behavioral interview questions Archives - Palladian Career Resources

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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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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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 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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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:

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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Other Great Books to help you prepare for Behavioral Interviews:

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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Other Great Books to help you prepare for Behavioral Interviews:

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: