What are behavioral interview questions?

Kenton Kivestu, ex-Google, ex-BCG, Founder at RocketBlocks Published: February 23, 2022

Behavioral interview questions ask a candidate to explain how they’ve acted in specific situations in their professional past. Companies typically will ask behavioral interview questions around key topics such as leadership ability, collaboration skills and problem solving ability.

Today’s leading companies ask these questions because they shed insight into how a candidate will navigate similar scenarios on the job.

Example behavioral question: “Tell me about a time you convinced a colleague to adopt your point of view?”

The list of companies that utilize behavioral interviews is massive. And most leading companies like McKinsey, Google, Amazon, Microsoft, Salesforce have made them a core part of their interview processes for any role to help understand how a candidate would work with their team.

Expert insights on behavioral interviews

The RocketBlocks behavioral interview guide is written to help you understand the importance of these questions, what to expect, how to prepare for them and set yourself apart in interviews.

Our three experts, Pedro Abreu, Mandy Giacchetto and Holly Watson share their knowledge based on interviewing experience at LinkedIn, BCG, Amazon, Accenture and more.

	Pedro Abreu Sr. Associate, Sales Strategy & Operations at LinkedIn, ex-Gusto, ex-Accenture
	Mandy Giacchetto Director, Growth & Insights at Gingko Bioworks, ex-BCG Digital Ventures
	Holly Watson Sr. PMM at Amazon Web Services, ex-Sprinklr

Between the three of them they’ve got 20+ years of experience at top companies and have conducted 200+ behavioral interviews. This guide is their collection of the best advice, secrets and tips for nailing your behavioral interviews.

Three steps to nail behavioral interviews:

In our guide, they’ll break down the behavioral interviews into three sections:

1. Understand what to expect. Our experts go into detail on behavioral questions focused on leadership, collaboration and problem solving so you have an idea of what will be asked in these interviews.
2. Behavioral interview prep. Advice on how to identify the right stories to share and structuring your behavioral interview answers with the STAR model.
3. Setting yourself apart. Tips on how to research the company, team, role, as well as tips on how to ask great questions to the interviewer to nail your interview.

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