The Two Types of Behavioral Interview Questions

I landed three offers for Senior Engineering Manager positions at the Big Techs last year.?

Out of the different categories of interviews I took, I got genuinely close to mastering Behavioral Interviews. A big part of it was due to an insight that I had while doing a mock interview with a mentor.?

In this article, I will discuss the most important thing that I learned about Behavioral Interviews that will completely change how you think and hopefully answer them.

Why is this so powerful? Every single interview usually has a behavioral portion.

Besides greetings and chitchat, if you break it down, a typical BigTech Behavioral Interview is composed of three sections: INTRODUCTION, CORE, and CLOSING.

In the CORE section - where most of the time is spent - you will find two types of questions: SITUATIONAL QUESTIONS and FRAMEWORK QUESTIONS.

A core tenet of Behavioral interviewing is that "the most accurate predictor of future performance is past performance in a similar situation."?

Although this is a good principle for the interviewer and interviewee to keep in mind, this is misleading. It implies that 100% of the questions are "situational-based" and need to be answered with a past situation, using the STAR format.

There is an entire category of questions and answers that is not interested in how you behaved in a particular situation but more in your lessons learned, philosophies, and mental models extracted from doing that same thing again and again. They are what I call "framework-based" questions.

Identifying and adapting your answer based on the type of question will be crucial for your performance. Let's see why.

Situational-Based Questions are far more common. They usually start with "Tell me about *a time/a case/a project/A SITUATION* where/when you …". They should almost always be answered using the famous "STAR" or "SAR" format. And, they should rarely take more than 2 minutes for your initial answer, not considering follow-up questions from the interviewer.

• S is for the Situation, the context behind the scenario you will describe?
• A is for the Actions, the actions you took to address the Situation?
• R is for the Results, the quantitative or qualitative metrics that resulted from your Actions.?

Examples of great Situational-Based Behavioral Interview Questions:

1. Tell me about a time you disagreed with a peer of yours.
2. Describe a situation when you have successfully managed multiple projects simultaneously.
3. Tell me about the most critical constructive feedback you received and how you handled it.

Framework-Based Questions are much broader and almost totally freestyle. The biggest mistake here, though, is to try to reply in a wishy-washy way without a clear structure or a framework logically connecting all your points. Here it is a lot more acceptable to take 5 minutes to reply explaining your full mental model, though I would try to compress it into 3 minutes or less to maximize interaction with the interviewer.

I call them Framework-Based because they should rely on some preexisting mental model of yours, some framework that illustrates how you think. They can be a series of questions that help decompose things, a set of overarching principles, an acronym, or the famous "3 things". They need to entertain the interviewer and ultimately capture their attention. They should be inspiring and profound; they need to surprise the interviewer positively. Ideally, you bring new ideas or insights that complement the interviewer's experience. They need to show the interviewer that you have been thinking deeply about that kind of thing, ideally much deeper than the interviewer. They are almost philosophical. They are usually about your processes, hows, and whys.

Examples of great Framework-Based Behavioral Interview Questions:

1. What is your engineering culture, and what do you do to propagate this culture to your team and organization?
2. How is your ideal day/week distributed for your maximum performance and effectiveness as a leader?
3. What are the metrics you look for in teams? How do you know if a team is working well or not?

To conclude, the best tip I could give anyone wanting to ace on Behavioral Interviews is to write:?

1. Research the most common interview questions to the role you are interviewing for;?
2. Write down your answers to the top 10 questions, ideally half-page answers, to a max of a single full-page reply. Make sure your answers tell a story and follow The Pyramid Principle of logic in writing.
3. Ask peers that you trust or mentors to take a look and provide feedback on your highs and your lows, what is not clear, what could be better.?

Refine and Rehearse.?Repeat.

Thanks to Jose Villegas for providing me feedback and challenging my logic in writing and thinking.