Job interviews in English often aren’t just about your education and work, they are also about your character. To get to know you, HR managers may ask you behavioural questions. These types of questions are designed to assess your soft skills.
It is tempting to lie, or to make up composites from bits and pieces of your life experience. Don’t do it! First, interviewers can usually tell if the stories are real or not. And second, you would be robbing yourself of the self-confidence having honest examples can give you.
Instead, take the time to think of real situations from your life. When have your decisions worked out well? What have you accomplished that you feel proud of?
1.) Read through the behaviour interview questions, and work together to make them into indirect questions.
2.) Prepare to answer the questions:
a. Think of an example of a time that you faced each situation.
b. Organize your thoughts into PAR answers. PAR stands for Problem, Action, and Result. Try to be as succinct as you can, without leaving out any important information.
3.) Take turns being the interviewer and the interviewee.
Roll Play:
1.) Describe a time that you had to work under pressure.
2.) Give me an example of a situation where you had a conflict with a team member.
3.) Tell me about a time that you made a mistake. How did you address it?
4.) Describe a time that you had to do a task that you weren’t trained for. What did you do?
5.) Talk about a time that you made an unpopular decision. How did you implement it?
6.) Give me an example of a time that you motivated others to accomplish a goal.
7.) Describe a difficult situation that you have faced. How did you manage it?
8.) Talk about a time that things didn’t work out as you expected them to. What happened?
9.) Tell me about a time that you strongly disagreed with a boss’s decision. How did you handle the situation?
10.) Talk about a difficult problem that you have faced. How did you solve the problem?
