Behavioral interviews focus on using past performance to predict future behavior. They feature behavioral interview questions that ask the respondent to describe a situation that has occurred in the past.
When conducting a behavioral interview, the hiring manager must first decide which skills they are seeking. Then they can construct questions based around these. For example, ‘Can you tell me about a time when you have disagreed with a coworker – how did you handle it?’. In this scenario, the employer wants to know how the applicant has handled conflict in the past.
The difference between this and a traditional interview is the focus on how someone has acted in the past, not how they would act in future.
