
Ask HN: What is the point of behavioral interview questions? - mden
Questions of the type - tell me about a time you got into an argument with you manager. Clearly there is more to the question than is being asked for, probably expecting things like how you resolved the situation and what you learned from it. But aren&#x27;t a lot of people, and perhaps especially engineers, bad at on-the-spot communication about non-technical topics that require nuance when presenting? That&#x27;s not to say that communication is not a valuable skill, but I can&#x27;t help feel that behavior questions are a poor test for it. You could for example ask them to prepare a presentation on a project they&#x27;ve worked on, or a presentation on the pros and cons of whatever. So the behavioral questions aren&#x27;t simply testing your communication but probably more so your previous behavior. Except that&#x27;s not the case either, they are testing your ability to talk about your previous behavior. Which means you can practice what to say for those questions moving them into a category that feels too much like a test to see if the monkey will dance as expected.<p>Except that also sounds ridiculous, at least to some extent. What is the real intent behind behavioral questions?
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fenier
It's a way to filter out the really 'out there' people. Say your example of a
disagreement with your manager. You may have all kinds of reasonable points.
The next guy could come back with 'I slashed his tires' or 'I decided to call
out for a week'.

Clearly, the second guy should be throwing up red flags. However, it can be
hard to uncover that type of thing if you were to only ask technical
questions.

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TwoNineFive
Oh boy, am I triggered! I recently spent some time looking for a new job and
went through a number of terrible interviews that involved psychological
behavioral assessment tests.

I don't think it was a coincidence that all of the really bad
interviews/companies I've had also made extensive use of psychological
evaluation/behavioral analysis questions. These things seem to go hand-in-
hand.

To directly answer your question, I think the real intent behind behavioral
questions is that there wasn't any intent, or much thought. People who ask
these kinds of questions often ask them because they just googled for things
like "how to conduct an interview", and "questions to ask during an
interview". They found websites with examples of terrible psychological
evaluation questions, but they don't really know why they are asking them or
what they were supposed to get out the question.

What your are seeing here is monkey mimicry. Look at all the companies and
hiring managers that have been mimicking what they _think_ is great advice
they got from how Big-Company-X (google/facebook/stanford/et-cetera) about how
to hire great people. Remember all those stupid brain teaser tests?

In the few cases where some train of intelligent thought lead to someone
asking these silly questions, they usually just want to push you a little to
find out if they can make you snap easily, or get frustrated. This is an
important and desirable trait in abusive workplaces because the employer
doesn't want someone who is going to raise their hand and say, "excuse me,
that's not right". Of course, it's important in good workplaces too, because
they don't want someone who is overtly aggressive or displays an inability to
be flexible in stressful situations, or gets easily flustered.

Think of the scene early on in the movie Blade Runner. (But try not to think
about the fact that the position being interviewed for was a waste disposal
job). Don't pull a Leon Kowalski in the interview.

The hiring process is a sieve; a gateway filter. What kinds of people are
being let through, and what kinds of people are being filtered out by this
style of hiring process? Paying attention to this will often gift you an awful
lot of insight into how the company operates and what kinds of people you
would potentially be working with.

There are other, more clever, ways of figuring out the behavioral profile of a
potential worker without subjecting them to an abusive and insulting
interrogatory, but they almost always take more time and effort, and really,
who has time for that?

The most significant problem I have with psycho analysis questions is that if
the interviewer is not qualified to interpret the results of their experiment,
then that's a serious problem. And, how many of the HR goons you've met do you
think have a degree in psychology, or have been training in interpreting the
results of a psychological evaluation? None at all ever? Yea me too.

It's not entirely their fault. Hiring people is really hard! Even if you do
put the candidate through a series of exhaustive tests and have qualified
staff to administer and evaluate those tests, the result is still that
sometimes it just doesn't work out, or the candidate ends up leaving for a
better job after a few months.

For me, I turn the whole situation around. Behavioral analysis questions are a
valuable source of information about the company. They are usually a display
of mediocrity and thoughtlessness (but not always!), and those are usually not
the kinds of organizations I want to work in.

If an interviewer asks me "Tell me about a time you got into an argument with
you manager.", I like to turn it around at them and watch how they react: "I
don't make it a point to get into arguments with my co-workers. What happens
at work is business, and I don't let it get personal. But it really troubles
me that you are so terribly concerned about conflicts in your workplace. What
is going on in your organization that is promoting this kind of behavior
between staff?" "What kind of manager promotes conflicts and argument rather
than engaging in de-escalation and consensus-building, and is that the kind of
management I should expect to be working with in your organization?"

