behavioral interview Archives - Palladian Career Resources

Behavioral Interview Questions for Warehousing Professionals

Behavioral interviewing is common among the Fortune 500 and continues to be used by more and more companies. In retail and manufacturing, behavioral interviews are common. If you are a warehousing or distribution professional, it is very likely you will encounter behavioral interviews in your career, both in job searches and in internal interviews for promotions.

Behavioral interviewing is common among the Fortune 500, and it continues to be used by more and more companies. In retail and manufacturing, behavioral interviews are common. If you are a warehousing or distribution professional, it is very likely you will encounter behavioral interviews in your career, both in job searches and in internal interviews for promotions. Preparing for a behavioral interview is critical for you to succeed. You need to have very detailed examples from your background. Completing one or more mock interviews is another essential step.

The reason so many firms have adopted behavioral interviewing is that past performance is often the best predictor of future performance. Now, assessing past performance in a behavioral interview is not looking at overall success in a position, although this is an important component. Behavioral interviewing assesses the success of the job seeker in a variety of common situations they will face in a job. If the job seeker can demonstrate past success in each of the individual tasks, the job seeker should be able to be successful in the role.

The goal of a behavioral interview is to try to get the job seeker to describe their background in sufficient detail so the hiring manager can picture how the job seeker performs. This style of interview requires the job seeker to answer open-ended questions and tell stories. General answers will not work. To be successful, you must prepare.

The first step in preparing for a behavioral interview is to review your background and start writing some stories about your experiences. To help you think of a few stories to tell, I’ve compiled a number of common interview questions for warehousing positions:

Tell me about a time when you took over an under-performing team.
Tell me about a time when you failed to hit your distribution plan.
Tell me about a time when you were understaffed for the daily plan.
Tell me about a time when you were overstaffed for the daily plan.
Tell me about a time when you adopted new technology.
Tell me about a time when you addressed a safety issue.
Tell me about a time when you improved the productivity of a team.
Tell me about a time when you improved the quality of a team.
Tell me about a time when you had a conflict with a peer.
Tell me about a time when you dealt with a conflict between two people on your team.
Tell me about a time when you hired and trained a large group of new employees at once.
Tell me about a time when you were overstaffed and needed to downsize.
Tell me about a time when you coached someone working for you on their performance.
Tell me about a time when you missed your budget goals.
Tell me about a time when you adapted to unforeseen events in order to stay on pace to hit your budget.

This list of questions is just a starting point. There are thousands of potential questions you could be asked. Although it may seem impossible to prepare for all of them, you can prepare for the different types of questions you might encounter. For example, in the list above, there are questions about improving productivity, safety and quality, adapting staffing levels to the plan, utilizing new technology, dealing with conflict, and budge issues. This selection of topics will give you a good start and covers some of the most common interview topics for warehousing careers.

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Behavioral Interview Questions for Training and Mentoring

A Behavioral Question asks the candidate do describe how they acted in a specific situation. This technique uses this past performance of the candidate to predict how they will perform in the future. Included are a selection of behavioral questions targeting training and mentoring responsibilities.

Developing employees is critical to the success of an organization. Almost every position in a company will train or mentor someone else in the company at some point. Some positions have only minor training responsibilities, while other positions are full time training roles. In either case, you may encounter questions about your experience training or mentoring.

Behavioral interview questions provide a good way to ask about training and mentoring skills. A Behavioral Question asks the candidate to describe how they acted in a specific situation. This technique uses the past performance of the candidate to predict how they will perform in the future. Below is a selection of behavioral questions targeting training and mentoring responsibilities:

Tell me about a time when you trained a new hire.
Tell me about a time when you retrained someone who was struggling in their job.
Tell me about a time when you mentored a coworker successfully.
Tell me when you trained a superior.
Tell me about a time when you mentored coworker but failed to help them improve.
Tell me about a time when you delegated a task for developmental reasons.
Tell me about a time when you brought in an outside expert to train your team.
Tell me about a time when you taught a group in a seminar.
Tell me about a time when you utilized interactive training techniques.
Tell me about a time when you overcame disruptive behavior from a seminar participant.
Tell me about the greatest training challenge you have faced.
Tell me about a time you had to train a group on a topic you were not an expert in.
Tell me about a time when you implemented new technology to facilitate training.
Tell me about a time when you identified a training need in an organization that had been unmet.
Tell me about a time when the training you delivered resulted in significant bottom line results in the organization.
Tell me how you would train me to do… (insert a common task or topic in your industry).

