The Interview — Decoding behavioral questions

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I’ve heard people calling behavioral questions “formalities” or “the stupid stuff with HR”. Especially programmers, who went through tough technical interviews.

However, I know programmers that have passed all their technical interviews but failed the behavioral interview, so did not get the job.

But those interviews aren’t all about getting or not getting the job. They are essential for getting a bigger salary or more benefits. Do you think it’s easy to find a technical expert that is also communicative, humble, has a great mentality and a growth mindset? Not at all. So when a company finds someone like this, they’ll do their best to seal the deal.

In this article, I’ll translate to you what those behavioral questions really mean and I’ll also give you my answers as an example. Here are the questions that we’ll discuss:

1. Tell us something about you.
2. What made you apply to this job?
3. Can you give us an example of a difficult task you had to do?
4. Can you give us an example of a conflict that you encountered?
5. What are your weaknesses?
6. Where do you see yourself in X years?
7. What are your questions for us?

Some of those questions might sound silly or trivial, but if you are in the middle of an interview and you’ve never thought about those subjects… your answer might sound sillier. 😛

1. Tell us something about you

“I am Razvan, I am 25 years old, I am a bearded guy since I was 18 and I am a big fan of Borussia Dortmund”. Is this answer the best one for a software development interview?

Don’t get me wrong, nothing from what I’ve said above is terribly wrong, but it is simply not that attractive for the interviewer. Generally, interviewers are looking for passionate, collaborative, open-minded (and so on) candidates. So, when you receive this question, it is your chance to showcase your best qualities. Here is the typical answer that I would give:

“Hello, my name is Razvan, I am a Front-end Developer and Instructor. I am really passionate about web development and the learning process, whenever I learn something new I ask myself how I could explain it to someone else. I am a communicative person and I believe that you have things to learn from each person you interact with. I am a continuous learner and I constantly invest time in developing myself, both professionally and personally. My main passions are psychology, neuroscience, sports (especially football) and craft beer.”

What are the main points of my answer?

• I emphasize that I am a mentor, I teach others and I love it.
• I am a team person, I love collaborating.
• I am focused on development, both professional and personal.
• I am human, I also have hobbies and passions.

So, from the beginning, I’ve made the interviewers think “Hey, this guy has some good qualities”.

2. What made you apply to this job?

“My life sucks, I want a well-paid job, so I can live better”. Nobody wants to hear this answer, even if it’s true for a lot of programming jobs.

Imagine you’re dating and you ask your date: “Why did you go out with me?”. You do not want to hear a reply like “Oh, I’ve asked 50 other people, but no one replied, so I got nothing better than you…”. The same applies to companies, you want to make them feel important.

Read the job announcement before you go to the interview. Search the company. Figure out some strong points that it has. A good generic answer would be the following:

“I’ve heard a lot of great things about the company from my acquaintances. I checked the company’s website and I enjoyed its main activities. The technologies from the job description are modern and the projects seem challenging. I feel that there is an environment that would help me develop and contribute to the company’s growth.”

Obviously, if you have more particular reasons, tell them. Just make sure that you do not look uninterested, you never know which company gives you the best offer.

3. Can you give us an example of a difficult task you had to do?

It is not included in the question, but they want to hear a successfully accomplished task. And they want to hear about a task that is somehow related to what you can encounter at the job you are interviewing for. So, if you are applying for a Software Development Engineer position, it should include some technical stuff.

Even if you are applying for your first job, I’m sure you can come up with a task that highlights some important qualities:

• Communication — A lot of hard tasks are solved in a team.
• Problem-solving — You can’t know everything, but Google can. How do you search for your information? How do you glue the pieces of the puzzle together?

So basically, choose a situation where you used your problem-solving skills and collaborated with other people to successfully finish your task. Those people can be teammates, colleagues, friends, instructors, it doesn’t matter. Here is my answer:

“One challenging task that I’ve had was deprecating Internet Explorer usage for all but some enterprise clients. It was challenging from a few points of view:

Communication — The product owner didn’t know exactly what service we could use to except the enterprise clients from deprecation so I had to find out. I spoke with my manager and colleagues and found some possible external teams. I searched people from those teams and messaged them. When I would not receive any answers for a couple of days, I would talk to my manager and he would give some magic messages.

Not enough knowledge — After finding out the solution, I realized that I had to write some scripts. I am a front-end developer, so writing scripts was definitely not my best skill. However, I had basic Node.js knowledge, so I did a few google searches, read some documentation and I was able in the end to make some fully functional scripts.

New technologies — However, the technical challenges didn’t stop here. To finalize the process, I had to write some PHP code. I had previously written PHP code only once in my life, so it was definitely something difficult to tackle. However, I started searching in the project and I found some similar examples already written. By making analogies and googling a few things, I managed to write some functional PHP code.

In the end, the selective Internet Explorer deprecation was completed on time.”

The main point of my answer is that I know when and how to collaborate with my peers and that I can solve problems that seem really hard and definitely out of my comfort zone. Surely, I gave you an example from work, but you can think of something similar from your university or boot camp if it is the case.

4. Can you give us an example of a conflict that you encountered?

“He parked on my spot and did not leave his number. I lost my mind and started kicking his car.” If this example is not followed by some “I was kidding”, your interview might be over.

Conflicts are unavoidable. No matter how much you hate them and try to run from them. How do you handle them? And especially, how do you handle them at work?

What I consider to be the most important part here is to give an example where you’ve taken responsibility for your actions and apologized for your part of the responsibility to eventually get back on track with the people involved. Nobody wants a stubborn employee, who would put his ego above everything. Also, being too humble and not defending your points of view is not an option at all. Having a balanced approach is the key. Here is my answer to this question:

“​​First of all, I am a non-conflicting person, I try to be as assertive as possible and to take into account the other person’s perspective.

A conflicting situation I found myself in was the following: When I was teaching, it was my responsibility to close the classroom and leave the presence in the main office. One night I forgot to do these things, and someone in the office publicly criticized me. I was quite frustrated that my teaching efforts were not appreciated, so my response was sharp, minimizing what I did.

The next day I went to the person and apologized for his behavior, taking responsibility for my actions and assuming that I had made a mistake. Later, I communicated my dissatisfaction regarding my teaching efforts and the situation got resolved.”

The situation I’ve described above is pretty common: we have multiple sources of stress and sometimes our brain confuses them, so we start arguing for the wrong reasons. After a conflict, reflect on what really annoyed you. The source might be somewhere else. After calming down, go and talk to the other person, admit your part of the responsibility and seek reconciliation.

5. What are your weaknesses?

“I love alcohol, wanna hang out those days, drink some whisky?”. Yep, another silly answer, I’m sure you got it. 😛

Even though some people would enjoy having a drink with you, others won’t and it’s definitely the type of weakness they do not want to hear. Another ridiculous answer would be “I’m too perfectionist, I try to do everything perfectly”.

So how can we be vulnerable without being ridiculous? Here is an example:

“One weakness I have is that I tend to avoid tasks that massively take me out of my comfort zone. If I feel that I have very little expertise in a particular subject, I avoid getting involved.

I’m working on improving this approach. One thing I’m starting to do is try to increase my knowledge of a particular topic when I know that a task is coming up on that topic. I also aim to be more courageous and regularly take on tasks that take me out of my comfort zone, because I am aware that it helps me grow professionally.”

Do you see what I’ve done there? I’ve identified a thing that I can improve at myself and I am actively doing something in that direction. We all have areas that can be improved, there is no doubt about that. Realizing them is the first step towards progress.

6. Where do you see yourself in X years?

“Millionaire, owning my own business, on a beach, surrounded by beautiful girls.” Sounds nice, but it would not impress your interviewers.

This question might sound silly, but all that it wants to say is “What is your personal and professional development plan?”. Companies want ambitious employees, that want to become better, both as a professional and as a person. And having a plan for that, as well as some goals, really helps. Here is what I would answer to this question:

“First of all, I see myself as a much better professional, as I am in a continuous process of professional and personal development. I see myself as a mentor to my colleagues and reliable help, an important person in my team. I do not rule out involvement in management or leadership roles. I see myself sharing the knowledge I have gained, on YouTube and through online courses, so that I can help as many people as possible to learn web development.”

The main takeaway of my answer is that I am continuously evolving, and I love to share the thing I have learned from this process with my colleagues, so the entire team would benefit from having me around. Wouldn’t you want such a guy in your team? 😄

7. What are your questions for us?

The worst possible answer here would be “I have no questions”. Also, do not rush to ask about the salary and do not ask silly questions.

This is your chance to find out more about the company and the team. It is your chance to find out whether the work environment is right for you. So make the most out of it!

Here are some possible questions that you can ask:

• “How big is the team? What is the experience level of the members” — The team is maybe the most important factor in your new job. You want to have people with experience in your team because you want to learn from them.
• “What are the main technologies used?” — Yes, there are technologies specified in the job announcement, but many of them are just sporadically used. A job can be marketed as a “React Developer” job, when in fact you’re using React just 25% of the time and the other 75% obsolete technologies. You want to work with technologies that are in demand and can be reused at future jobs.
• “Do we have dedicated UI/UX Designers and Product Managers?” — Or whatever specifics your job has. As a Front-End Developer, if you do not have those roles in your company, you might have to do it on your own. Make sure the company is professional.
• “What is the policy for remote work?” — COVID-19 has improved things here, but there is still a lot of confusion. Make sure they offer you the flexibility you need.
• “As more experienced people, what advice would you give me for career growth?” — One of my mottos is “Everyone you meet has something to teach you”. This is your chance to extract some valuable advice, that would help you in your future interviews.

Oh, and about the salary, you can elegantly ask: “Is this the meeting where we discuss salary and benefits, or will we discuss it in a future one? ”, after asking all the other questions. Generally, the interviewers will come up with this question. Also, do not forget to also discuss the benefits, after/before discussing the salary.

Conclusion

I really hope that you have enjoyed this article and that it will help you in your future interviews! The main takeaway would be the following: prepare your behavioral questions before the interview. Reflect on encountered situations that would present the best version of yourself and write them down. Personally, I have a Google Docs file with the most common behavioral questions and my answers to them. Before an interview, I would go through them, to refresh my mind.

If you want to learn more about interview preparation, especially about the technical part, check out the Master the Coding Interview: Data Structures + Algorithms course. And if you want to prepare for interviews at Google, Amazon, or Apple, make sure you check out the Master the Coding Interview: Big Tech (FAANG) Interviews course. 👀

Did you encounter tough behavioral questions during your interviews? Send them to razvan.cirlugea@gmail.com. Maybe I’ll make the second part of this article. Also, if you’re interested in web development, make sure you follow me on LinkedIn and Twitter.

Good luck with your next interviews! 💪🏻