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Behavioral Interview Questions for Sourcing Jobs

Sourcing manages the process a company uses to find and acquire materials with the supply chain function. A selection of behavioral interview questions targeted to activities and challenges within the sourcing field is provided.

Behavioral interviews focus on assessing the past performance of a job candidate. The questions explore specific situations and activities the job seeker is likely to have experienced. This makes behavioral interviewing a good tool in selecting sourcing professionals.

Sourcing manages the process a company uses to find and acquire materials within the supply chain function. The complexity of sourcing, especially from international suppliers, opens the door to a very wide range of interview questions. Below is a selection of behavioral interview questions that can help prepare for a supply chain interview:

Tell me about a time when you switched from a domestic to an international supplier for a major raw material.
Tell me about the greatest sourcing challenge you have faced in your career.

Tell me about the most difficult vendor relationship you have managed.

Tell me about a time when you made a poor decision in selecting vendors.

Tell me about a time when you assessed the risk of a supply interruption from a source of critical purchased materials.
Tell me about a time when you reduced the landed cost of a material by sourcing from a supplier with a higher unit cost.
Tell me about a time when a major supplier had significant quality issues with materials shipped to you.
Tell me about a time when a cultural issue between you and a vendor or potential vendor led to a collapse of the relationship.
Tell me about a time when you reduced raw material inventory levels without affecting customer service.
Tell me about a time when you utilized intermodal transportation for a key material.
Tell me about a time when you utilized a freight forwarder.
Tell me about a time when you utilized a 3PL.
Tell me about a time when you conducted an audit of a potential vendor overseas.
Tell me about a time when you had to overcome significant security concerns in an international market.
Tell me about a time when you replaced a preferred vendor due to changes in exchange rates.
Tell me about a time when miscommunication with a vendor led a conflict with the vendor.

Tell me about a time when you utilized a international procurement office to identify and manage vendors.

These questions cover a variety of topics related to supply chain and sourcing roles. With the thousands of potential interview questions, it is unlikely you will see many from this list in each interview. Despite this, preparing for these questions will help your interview performance.

Almost all companies will have challenges with some of the topics in the list. If you are prepared to discuss these challenges, few questions about your sourcing experience will be difficult.

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Behavioral Interview Questions for Production Scheduling

These behavioral interview questions will help you prepare for an interview for a production scheduling position.

Production schedulers develop the forecasts and production plans for manufacturing operations. These positions are critical to the success of a company and have to adapt to changing business conditions quickly. This makes behavioral interviews a great choice for assessing production scheduling candidates.

A behavioral interview focuses on assessing the candidate’s past performance by asking questions about specific situations the candidate has encountered. Some of the behavioral questions you may see for a production scheduling position include:

Tell me about a time when you had to schedule around a major unplanned equipment outage.
Tell me about a time when you had to add a new, large customer on short notice.
Tell me about a time when you faced the loss of a large customer on short notice.
Tell me about a time when you were significantly overstaffed for your forecast.
Tell me about a time when you were significantly understaffed for your forecast.
Tell me about a time when you planned for a new product introduction.
Tell me about a time when you faced finished goods inventory levels that were too high.
Tell me about a time when you faced a large backlog and could not ship all orders on-time.
Tell me about a time when a major supplier could not deliver enough to meet your plan.
Tell me about a time when you worked with an operations manager that disagreed with your production plan.
Tell me about a time when you had to overcome technical problems with your MRP system.
Tell me about the worst production schedule you have ever built.
Tell me about a time when you were able to reduce inventories through changes in scheduling.
Tell me about a time when you had to overcome a major bottleneck.
Tell me about a time when a major quality problem affected the ability to meet your production plan.

To be successful answering behavioral interview questions, you need to discuss specific situations. A clear, easily understood story of a challenge you faced, how you dealt with the challenge and the results of your actions can make a very impressive presentation.

Failing to prepare for a behavioral interview makes it very difficult to succeed. The best presentation requires specific details of the situations discussed. A general answer, lacking specificity, will not make a strong impression and will not be remembered.

The questions listed about above cover a range of challenges a production scheduler may face, but they are far from an inclusive list. There are thousands of potential interview questions. The key to preparing is to develop stories you can use to answer a variety of questions. If done effectively, preparing a number of stories can allow you to adapt to almost any interview question.

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Why You Need to Prepare for Behavioral Interviews

Behavioral interviews are a type of interview that asks the candidate to describe specific situations from their experience. This interview type is becoming more common with many companies. If you want to be prepared for every interview, working on behavioral interview techniques is one element your should include in your interview preparation.