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Other Great Books to help you prepare for Behavioral Interviews:

Behavioral Interview Questions for Project Engineers

Project engineers identify, plan and implement projects with organizations. The scope of this field is extremely broad. There are a number of common elements to project engineering roles, and these elements are often assessed with behavioral interview questions.

A behavioral interview targets specific situations the job seeker is likely to encounter in the role and asks for examples of a similar experiences. The questions usually follow a “Tell me about a time when you…” format.

Tell me about a time when you led a large capital improvement project.
Tell me about a time when you managed the acquisition of new equipment.
Tell me about a time when you planned a facility expansion.
Tell me about a time when you redesigned a process.
Tell me about a time when you made improvements to the plant layout.
Tell me about a time when you designed a new product.
Tell me about a time when you redesigned the packaging of a product.
Tell me about a time when you added automation to a process.
Tell me about a time when you had trouble debugging a new piece of equipment.
Tell me about a time when you reduced the utility costs in a facility.
Tell me about a time when you changed a process to reduce material handling.
Tell me about a time when you managed a project that came in under budget.
Tell me about a time when you managed a project that exceed budget.
Tell me about a time when you led a project that fell behind schedule.
Tell me about a time when you delivered a project ahead of schedule.
Tell me about the most successful project you managed.
Tell me about a project that was a major failure.
Tell me about a time when you failed to plan an essential step in a project.
Tell me about a time when you delegated effectively.

To be prepared to answer these questions in an interview, you need have examples of specific projects you have managed. You do not need a project for every question. A selection of projects touching on a range of experiences will allow you to adapt to almost any question.

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Other Great Books to help you prepare for Behavioral Interviews:

Behavioral Interview Questions for Nonprofit Careers

Working for a nonprofit organization has a lot of similarities to other industries, but there are some significant differences. Behavioral interview questions are a good tool to assess a job candidate for the specific skills required in a nonprofit. This makes these questions common in interviews with nonprofit organizations.

Behavioral interview questions are a good tool to assess a job candidate for the specific skills required in a nonprofit. This makes these questions common in interviews with nonprofit organizations.

Preparing for a behavioral interview is essential for success. You need to be able to discuss very specific examples from your background. Without adequate preparation, your performance will suffer. To prepare, look at each of the questions below and develop a 2 to 3 minute story from your background to answer the question. Then, practice the stories. Once you know stories inside and out, try to apply them to other questions. This will help you learn how to answer questions you don’t expect. As you get better, complete a few mock interviews. The more practice you get, the better you will preform. Unfortunately, most job seekers improve their interview skills by going on a lot of interviews. They use their failures to teach them. A better way is to work with a coach and complete mock interviews so that you improve prior to a real interview.

Below is a selection of questions you may encounter:

Fundraising

Tell me about a time when you led a successful fundraising campaign.
Tell me about a time when you missed a fundraising goal.
Tell me about a time when you tried a new approach to fundraising.
Tell me about your most successful fundraising effort.
Tell me about the most innovative fundraising activity you have utilized.
Tell me about the most challenging target group you have approached for fundraising.
Tell me about the biggest donation you have ever obtained.
Tell me about a time when you recognized the contributions of donors.
Tell me about a time when you wrote a grant proposal.

Marketing

Tell me about a time when raised community awareness for your organization.
Tell me about a time when you developed a marketing plan.
Tell me about a time when you expanded the client base you served.
Tell me about a time when you increase public support for your organization.
Tell me about a time when you lobbied a government entity.
Tell me about a time when you recruited new volunteers.
Tell me about a time when you improved volunteer retention.
Tell me about a time when you recruited new board members.
Tell me about a time when you managed a community outreach effort.

Operations

Tell me about a time when you cut costs.
Tell me about a time when you developed a budget.
Tell me about a time when you had a budget shortfall.
Tell me about a time when you improved the efficiency of the organization.
Tell me about a time when you changed a process.
Tell me about a time when you made a significant change in policy.
Tell me about a time when you implemented a new technology.

Virtually any work situation can be assessed with a behavioral question. This makes preparation essential. You need specific examples from your experience that you can discuss and adapt to a wide range of questions. Use the behavioral interview questions above to help identify examples you can talk about in an interview.

