Behavioral Interview Questions for Candidates: Flipping the Script

“Do you have any questions?” the hiring manager asks.  

You try to gather your thoughts. The question coming at the end of the interview catches you off guard – you’ve expended so much energy answering the interviewer’s questions that you haven’t thought of your own. 

Or perhaps, you spent an hour prior to the interview scouring the net for possible questions to ask. Things like “Can you tell me about how you see the team growing over the next year?” Or “What does it take to succeed in this role?” Or even, “Can you tell me how this role got open?”  

These are all decent questions, but they suffer from the same problem that made best-practice interviewers turn to behavioral interviewing in the first place: they can all be answered in a BS, by-the-book manner. 

Q: “Can you tell me about how you see the team growing over the next year?” 

A: “Oh, yes. The team is taking on many high impact projects and I anticipate will need to grow to be able to ship them on time.” 

Good answer? No. Bullshit answer. But you have no way of figuring that out, as a candidate. It’s not that the interviewer is trying to deceive you, it’s that they genuinely can’t predict the future. The team might grow. It might not.  

Q: “What does it take to succeed in this role?” 

A: “A strong sense of ownership, and collaboration with your peers.” 

An answer you could’ve gotten from a book, right? What does it tell you about this specific team’s culture? Why, very little. Companies are quick to list out their values, but relatively few live them.  

What do you really want to know? 

Before we go much further, let me pause for a second. I know a lot of interviewers consider the “Do you have any questions?” question to be a bother, a diabolical test of the candidate’s interest in the company. Will the candidate ask interesting, perceptive questions about the company’s product? Have they researched the company culture enough to inquire something meaningful about it? 

Yes, yes, those are all good things. You should know something about the company before the interview, and you should have some familiarity with their product, and yes, you should ask interesting, perceptive questions about all that.  

But stopping there robs you of an incredibly valuable opportunity: to figure out whether this is a place you will actually thrive. And to do that, you must ask questions about things important to you. 

So, before we go further, stop and ask yourself: what do I want from my next job? Do I want to get promoted? Do I want greater scope and responsibility? Do I want a vibrant, collaborative team? Do I want to work on interesting things?  

Note that you can rarely get all of the above, so the real question is, what’s most important to you? Ask questions about that. 

Going the Behavioral Route 

I would posit that every single candidate question asked can be asked better via behavioral methods. Here are some examples:  

Traditional question: “What does it take to succeed in this role?” 

What you really want to know: “Can I get promoted under this manager?” 

Behavioral version: “Can you tell me about the last person you promoted?” 

Traditional question: “Can you tell me about the team culture?” 

What you really want to know: “Are there difficult, negative people on the team I’m going to have to work with?” 

Behavioral version: “Can you tell me about the last disagreement the team had?”

Traditional question (for the hiring manager): “Can you tell me what you value in a direct report?” 

What you really want to know: “Is this person a micromanager?” 

Behavioral version: “Can you tell me about the last disagreement you had with one of your direct reports?” or “Can you tell me about the last time you had to get hands-on on a project?” 

Hopefully, you get the idea. Every generic, BS-oriented question can be turned into a behavioral question by thinking about what you’re really trying to find out and phrasing it as a situation. 

Just remember, a discussion of this sort will likely require more than 3 minutes at the end of the interview typically allotted to these sorts of questions. Which is fine – the interviewer might run out of time answering, but it will be a more productive discussion nonetheless. 

Avoid Negativity

One critical difference between an interviewer and interviewee's behavioral questions is that the interviewee must not go negative. In other words, the questions you ask your interviewer must be positively slanted.

Don't: Tell me about the last time you had to fire someone.

Do: Tell me about the time you did something to uplevel the team.

Don't: Tell me about the last time a team's project went horribly wrong.

Do: Tell me about the team's last great success.

Remember, the chance to ask these questions typically comes at the end of the interview, and you really want your interviewer to leave with a positive mindset. Give them a chance to crow a little. Make them feel good about talking to you.

Evaluating the Response 

While this approach to candidate questions can yield high-amplitude, off-the-beaten-track answers, keep in mind that these are essentially interview questions. A lot of these are the sort of questions I would ask when interviewing a candidate for a manager position.  

But in this situation, your interviewer isn’t approaching the discussion as if they’re being interviewed. This means that their responses might not be very tight. In other words, if you ask for a disagreement your hiring manager had with their direct report and the hiring manager in question flails, that could be because they never disagree with their direct reports or, more likely, that they’re unprepared for the question. 

The real rubric for gauging questions like this is whether the interviewer is willing to engage with the question, or merely brushes it aside without attempting to provide a thoughtful answer. The latter case should be a huge red flag. If they’re unwilling to engage with you as a candidate, there’s no reason to think they’d be more willing to give you the time of day on the job. And if this pattern repeats across multiple interviews, run! 

Here's an example of a brush-off: 
Question: “Can you tell me about the last time you promoted someone?” 

Answer: “Oh, we promote people all the time!” 

See what I mean? 

Conclusion

Mastering the art of behavioral questions can transform your interview experience, providing deeper insights into your potential workplace and setting the stage for your future success. Remember, your questions are just as important as your answers. By preparing thoughtful, situation-based questions, you can ensure that you not only impress your interviewer but also gather the information you need to make the best career decision. So, the next time you’re in the hot seat, flip the script with confidence, and make your interview a two-way street. Good luck!