Hello dear Vassar students,
My name is Mariya Panayotova and I am a Career Assistant at the CDO. I am currently a senior and since I know most of you are applying for jobs/internships, I thought it would be a great idea to talk a little bit about my experience with behavioral interviewing. I chose behavioral interviews as a topic of my blog because I feel they are becoming more and more popular among employers but unfortunately not many students take them seriously enough. It is a common mistake to think that preparing answers for complicated technical questions is more important than coming up with stories from your life. I cannot tell you what is more important, but I can assure you that employers want to get to know you as a person and behavioral questions are your chance to dazzle them with your unique personality. So use this tool wisely and you will succeed!
First of all, what is a behavioral interview? The formal definition says that the essence of this type of interview is that "the most accurate predictor of future performance is past performance in a similar situation". The way I always understood this statement is : " I will give you concrete examples from my life that will show you I am the best possible candidate for your position". So, the conclusion is to think well about specific situations from your life, studies, extracurricular activities, campus jobs, etc. that will reveal positive sides of your character relevant to the position you are applying to. This is not the time to be shy about yourself ! The best thing is, you do not need to be a Physics Research Assistant in order to mention a story about your campus job. You may be working in ACDC and still find plenty of good stories to show what a cordial, well-organized and responsible person your are. My advice is to tell your story quickly but to include some details. Allow the interviewer to get to know you and like your character.
Now let's be more specific and give some examples. Most behavioral questions fall into one of the following categories: Decision Making and Problem Solving, Leadership, Motivation, Communication, Teamwork, Planning and Organization. Let's take Teamwork. I will give you an example of a tricky questions in order to show you that behavioral questions are challenging: "Describe a team experience you found disappointing. What would you have done to prevent this?" This is a tricky question because it assumes in itself that once you failed: you were part of a team but you were disappointed with the work done, although you could have done something to prevent it. My approach to this question would be the following. (Keep in mind that this is not a real situation from my life because I am simply illustrating my point with it). First, I will give an example of a teamwork experience that was a success: " I was working in the School Parliament in my highschool and we organized a volunteer campaign to support first-graders in a poor neighborhood. We were selling crepes on the mainstreet and we raised a significant sum of money. I organized a shuffle for my classmates with fun inexpensive gifts and tickets for entry and raised additional funds." Now you start thinking, why this experience is actually disappointing and here is the end of my story: " When we went to give the money to the school in the poor neighborhood I realized how much more money they were actually needing. Our gift was helpful but was not as significant as I wanted it to be. I was very disappointed but I knew how we could have prevented this. On the next year we organized a bigger campaign, I publisized it very well and attracted some important people from our town to support it. As a result, we raised enough money to actually restructure the school."
I know this story was a bit extreme but I wanted to show you my point. Now I will leave you with some behavioral questions you can think about. You will be amazed how many things you learn about yourself just by preparing the answers :)
Describe your leadership style and give an example of a situation when you successfully led a group.
Give an example of a situation when others were intense but you were able to maintain your composure.
Tell us about the most difficult or frustrating individual that you've ever had to work with, and how you managed to work with them.
Give us an example of a stressful situation you have faced. How did you deal with it?
Good luck!
Mariya
