How to prepare the behavioral interview
A step-by-step framework to solve this interview + 🎁 Free Notion Template
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There are behavioral signals in purely technical interviews, such as the System Design Interview and the Coding Interview, especially doing a code review.
Yet, most companies have specific loops for behavioral interviews.
They assess that you have the track record your resume shows. They also assess your level of seniority. The same question is answered differently depending on your tenure.
Some people would argue that this is the most important interview. I also think so. Your tech skills need to be decent enough to pay the bills. But after you meet the tech bar for the level you are interviewing, you want to ensure you are the candidate everyone would like to work with.
This post is one of the 4 post series I’m writing about technical interviews after I passed my SDE2 interviews at Amazon for an internal transfer. If you are interested in the others, check them out here:
🗺️ How to prepare the technical interview (Contains an explanation of my study framework)
🧙♂️ How to prepare the behavioral interview. (this post).
The preparation framework
1) Identify the criteria they use to evaluate
This interview seems unstructured. It’s not.
Each interviewer has some clear competencies assigned to them for the interview and a rubric to evaluate the answers.
Interviews are like an exam, you want to know the lessons in scope. The company culture page is your syllabus. If there’s none, check generic interview questions.
This was very easy for Amazon, the culture page are the leadership principles I am very used to.
2) Make a list of stories
Ideally, you have journaled or kept a brag doc. Now it’s time to read through those entries. You won’t remember the details only with your memory.
Pick the ones where you overcame obstacles with your actions.
3) Match anecdote to evaluation criteria
Write them in the STAR-with-obstacles format I propose below. Even if you know the story, you won’t transmit it the right way out of the blue.
Interviewers will be happy that you have a proper structure, it makes their jobs easier.
You can repeat stories in multiple criteria. Because the evaluation criteria are different, the follow-up questions will take the story in another direction.
Still, make sure you show multiple stories, interviewers will share them in the debrief and it’s a bad signal if all get the same story. It means you have done nothing else relevant, which indicates low tenure.