Interview Preparation Techniques for HR professionals

Behavioural Interviews

Behavioural interviewing is based on the assumption that past behaviour is the best predictor of future behaviour and performance. This style of interviewing can also be known as competency-based or situational interviewing. Employers identify skills, competencies or success factors that they are seeking and ask for detailed examples that will provide insights into your thoughts, feelings and actions in past situations to see whether you match the qualities they are seeking. Instead of asking how you would behave, they will ask how you did behave.

In answering behavioural interview questions, the CEO technique is the advised method: 

Circumstance – What was the circumstance or situation that YOU faced?
Evolution – How did YOU evolve or move that circumstance forward?

Outcome – What was the outcome or result of YOUR intervention? 

How to prepare:

• Prepare yourself with a small number of examples that could be adapted to a range of behavioural questions.
• Try to align them with the competencies of the role and the company that you have identified through your research. Think in terms of examples that will exploit your top selling points.
• Go through your resume to refresh your memory about your professional history.
• Aim for half of your examples to be totally positive, such as accomplishments or meeting goals. More recent examples will score more favourable.
• Responses may also be scored on scale and impact.
• The other half should be situations that started out negatively but either ended positively or you made the best of the outcome. 

Sample behavioural questions: 

Competency: Performance Standards

• Tell me about a project that demanded very high performance standards. How did you ensure those standards were met?
• Sometimes our own standards are even higher than those imposed on us. Give me an example of standards that you have set for yourself and how that compares to organisational expectations? 

Competency: Operational Leadership 

• Tell me about a complex operational problem you had to work on. What research did you undertake before reaching a decision?
• Walk me through an example of an operational decision you had to make. How did you communicate your decision to stakeholders? 

Competency: Strategic Leadership

• Tell me what you think it means to be a visionary leader and give me an example of when you had the opportunity to implement such a strategy?
• Sometimes experienced employees remain reticent to change. Can you tell me about a time that happened to you and how did you deal with the situation?

Competency: Managing Human Capital

• Tell me about a major human capital issue you had to get involved in recently?
• Tell me how you select a team to achieve an outcome for a specific project? Give me an example?

Competency: Building Teams

• Tell me about the most dysfunctional team you have worked with. What made the team dysfunctional?
• Tell me about a team that you formed in response to a specific task or project. How did you select team members and what was the outcome? 

Traditional Interviews

Traditional interview questions tend to focus on your beliefs, professional or management style, your preferred ways of interacting and how you would handle hypothetical situations. The interviewer will ask open-ended and broad-based questions.

The key to successfully responding to these questions is to ensure that you are giving the level of detailed information to demonstrate your skills and experience without rambling. 

Sample traditional questions:

• Tell me about your career journey?
• What are your career achievements to date that have given you the most satisfaction?
• What would key stakeholders in the business say about you?
• Is there anything about your style that you  need to be aware of so that it doesn’t become an issue?
• What are your short and long term goals?
• How would you evaluate your ability to deal with conflict?
• How do you determine or evaluate success?
• In what kind of work environment do you feel most comfortable and productive?
• What interested you in this role and our organisation?
• How would you go about driving HR in our organisation? How would you measure success?
• How would you deal with a manager or senior executive who is not on board with safety?