This is something I have never done before my most recent job search but it has been a huge help. Previously all my interview prep was on tech and I pretty much winged it for the behavioral stuff since interview prep guides seem to always focus on the tech side. Plus it always feels worse and more obvious when you struggle with or fail to properly answer the tech questions.
What I did is I prepared 10 different stories about my career experience and then tagged them with a bunch of prompts. For example I have a story about one project that had dual PMs that experienced a lot of scope creep and eventually fizzled on release. I can now use that story to answer a broad range of questions from failure to various project management approaches. Overall I now have prepared stories to answer probably 50-75 different questions immediately.
Another benefit is that I have also told these stories multiple times in interviews now and I get better telling them each time. Even if the answer isn't 100% relevant, I feel more confident and likely come off better launching immediately into a detailed story about my experience rather than trying to awkwardly come up with an answer on the fly. It is also easy to drop irrelevant parts or expand on specific details when the basic framework of the story is already something that feels natural.
I will even have the document with all the prompts and story bullet points open whenever I am doing phone or remote interviews. I could probably even create a cheat sheet to use for in person interviews since I usually would bring an executive style notepad with me anyway to interviews to jot down notes about the company.
Maybe this is obvious advice, but I think I am relatively smart and never done it previously or even seen this approach recommend so I am guessing there are other people who could use this tip.
A single memorable event you went though tends to highlight many different skills, so having a few stories down well will let you answer most of those questions
And what if it doesn't answer the interviewer's question perfectly?
Their real goal was to try to get to know you better. The question was just a prompt to get a better signal about you, and you delivered above and beyond what was asked.
>And what if it doesn't answer the interviewer's question perfectly?
Exactly. You only need to avoid the extreme of looking like a politician in a debate completely dodging a question. And even if you do get too far away from the question, you can always close it out with a joke about how off topic you got which gives you a chance to connect with the interviewer on a human level.
I love when candidates go on sort of relevant tangents. It shows they've actually done the work and formed opinions about it. Pros and cons, maintenance and growth, missteps and how they've been burned, competing or preferred solutions, etc. It means they are capable of more than: I can code in X and help clear your backlog.
Yes. Behavioral interviews tend to ask you the same types of questions over and over. Have a canned response for each. Whenever you hear a new question create a canned response. I've been telling the same story about a conflict with a coworker (that has a nice resolution) for the past 5 years whenever someone asks me, "Tell me about a time you have had difficulties working with someone on your team".
I had to do a bunch of interviews recently and did something similar, multiple pages of notes with bullet points in a big font just out of view. Was very helpful for those moments where your brain just freezes up and you can't remember the perfect anecdote or systems architecture point you wanted to bring up.
I do think it would work for actual on-site interviews as well, as it's common for a candidate to bring in their own notes of questions to ask, etc.
This is something I think Amazon does well: their behavioral questions have a known format and prompt, and their recruiters tell you that and that you should practice.
At Amazon, the behavioral questions should be a STAR format response to prompts about Amazon leadership principles.
If you write down two STAR format stories to each principle, you’ll always have something to say for the behavioral questions. (Most stories hit several LPs, depending on what you emphasize. So it’s only a handful, total.)
I made flash cards for each story, so I could practice hitting the key points.
This is something I have never done before my most recent job search but it has been a huge help. Previously all my interview prep was on tech and I pretty much winged it for the behavioral stuff since interview prep guides seem to always focus on the tech side. Plus it always feels worse and more obvious when you struggle with or fail to properly answer the tech questions.
What I did is I prepared 10 different stories about my career experience and then tagged them with a bunch of prompts. For example I have a story about one project that had dual PMs that experienced a lot of scope creep and eventually fizzled on release. I can now use that story to answer a broad range of questions from failure to various project management approaches. Overall I now have prepared stories to answer probably 50-75 different questions immediately.
Another benefit is that I have also told these stories multiple times in interviews now and I get better telling them each time. Even if the answer isn't 100% relevant, I feel more confident and likely come off better launching immediately into a detailed story about my experience rather than trying to awkwardly come up with an answer on the fly. It is also easy to drop irrelevant parts or expand on specific details when the basic framework of the story is already something that feels natural.
I will even have the document with all the prompts and story bullet points open whenever I am doing phone or remote interviews. I could probably even create a cheat sheet to use for in person interviews since I usually would bring an executive style notepad with me anyway to interviews to jot down notes about the company.
Maybe this is obvious advice, but I think I am relatively smart and never done it previously or even seen this approach recommend so I am guessing there are other people who could use this tip.