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Other Great Books to help you prepare for Behavioral Interviews:

Behavioral Interview Questions About Personal Accountability

Behavioral interview questions focus on assessing your performance in past situations. One common topic for behavioral questions is personal accountability. These questions focus on a candidate’s past failures and the candidate’s willingness to admit their mistakes.

Tell me about a time when you took responsibility for a failure.
Tell me about the last time you made a mistake.
Tell me about your biggest failure in your career.
Tell me about your greatest weakness.
Tell me about a time you did something you regret.
Tell me about a time when you received negative feedback from your boss.
Tell me about a time when you learned from a mistake.
Tell me about a time when you failed to meet a commitment you had made.

To be successful with a behavioral question about failure, you need to give a specific example and acknowledge your responsibility for the failure. Some individuals always have an excuse for their mistakes. Trying to deflect responsibility in an interview will usually make a very poor impression. To be successful with an answer about a failure, include a discussion of what you learned from the experience.

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Other Great Books to help you prepare for Behavioral Interviews:

Behavioral Interview Questions About Organizational Skills

Organizational skills are an important factor in a person’s career and are a common interview topic. There are a wide variety of behavioral interview questions about your organization skills that you could see in an interview.

Tell me about a time when you managed a complicated project.
Tell me about a time when you worked under a tight deadline.
Tell me about a time when you had to multitask.
Tell me about a time when your organizational skills helped you succeed.
Tell me about a time when your planning led to positive results.
Tell me about a time when you missed an important deadline.
Tell me about a time when you went the extra mile to get a project done.
Tell me about a time when you felt overwhelmed by your workload.
Tell me about a time when you took on more than you could handle.
Tell me about a time when you failed to delegate effectively.
Tell me about a time when you delegated an important task successfully.

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Other Great Books to help you prepare for Behavioral Interviews:

Behavioral Questions About Values

Behavioral questions can target any potential situation at work. Included are a selection of questions that target a job candidate’s values, attitude and personal courage.

Behavioral questions ask the job candidate to provide details of a specific situation they have encountered. The interviewer assesses the candidate based on how they performed, since past performance can be an excellent indicator of future performance.

Behavioral questions can target any potential situation at work. Below are a selection of questions that target a job candidate’s values, attitude and personal courage.

Tell me about time when made an unpopular decision.
Tell me about a time when you stood up for your values.
Tell me about a time when you confronted a superior about something they were doing.
Tell me about a time when you took a risk that worked out.
Tell me about a time when you took a risk that didn’t work out.
Tell me about a time when you did something outside your comfort zone.
Tell me about the most embarrassing thing you have done at work.
Tell me about a time when you didn’t stand up for your values and you wish you had.
Tell me about a time when you had a confrontation with a coworker.
Tell me about a time when you took responsibility for a failure.
Tell me about a time when you discovered a coworker was doing something dishonest.
Tell me about a time when you made a decision you knew would make someone mad.

To be successful answering behavioral questions, you need to be specific. General answers will not be effective. The best answer will provide a clear, specific example from your experience.

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Other Great Books to help you prepare for Behavioral Interviews:

Behavioral Interview Questions For Leadership Skills

Hiring managers often focus on assessing the leadership skills of job seekers. To do this, many use Behavioral Interview Questions. A behavioral interview question asks the job seeker to tell a specific story from their experience, illustrating how they acted and the results they achieved in the past. The goal of a behavioral question is to predict how the job seeker will preform based on their past performance.

Below are a selection of questions targeting leadership skills:

Tell me about a time when you led a team with low morale.
Tell me about a time when you managed two people that did not get along.
Tell me about a time when you fired someone that was very well liked at the company.
Tell me about a time when you helped someone improve their performance.
Tell me about a time when you had to get your team to make a major change that they disagreed with.
Tell me about a time when you recognized the achievement of someone you managed.
Tell me about a time when you hired someone that didn’t work out.
Tell me about the most challenging leadership situation you have faced.
Tell me about a time when you delegated effectively.
Tell me about a time when you made an unpopular decision.
Tell me about a time when you took over an under-performing team.
Tell me about the biggest leadership mistake you have made.
Tell me about a time when you had to adapt your leadership style to meet a challenge.

These questions touch on some of the aspects of leadership. There thousands of potential questions, and it is unlikely you will hear any of these specifically. If you prepare for these, though, you should be able to adapt to a wide range of leadership questions.

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Other Great Books to help you prepare for Behavioral Interviews:

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.

Get our book on behavioral interviewing.

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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Other Great Books to help you prepare for Behavioral Interviews: