07/ 24/ 2007
by Charles R. McConnell
Behavioral interviewing, actively promoted in management and human resources literature in recent years, is sometimes described as a "new style of interviewing" developed by industrial and organizational psychologists during the 1970s. The concept is growing in popularity and is seen in many quarters as generating a greater degree of reliability than so-called "ordinary" interviewing.
Is behavioral interviewing truly something new or simply a new label describing a practice that should have been followed all along and has been followed faithfully for years by conscientious, insightful interviewers? In other words, we might ask: How much of behavioral interviewing is a genuine improvement over older ways? And how much simply represents a new adjective (behavioral) attached to a process (interviewing) that has become tarnished over the years by careless practice? Just as "delegation" became so abused through misuse that it became redefined as "empowerment," interviewing has been so poorly accomplished that a unique label was created to describe its proper use.
The fundamental premise of behavioral interviewing is the belief that the most accurate predictor of an individual's future performance is past performance in a similar situation. Long before it was given the behavioral label in the 1970s, many insightful interviewers practiced the process properly without knowing that they were doing "behavioral interviewing."
Much of the literature concerning behavioral interviewing describes traditional interviews that include questions like "Tell me all about yourself" (which is not a question but an open-ended instruction). Honest, effective interviewers have long known that the likes of "Tell me all about yourself" is highly inappropriate; being fully open-ended and about as general as it's possible to be, it doesn't offer a clue as to what or how much the individual should say.
Interestingly, true behavioral interviewing has received a healthy boost from much of the employment-related legislation that has been accruing since the mid-1960s. Anti-discrimination laws have barred access to most personal information, so a great many questions that were once asked in interviews can no longer legally be asked. With legislation forbidding access to much information concerning what the job applicant is (parent, spouse, homeowner, church member, union member, etc.), the broadest areas remaining for asking questions concern what the applicant knows or can do. This plays directly into the behavioral interviewing premise that past performance in situations similar to those to be encountered in a desired new job is probably the best predictor of future performance.
What kinds of questions are at the heart of behavioral interviewing? Here are some examples:
- What was one of the most troublesome on-the-job problems you faced, and how did you solve it?
- Describe an instance in which you were presented with job-related problems or stresses that tested your ability to cope. What did you do?
- Provide an example of a time when you had to be quick in reaching a decision.
- How do you decide what gets top priority when scheduling your activities?
- Provide an example of an instance when you had to think quickly to get yourself or a coworker out of a difficult situation.
- What past goals have you set for yourself, and what have you done to accomplish them?
- Briefly describe a couple of your most significant job accomplishments.
- What are you looking for in a new job that you feel you're not getting in your present job?
- Have you ever had to sell an unpopular idea to others? How did you proceed, and what were the results?
You should avoid hypothetical questions that lead to general answers about behavior. Questions should elicit detail concerning particular projects, events or work experiences, and they should encourage information about how the individual dealt with any given situation and what outcome resulted.
A behavioral approach to interviewing is always to be preferred in the majority of instances of dealing with experienced workers, especially those who are applying for technical, professional and managerial positions. You may have to narrow the approach somewhat in interviewing like when you're talking to new graduates who have had no experience in their fields. Also, you may have to further narrow your interview approach when assessing potential employees for entry-level positions, especially people new to the workforce.
Regardless of what the approach may be called, it's generally true that past performance is probably the best available predictor of future performance. However, behaviorally oriented or not, selection interviewing is a far from perfect process. No one has yet devised a reliable way to separate the applicants who simply talk a good job from those who will later do a good job.
