Behavioural vs Situational Interview

Behavioural vs Situational Interview. Do you know the difference? What interview type will you be attending? How do you prepare?

I recently wrote a post about attending a Behavioural Interview and how to prepare. The theory of the Behavioural Interview is that past behaviour demonstrates future behaviour. With this interview type, the Interviewer asks candidates questions that will relate past experiences, i.e. “Tell me about a time when …”

In my post, I talked about how you would prepare for that type of interview and how you would use the S-T-A-R principle (Situation, Task, Action, Result) as your guide to your response.  Large organizations, Federal Government Departments, Law Enforcement Agencies and Fire Departments, to name a few, often use this type of interview to assess certain competencies, or qualities, in the candidate.

Now, I would like to focus on the Situational Interview. This type of interview also assesses certain competencies, but is done using a hypothetical situational. It focuses less on past experience and more on how you would handle a certain situation, should you find yourself in that position. You might get a question like:

You are one of the team leads in your unit, responsible for a team of three. One of the team members is not performing his/her duties, and is interfering with the work goals of the unit. How would you handle this situation?”

This interview question could be used to assess leadership, team player, or effective interpersonal skills. This one question can tell the interviewer quite a bit about you as the candidate, based on how you answer this question.

So, how do you answer the question?

The thing to remember about answering the situational based question is there is no wrong answer.  What you do is what you do.  For instance, in the above example, you could actually say that you would do nothing, or that you would let your supervisor know so he/she can deal with it.  And it some circumstances, that is what you might do.

However, remember what you are doing while at the interview.  You are trying to demonstrate that you meet the competency being assessed.  And would either of those answers demonstrate that?  No.  So what would you do?  And how would you prepare for this type of question?

The same way you would prepare for any interview.  Practice, practice, practice.

What to Practice

• Make up hypothetical scenarios that reflect each of the competencies, like the above question;
• Think about all the things that you would do if you were in that situation, i.e.
  • Would you speak to the parties involved?
  • Would you involve anyone else?
  • At what point would you engage your supervisor?
  • Would you monitor the situation to ensure it was resolved?
• Have someone ask you those questions so you can get used to answering them out loud;
• Reach out to someone who is experienced at conducting interviews using this model, or someone who has attended (successfully) interviews in the past.

Don’t be afraid to reach out to a professional recruiter, or even a Certified Professional Career Coach, to help you get ready for an upcoming interview.  How you answer these questions could be the difference between someone else getting the job, or you being the successful candidate.

Do you know someone who is faced with this challenge?  Feel free to share this post by using the share links at the top of this page.  Also, if you’d like more interview tips, feel free to check out the interview resource page.