It is very difficult to excel in a behavioral interview if you haven’t prepared for this specific type. The interview style requires you to tell very specific stories from your background. Trying to select and tell the best story, emphasizing your strongest skills and showing how you will succeed, is extremely difficult on the fly. You may nail one or two questions, but it’s likely you will bomb a few too. If you are competing against a candidate that has prepared thoroughly, you will be at a distinct disadvantage.

Although being prepared for a common interview type should be enough motivation to work on behavioral interview preparation, there is another important reason you should improve your behavioral interviewing skills:

Behavioral interview techniques can be applied to non-behavioral interviews.

At its core, behavioral interviewing emphasizes storytelling. You will be asked to describe times when you encountered situations similar to the situations in the job you are seeking. The stories you prepare should show your skills, experience, attitude and character. All of these elements are important in every interview. Learning to provide examples that demonstrate your performance will help set you apart in any interview.

The better you get at showing an interviewer how you have performed, the more effective your interviews will be. Hiring managers want to know what they are going to get when they hire someone. Despite this, many job seekers are vague in their presentations. Every job seeker is going to claim to be hard working, a good communicator, good with people, knowledgeable in their field and successful in their career. If you make the same assertions as everyone else, you will look like everyone else.

Using behavioral interview techniques allows you to show the interviewer how you have performed in the past. You can make a strong, memorable impression by describing, very clearly, what you did and what the results were.

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Behavioral Interview Questions in Manufacturing

Behavioral interviews include questions about specific situations in your career. This question type is open-ended and requires you to give details of how you acted in the past. A number of manufacturing firms conduct behavioral interviews and even more incorporate behavioral questions.

Virtually any work situation can be the focus of a behavioral interview question. Preparing for a wide range of questions is essential. I’ve gathered a number of sample behavioral questions that relate to manufacturing and production management positions.

Tell me about a time when you reengineered a process.
Tell me about a time when you increased throughput in a process.
Tell me about a time when you eliminated a bottleneck.
Tell me about a time when your actions resulted in greater efficiencies of your team.
Tell me about a time when your department was overstaffed.
Tell me about a time when your department was understaffed.
Tell me about a time when your team’s morale was very low.
Tell me about a time when you made an unpopular decision.
Tell me about a time when you dealt with a conflict between people within your department.
Tell me about a time when you encountered quality problems in your department.
Tell me about a time when you needed another department to do something that helped your department’s performance but hurt that department’s performance.
Tell me about a time when you managed a large capital project.
Tell me about a time when your team was performing below expectations.
Tell me about a time when you installed new equipment in your department.
Tell me about a time when you reduced downtime.

This list of behavioral interview questions is just a sampling of the questions you might encounter in a manufacturing interview. There are thousands of potential interview questions you might be asked. It is impossible to prepare a unique answer for every question you could encounter. To be successful, you need to prepare to discuss specific situations from your experience that you can tailor to answer a variety of questions.

In addition, questions targeting manufacturing operations, you may see questions that apply to multiple industries. More general questions about leadership, communications skills, technical skills, teamwork, attitude, and values are common in behavioral interviews.

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Behavior Based Interviews

An increasingly common interview style is the behavioral interview. With this interview, hiring managers attempt to assess candidates based on how they behaved in a variety of circumstances.

The rationale is to determine how an individual would perform by assessing how they have performed in similar situations in the past.

To interview effectively in a behavior based interview, job seekers need to be able to discuss, very specifically, what they have done. An essential first step in preparing is to develop a selection of stories that you can adapt to any question.

Behavior based questions typically follow the “Tell about a time when you…” format. Each question will address one or more attributes that are important for the job. The question is designed to help the hiring manager determine how you measure up with the attributes.

Many firms that utilize behavior based interviews will use the same or similar questions with every candidate. They do this to make is much easier to compare candidates.

To be successful, the most important thing is to have clear, concise and organized answers. Having interviewed a large number of job seekers, I’ve seen numerous individuals give answers that are difficult to follow. This makes a very poor impression. Another important factor is having a good grasp of you strengths and weaknesses. Many job seekers have difficulty assessing themselves and even more trouble communicating their assessment. If you want to make a positive impression, knowing what makes you attractive to an employer is critical.

Remember, you are competing against job seekers that have a similar background and the same level of experience (and perhaps more experience). The fact that you can do the job got you the interview. To land the job, you need to stand out.

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