50 Behavior Based Interview Questions

For Behaviors that Revolve Around Leadership:

1. Tell me about a time when you accomplished something significant that wouldn’t have happened if you had not been there to make it happen.
2. Tell me about a time when you were able to step into a situation, take charge, muster support and achieve good results.
3. Describe for me a time when you may have been disappointed in your behavior.
4. Tell me about a time when you had to discipline or fire a friend.
5. Tell me about a time when you’ve had to develop leaders under you.

For Behaviors that Revolve Around Initiative and Follow-through:

6. Give me an example of a situation where you had to overcome major obstacles to achieve your objectives.
7. Tell me about a goal that you set that took a long time to achieve or that you are still working towards.
8. Tell me about a time when you won (or lost) an important contract.
9. Tell me about a time when you used your political savvy to push a program through that you really believed in.
10. Tell me about a situation that you had significant impact on because of your follow-through.

For Behaviors that Revolve Around Thinking and Problem Solving:

11. Tell me about a time when you had to analyze facts quickly, define key issues, and respond immediately or develop a plan that produced good results.
12. If you had to do that activity over again, how would you do it differently?
13. Describe for me a situation where you may have missed an obvious solution to a problem.
14. Tell me about a time when you anticipated potential problems and developed preventative measures.
15. Tell me about a time when you surmounted a major obstacle.

For Behaviors that Revolve Around Communication:

16. Tell me about a time when you had to present a proposal to a person in authority and were able to do this successfully.
17. Tell me about a situation where you had to be persuasive and sell your idea to someone else.
18. Describe for me a situation where you persuaded team members to do things your way. What was the effect?
19. Tell me about a time when you were tolerant of an opinion that was different from yours.

For Behaviors that Revolve Around Working Effectively with Others:

20. Give me an example that would show that you’ve been able to develop and maintain productive relations with others, though there were differing points of view.
21. Tell me about a time when you were able to motivate others to get the desired results.
22. Tell me about a difficult situation with a co-worker, and how you handled it.
23. Tell me about a time when you played an integral role in getting a team (or work group) back on track.

For Behaviors that Revolve Around Work Quality:

24. Tell me about a time when you wrote a report that was well received. What do you attribute that to?
25. Tell me about a time when you wrote a report that was not well received. What do you attribute that to?
26. Tell me about a specific project or program that you were involved with that resulted in improvement in a major work area.
27. Tell me about a time when you set your sights too high (or too low).

For Behaviors that Revolve Around Creativity and Innovation:

28. Tell me about a situation in which you were able to find a new and better way of doing something significant.
29. Tell me about a time when you were creative in solving a problem.
30. Describe a time when you were able to come up with new ideas that were key to the success of some activity or project.
31. Tell me about a time when you had to bring out the creativity in others.

For Behaviors that Revolve Around Priority Setting:

32. Tell me about a time when you had to balance competing priorities and did so successfully.
33. Tell me about a time when you had to pick out the most important things in some activity and make sure those got done.
34. Tell me about a time that you prioritized the elements of a complicated project.
35. Tell me about a time when you got bogged down in the details of a project.

For Behaviors that Revolve Around Decision Making:

36. Describe for me a time when you had to make an important decision with limited facts.
37. Tell me about a time when you were forced to make an unpopular decision.
38. Describe for me a time when you had to adapt to a difficult situation. What did you do?
39. Tell me about a time when you made a bad decision
40. Tell me about a time when you hired (or fired) the wrong person.

For Behaviors that Revolve Around Ability to Work in Varying Work Conditions (stress, changing deadlines, etc.):

41. Tell me about a time when you worked effectively under pressure.
42. Tell me about a time when you were unable to complete a project on time.
43. Tell me about a time when you had to change work mid-stream because of changing organizational priorities.
44. Describe for me what you do to handle stressful situations.

For Behaviors that Revolve Around Delegation:

45. Tell me about a time when you delegated a project effectively.
46. Tell me about a time when you did a poor job of delegating.
47. Describe for me a time when you had to delegate to a person with a full workload, and how you went about doing it.

For Behaviors that Revolve Around Customer Service:

48. Tell me about a time when you had to deal with an irate customer.
49. Tell me about one or two customer-service related programs that you’ve done that you’re particularly proud of.
50. Tell me about a time when you made a lasting, positive impression on a customer.

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