[Anonymous User]

I just finished up interviewing 20 some candidates at the local school's OCI, and I asked those types of questions frequently. Here's why. Out of the roughly 20 candidates, 15 or so were K-JD with GPAs that were clustered around the same number. I need to find some way to separate the chaff from the wheat, so I ask them about whether they have the foundations for skills that I know will be valuable in their first couple years of practice. I try to avoid just dropping a "tell me about a time" question, but it usually goes like this. "Junior attorneys in our litigation group are expected to be able to pick up work that they're unfamiliar with and do the requisite research and analysis without hand holding. Can you talk about how you have approached similar situations in the past?"

Most have a decent answer reflecting back to an internship or a prior job where they were "tossed in the deep end" and figured things out. The ones who struggle are the ones who haven't really worked or done a TA or undergrad research before. They simply don't have the experience to answer the question and it invariably falls into some story about a group project at school that falls flat.

For us, all we care about during the interview is that you seem like a pleasant person, you sound like you have some level of life experience, and you're interested in the types of law we practice.

By the way, most of the time the behavioral questions are the softballs. I'm giving you an open ended opportunity to talk about yourself and your experience. Don't be afraid to take the question and run with it a little bit.

This seems like a good idea and I understand wanting to know if people have been able to succeed in that kind of situation before. The main problem I see with it is that it is unforeseen and therefore still hard to talk about on the spot, even if one has had such an experience.

Even if I have had such an experience in the past, this question would require me to introspect on that experience, thinking about what I went through, what my strategy was, why it was helpful, what my challenges were, how I overcame them, etc. If I never thought much into it before, it would be difficult to remember it, think deeply about it, and analyze it, on the spot, when there is a person in front of me waiting for an answer. My answer would thus sound inarticulate and blundering.

[Anonymous User]

Probably the stories you have come from 2-3 experiences, you should be able to just use those experiences to answer whatever question. The questions you've prepared for are also probably pretty similar to the ones you're getting and can be easily adapted on-the-fly. For example, if you prepared an answer to "discuss an experience you had working on a team where members strongly disagreed," you should be able to use that answer for "discuss an experience you had where you had to choose between multiple compelling options" or "discuss an experience working in a stressful environment" or "discuss an experience where you had to do work in a way you disagreed with."

You're not reinventing the wheel with each question. You're adapting the stories you've prepped slightly to fit the precise question asked. I know that, for any behavioral question I'm asked, I'll be using one of three stories and adapting it to the question.

My approach is similar to yours, in that I prepare a limited number of experiences to adapt to multiple possible questions each, but I don't think 2-3 is reliably going to be sufficient because you can't repeat stories and some interviews can be heavy on the behavioral questions.

If you really care about a particular interview, here is what I recommend.

1. Google behavioral questions and come up with a list of 40-50.

2. Come up with at least 6 scenarios, at least one of which should involve you failing (more like failing initially before turning things around).

3. Go back through your long list of behavioral questions and check off the ones that you think are plausibly covered by one of your 6 experiences.

4. If you have any uncovered questions left over at the end, either come up with experiences to cover them or a way of pivoting your answer to a question that you do have experience to cover. Like "I've never had to work for a difficult manager, but there was this one time where my immediate manager really disagreed with what I wanted to do..."

This is a great idea!

[nixy]

Even if I have had such an experience in the past, this question would require me to introspect on that experience, thinking about what I went through, what my strategy was, why it was helpful, what my challenges were, how I overcame them, etc. If I never thought much into it before, it would be difficult to remember it, think deeply about it, and analyze it, on the spot, when there is a person in front of me waiting for an answer. My answer would thus sound inarticulate and blundering.

Right, which is why you anticipate possible kinds of questions and prepare answers.