
Ask HN: How do you pass behavioral interviews? - akshbdj
I&#x27;ve been working as a UI engineer for the last 5 years (2015-now). I&#x27;ve been at my current company for over 3 years now and I feel like I&#x27;ve hit a plateau. I&#x27;m not growing or learning much. Over the last 6 months, I&#x27;ve been trying to land a new job, however, it&#x27;s been surprisingly tough. I&#x27;ve interviewed at several companies (FAANG, some startups, and everything in between) and the technical rounds have always gone well (with the exception of Google which was particularly hard!). However I&#x27;ve somehow managed to fail at every single behavioral interview.<p>Part of that is that I haven&#x27;t done much to talk about. I&#x27;ve done fairly standard work for the last few years: completed what was asked of me, but haven&#x27;t sought any challenging work. No side projects either. I never thought that would be an impediment to my career. For now, it&#x27;s still okay—I have a stable, well paying job, but I can see this becoming more of an issue in the years to come.<p>I&#x27;d like to know what I could be doing better, what interviewers expect from a behavioral round, how I should approach my work. It&#x27;s usually tough to get feedback, but when I&#x27;ve got any feedback (once or twice), it&#x27;s usually been that I talked too fast and rambled a bit. I&#x27;m working on that too, hopefully a bit better at that now. :)<p>If you are doing behavioral interviews, what are you looking for in a candidate? Or, if you&#x27;ve been particularly good at these types of interviews, do you have any tips?
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rawgabbit
I have conducted a large number of interviews from the other side of the desk.
The questions I ask myself are.

\- Is this guy a habitual liar? Can he give a straight answer or he is a
horrible communicator? If I am in a jam, can I rely on him to help me or he
will wind up wasting my time? \- Does he know what he is talking about or he
just memorized a bunch of interview questions? If I ask an open ended
question, does he tell me exactly what was going on in his mind and all the
minutiae & surprises that happened to him? \- Do I trust him? Will he make
work life easier? Will he pro-actively talk to the right people and figure out
what the real ask is? Will he pro-actively try to figure out a solution and
handle it himself? Or will he dump everything in my lap and consume more of my
time when I am already at my wits end?

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ThrowawayR2
> " _I 've done fairly standard work for the last few years: completed what
> was asked of me, but haven't sought any challenging work._"

You have the answer to your own question right there: go out and learn
something (preferably several things), either technical or business related,
that improves you professionally and point to that during your behavioral
interview questions. Go out and find some way (again, preferably several of
them) to improve your team's or your employer's success that was not "asked of
you" or take on challenging work and point to that during your behavioral
interview questions.

I'll add that the sentence you wrote would be viewed as serious red flag by a
FAANG interviewer, IMO.

~~~
akshbdj
That's fair. I've been a bit confused as to what would be directly helpful,
there's potentially a _lot_ of side projects that I could do. I realize though
that over analysing the situation doesn't help. :D

Right now, I'm trying to write an interpreter following a book [1].

[1] [https://interpreterbook.com/](https://interpreterbook.com/)

> _" I'll add that the sentence you wrote would be viewed as serious red flag
> by a FAANG interviewer, IMO."_

Which sentence? The one about challenging work?

~~~
ThrowawayR2
> " _Which sentence? The one about side projects?_ "

The sentence from you quoted in my original post. Take a look at the Amazon
Leadership Principles, for example:
[https://www.amazon.jobs/en/principles](https://www.amazon.jobs/en/principles)
; all of the FAANGs have something similar. Contrast your sentence with "Bias
For Action", "Ownership", "Invent And Simplify", "Learn and Be Curious", etc.
and you can see why it would be viewed as a strike against you.

> " _there 's potentially a lot of side projects that I could do_"

