When interviewing a potential hire for any position, you want to make sure you’re asking beyond the basics. Combine behavioral interview questions with those related to experience and skill set. Asking your candidate behavioral interview questions will help you dig deeper into their personality and character, revealing more about his or her ability to work as part of your organization. Peruse the list below for some of the top questions to pose.

Best 7 Behavioral Interview Questions To Ask A Candidate

How do you work under pressure?

Asking this question, and even requesting an example of a time where your candidate endured an intense and stressful situation, is a great way to assess their coping mechanisms as well as how reactionary they are. Nearly everyone has been in a tumultuous work situation at some point, and their ability to articulate how well they handled it and what they plan to do in similar future situations is a large indicator of their professional competency.

Briefly, discuss how you set and achieve your goals.

The candidate must be driven, disciplined and goal-oriented, no matter what type of position you’re filling. If he or she can describe a tangible and concrete way that hey approach goal setting, you likely have a strong candidate. 

Describe a decision you made that wasn’t popular. How did you handle implementing it?

The candidate should be able to describe any challenges he or she faced when attempting to implement a new decision. How did the situation turn out? How did employees react? Use this question to gauge whether the candidate handles such situations confidently, and with grace.

How do you approach disagreeing with someone at work?

Can the candidate compromise? This, along with the prior question, proves one of the best behavioral interview questions to ask a job candidate. Discover whether the candidate tries to avoid such situations, or instead confront them head-on. The latter behavior, when executed with kindness, usually reveals a great personality type to keep around the office.

Provide an anecdotal example of how you once motivated employees or co-workers.

A telling behavioral interview question allows the candidate to explain his or her motivational strategies. Perhaps co-workers resisted a change being made. Did this candidate recognize some of the benefits right away? Did they motivate their coworkers to give it a shot?

Describe a time when it was particularly important to make a good impression on a client or customer. How did you go about it?

Can the candidate effectively impress a customer? This question can also serve as a hypothetical one. If the candidate cannot provide a specific anecdote, ask him or her to elaborate on what he/she would do to put the best foot forward in this situation. These seemingly minor gestures amount to a lot when it comes to staffing your business with successful hires, and then serving happy customers.

Tell me about the first job you ever had. What did you do to learn the ropes?

Any excellent, highly qualified candidate will demonstrate a passion for relentless learning. Did he or she ask plenty of questions, and learn from fellow coworkers as well as their mistakes? Look for an answer that encapsulates how the candidate performed, and what his/her learning style looks like. (Be sure to call the candidate’s references following the interview, just to double check!)

What behavioral interview questions would you add to this list? Let us know! Contact TruPath today for any hiring help you might be seeking.

For further reading, check out the top behavioral interviewing tips for hiring managers.

As a trusted recruitment source for more than a decade, TruPath has the industry knowledge and a proven model to help our partners feel comfortable in their search for a candidate.

Through our TruProcess, we are able to consistently deliver exceptional candidates that help organizations continue down successful paths. Contact TruPath today to tell us about your staffing needs.