Top behavioral questions to ask candidates for optimal hires
Want to hire the right person for your open role? Start by asking the correct behavioral questions during your interviews. Find out what they are now!
Back to TopHiring is a difficult business. We know – we've been helping companies do it for 25 years! While it's never 100% certain that you'll make the perfect hire, certain strategies make it easier. One of them is asking the right interview questions.
If you want to make the best possible hiring choices, read on to discover why asking behavioral questions can help you in your future efforts.
Behavioral questions
"Behavioral interview questions assess your actions and reactions in a specific professional setting or situation."1
The insights you gain from these questions are far more valuable than simple yes-or-no answers. They can bring a candidate's experiences and potential to life and help you envision them working for you.
The STAR technique2
The acronym STAR in the STAR technique stands for Situation, Task, Action and Result. These four areas help provide a fully rounded answer that gives employers a clear picture of how candidates will function in the workplace.
Situation: This part of the candidate's answer sets the scene, supported with contextual details that lay the groundwork for the Task stage.
Task: Now is the time for your candidate to explain their role in the scene they set up previously. It can illustrate responsibility.
Action: Next, the candidate must explain how they take on specific challenges with details about intelligent decision-making.
Result: Finally, the outcome is revealed using examples and proof (like metrics).
Using the STAR technique
Questions that typically make use of this technique tend to begin with
Tell me about," "Describe," Provide an example" or "Have you." When you use those words, it is a clear sign to your candidate that you want an in-depth answer with real details from their work experience.
We wrote up these examples for you to consider:
- Can you recall a time when you disagreed with your boss? How did you handle that?
- Tell me about a stressful time you've had at work. How did you get through it?
- Have you ever made the wrong decision at work? How did you handle it?
- How do you handle deadlines? What are some strategies you use to accomplish the needed tasks?
- Tell us about a significant work challenge you've had. What did you do to take it on?
- What has your experience been with managing other people? How do you keep them motivated or correct them if they go off course?
Reasons to try the STAR technique
In addition to gaining insight into real-world experience, the STAR technique also highlights how candidates actively apply their soft skills.
What are you looking for?
Beyond the schedule, salary and other basics, it's smart to determine exactly what you're looking for. After you've listed that out, you can design questions, preferably using a method like STAR, to decide if candidates have the needed skills or proof to back them up.
When you work on your questions, focus on items like soft skills, specific hard skill experience and anything else vital to a candidate performing a job or fitting into your team structure.
Ranking and choosing
Once you've interviewed a group of candidates using behavioral questions, you should design a system that objectively proves who would be the right choice for the role you're recruiting for. This will be an individual process, but it's valuable because it removes emotion from the equation and allows just the candidate's experiences to shine.
When the votes are tallied, all that's left is to hire them. The ranking process won't lie, so hurry and grab them before another company does. If you think they're great, others will, too.
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If you have questions about the strategies we presented, we're always happy to talk. And if you're ready to find talent using the questions, you can always enlist us as a partner!
Sources and inspiration
- 10 Behavioral Interview Questions (With Sample Answers)
- Get to Know Candidates With the STAR Interview Format
- 30 star method interview questions to prepare for
Further reading