External side projects are nice but they're unlikely to be weighted as much as
projects you do to help your employer. I personally don't attach much weight
to external side projects unless the candidate's previous job was completely
non-software development related or they're a new graduate or the side project
is directly related to something they'll be doing on the job that I'm
interviewing for.

~~~
akshbdj
That makes sense. Part of the problem is that the team I'm working with
doesn't have too much challenging work. We're usually stacked with work, tight
deadlines, write a lot of code, and move on to the next thing really quickly.
I've talked to my manager about finding work that helps me grow, but I've only
got generic responses. In the last 12 months, I've also tried to contribute to
the backend, written APIs in Go, but again, that is surface level work that I
cannot really talk about (that is I have some experience, but no proficiency).
Now I'm back to working primarily on the UI and my scope is limited to basic
things like writing standard React components.

I feel like I'm stuck in a bit of a catch-22 situation. The current work isn't
challenging enough but I cannot get out without doing some challenging work.
How do you seek out challenging work in your existing org? FWIW, the company I
work for employs about approx. 2000 people so it might be possible to change
teams. I'm also considering that option.

> The sentence from you quoted in my original post. Take a look at the Amazon
> Leadership Principles, for example:
> [https://www.amazon.jobs/en/principles](https://www.amazon.jobs/en/principles)
> ; all of the FAANGs have something similar. Contrast your sentence with
> "Bias For Action", "Ownership", "Invent And Simplify", "Learn and Be
> Curious", etc. and you can see why it would be viewed as a strike against
> you.

Thanks for that link! That looks really useful.

~~~
ThrowawayR2
> " _the team I 'm working with doesn't have too much challenging work_"

I'd suggest making that part of your sales pitch: " _I 'm applying to your job
because I'm eager to learn but there weren't a lot of growth opportunities at
my old job for me. Here are some of the things I tried do to grow: ..._" You
can attempt to point your interpreter side project but you'd better be
prepared to talk about it in deep detail.

I'd also suggest asking your management about whether training budget is
available and, if so, asking to use it to learn something work related.

> " _How do you seek out challenging work in your existing org?_ "

I don't really have any advice to provide for that; the problem in the places
where I've worked tends to be avoiding being drowned in challenging work. That
being said, surely there's some form of automation, security evaluation, code
analysis or some other common industry tooling or practice that your
organization could be using but isn't? I've yet to meet a software team that
was doing everything optimally.

~~~
akshbdj
That definitely sounds like things I can do, I'll try them! Going to think
harder about the areas where I can try and make improvements for the team.
Thanks again! :)

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sigmaprimus
I'm no expert at taking interviews but have blown my fair share of them.

One of my worst was when I was called by a head hunter to interview for a
position I applied for 2 years before. I also may have embellished my resume a
bit when I applied, then 2 years later I was sitting infront of 3 people all
reading my resume and me not knowing what the heck I put in the thing. So yeah
thats an important one, when they say that your application will be kept on
file, sometimes they do, so best to be honest.

Another time I guess I was nervous or maybe a bit under the weather but for
some reason I started sweating profusely, unfortunately that day I was also
wearing a silk shirt and before the interview even started I had huge pit
stains, my hair was a mess and I looked like I just came off a three day
bender. The interviewer was nice and didn't bring it up but I know I made a
terrible impression. So I would say put some time and thought into your
personal grooming and apperence.

I would also say it is important that you have answers ready for the most
common questions that you know they are going to ask. Eg. So you say you have
been with your company for 3 years, why do you want to leave? Probably best
not to say, I just dont feel like im growing or learning much anymore (even if
thats true, Im sure you can come up with a better way to put it that is both
true and positive!) Eg. I have learned and grown a lot working for xyz and
have enjoyed working for them but I feel your company is offering me a great
opportunity to showcase and build upon my skills and past experiences.

Doing well in an interview comes down to self confidence, chances are you
would be a great employee that most companies would be lucky to have. Just
keep telling yourself that, having hired many people myself I can tell you
that if you can do what your asked to do without arguing, show up on time and
get along with your co-workers, then you are already in the top 90% of all
candidates, so keep your chin up and You will do fine on the next interview!

Finally if you have been told you rambled or that you talked too fast, a
lawyer once told me to count to 5 in my head before answering any question.
Sometimes when you are nervous giving yourself a short pause before opening
your mouth can be just what is needed.

Good luck!

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gladiatr72
Sit up straight. Don't play with your pencil. Swallow your gum.

Seriously, though, the best thing I learned to do in interviews was to relax.
Don't emulate the Big Labowski, but try to channel his essense. Unless you're
the godword in your field (or one of the other candidates), they're going to
take time to think about it. You have to be the one they see themselves
working with. Best o Luck

~~~
akshbdj
> You have to be the one they see themselves working with

This is a really good point, thank you!

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anandvip
You are the director of your side project idea. Employ the fresh talent or an
unemployed to work on it. Guidelines come directly from you. Experience the
behavioral science.

