Weve all used behavioral interview questionsquestions that ask job candidates to recount a past experience so we can assess their likely future performance. In theory, behavioral interview questions should work just fine (because past behavior is usually a decent predictor of future behavior).

But most interviewers ask behavioral questions in a way that gives away the correct answer and thus ruins the questions effectiveness.

Here are some pretty typical behavioral interview questions:

You probably noticed that all of these questions ask the candidate to recount a time when they successfully did something. The candidate is asked about times they adapted to a difficult situation, balanced competing priorities, made their job more interesting and successfully persuaded someone. And that leads us to the flaw in these questions.

The flaw in behavioral interview questions These behavioral interview questions make very clear that the candidate is supposed to share a success story about adapting, balancing, persuading, etc. No candidate in their right mind would answer these questions by saying Im terrible at persuading people, and my boss is a jerk who never listens to me anyway. Or Im constantly overwhelmed by competing priorities, and I cant live like that.

These questions give away the right answers; cuing candidates to share success stories and avoid examples of failure. But how are interviewers supposed to tell good from bad candidates if everyone shares only success stories? Wouldnt you rather change the question so that candidates feel free to tell you about all the times they couldnt balance competing priorities? Or failed to persuade people? Or couldnt adapt to a difficult situation?

Lets take the question Tell me about a time when you were bored on the job and what you did to make the job more interesting. Because the question gives away the correct answer (talk about going from bored to interested), anyone who answers is going to say something like heres what I did to make the job the more interesting, and I grew professionally, and I was so enriched, etc.

But now, imagine that you tweaked the question to not divulge the answer and you asked Could you tell me about a time when you were bored on the job? Because youre not giving away the correct answer, youre going to hear a wide range of responses.

Some candidates (people who are problem bringers in their current job) are going to say things like OMG, that job was sooo boring and I couldnt wait to quit and I was bored, but hey, I needed the money. Answers like that are a great gift because they immediately tell you not to hire that candidate. And those answers make your job as interviewer much easier because they help you weed-out the weaker candidates.

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The Hidden Flaw In Behavioral Interview Questions