Do you look like a deer in the headlights when an interviewer asks you a behavioral question?
Giving answers to tough interview questions like this is not difficult once you understand what the interviewer is trying to accomplish.
At JobInterviewTools.com, you’ll find real stories about real job hunters with unique problems. Since everyone’s situation is unique, there is no one perfect answer works best for everyone and that’s why we’re here.
This is a story about Jenny who has a behavioral interview coming up and is having trouble with how she’ll answer a specific behavioral interview question.
The question is not difficult to answer once you see how it’s done. Then, answering other behavioral questions becomes easy.
Behavioral Interview Answers need to use the STAR formula.
Situation or Task
Action
Result
First, describe the Situation or Task.
Then describe the Action you took.
Finally, describe what happened — the result.
Jenny’s Questions:
I have an interview coming up and I need help answering this question. I know this questions will be asked by this company I’m interviewing with because I talked with someone who interviewed there before.
If someone on your team didn’t do his job, how did you resolve this problem?
Don’s Answer:
The key to answering questions like this question is by using an example from one of your past jobs of how you’ve had this problem before and what you did to resolve it.
Let’s look at the question, “If someone on your team didn’t do his job, how did you resolve this problem?”
There are a couple different ways you can give great answers to tough interview questions like this and it mainly depends on your position. Are you a supervisor and this person is under you? Or, is this person your co-worker and equal in seniority to you?
I would suggest describing the problem and situation you had and the impact this person had on your work and then what you did to resolve the issue. You could say that you used to work with someone who lacked a good deal of focus and was always distracted in his work. He spent more time talking at the water cooler than working his job.
My work depended on him getting his work done, so by him not doing his job, he made me look bad. And the last time this happened, our whole team was at risk to missing an important deadline if he did not pull through.
I scheduled some time to speak with him in an attempt to find out what was slowing him down. As it turned out, he was confused and not clear of what was expected of him and he did not know how to move forward.
I then helped him prioritize his tasks to where it made sense to him. For the next two weeks, I paid more attention to him, and making it a priority to stop by his desk and follow-up with him to make sure he remained on track.
This only took an extra 20 minutes out of my day, but was well worth it, because we completed our project on-time. I also did not have to talk with his supervisor to get this done. It was just a small case of one of my co-workers falling a little behind and I’m glad I was there to help him get back on track.
This is just an example of how you might want to answer this question, just use your story to make your answer even better.
You have just read a transcript of how Don helped Jenny answer bbehavioral questions and provided her with sample behavioral interview answers.
Inside the Complete Interview Answer Guide, Don shows job seekers how to answer question. The 201+ sample answers in the guide will quickly help you craft your own professional answers for ALL types of interview questions for any occupation.
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