The above is written a little aggressively(it's all about the in-person
delivery), but doing this has it been super effective for me. People don't
realize that they are projecting the toxicity and problems of their workplace
in their questions.

At the very least, when it's all over, ask the interviewer why they were
asking you these questions, and what they expected to get out of it. If they
don't have an answer or seem offended that you would dare ask, then you've got
your answer: RUN AWAY.

Remember that behavioral assessments are evaluating: >Communication/verbal
skills >Listening ability >Attitude >Ability to play the submit-to-my-
authority game

Good luck in your next interview!

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Endy
Having been on the recruiter side, it's very simple why we regularly ask
behavioral questions. It's because we want to make sure your behavior is
appropriate.

As you said, communication is a necessary skill. Even in a world where email,
text, etc are becoming normal means of communication, you need to be able to
clearly communicate on a regular basis, extemporaneously and face-to-face with
another person. Your ability to communicate your weaknesses and strengths well
in an interview is absolutely essential to anyone during the hiring process.
Quite frankly, most companies don't care if you're the absolute best in your
technical field - if you can't match the culture of the office, you're only
suited to remote freelancing - if that! Remember that HR has to constantly
cover themselves - every employee is (potentially) a liability waiting to
happen; if they hire someone who contributes to a negative/toxic work
environment or is a sexual harassment risk (either as victim or aggressor),
they're likely going to be fired for introducing that risk to the company. You
have to tell HR in language they understand and can quantify that you are not
a lawsuit risk.

The point is definitely not about prepared presentation, it's about being able
to work and exist with other human beings like what HR calls "a normal person"
\- which is really a person with no negative qualities that will potentially
endanger the company. Believe me, I've had a few red-flag interviews where the
person came off very rude when I asked them about their personal and
professional weaknesses; or when they had an issue with a manager. I've also
had interviews that felt 'weird' because the person seemed to fixate on the
gender of each of his previous managers.

Also, realize that some of these questions inform how interviewers view your
references. If you list a certain manager as a reference, you're likely to be
asked about a time you had a frustrating experience with that specific person
as a manager - oh, and as a side note, if you're asked for three references in
a tech field, do everything in your power to include one opposite-sex
individual. When we call to confirm the reference, we will in turn ask the
reference about that same incident with you as an employee - what happened,
what caused the situation, and how it was resolved. We can't do a proper 360
evaluation on you, but we can certainly try to see a more full picture from
the people you mention as references and their answers to questions about your
conduct.

Your technical skills are either there at the level the employer's needed
level, or they aren't - in the latter case you got filtered either by the ATS
or someone like I used to be. It's the interpersonal skills which aren't well-
described by a resume.

One other thing - "He's a great guy and really good at resolving interpersonal
challenges" is a stronger internal selling point from a recruiter to an HR
hiring manager than you'd immediately think. Remember, the default for the
company is that you're too expensive - some recruiters (internal and third-
party) have to justify not offshoring a role before they can even begin
suggesting candidates. If you're not going to contribute to the office
positively and the HR manager thinks you're going to be a challenge or a
danger, you will not get hired.

~~~
mden
Thanks for the reply!

"The point is definitely not about prepared presentation" \- to me this
doesn't ring true at all, but I am sure it depends on the person who is
getting interviewed. When I'm asked about times I've argued with my manager
nothing really stands out but I'm sure that's not an acceptable answer either.
Of course there are disagreements but they have never resolved to any serious
argument or escalated to involving HR and even if they had I think it would be
prudent to avoid talking about them. So I end up having to make up BS about
something but now I'm the territory of exaggerating some minor disagreement
and what I learned from it and it ends up sounding insincere. So the only way
to avoid it is to prepare something for a lot of situations and to some extent
rehearse before the interview. I've never had any significant interpersonal
issues and I've been in the industry for six years. Most of the questions just
leave me in a confused mumbling state as to me they sound a little ridiculous
but at the same time I'm not allowed to just say, "no I've never had that as a
problem".

~~~
Endy
If I was the one asking the question, I would avoid using the word "argument",
in all honest. It would be more like, "Tell me about a situation where you and
your manager disagreed. How did you work to resolve it?"

Arguing is conflict, and destructive behavior - HR people don't want that
because it leads to headaches (at best). Arguing leads to "toxic" workplaces
which lead to lawsuits. On the other hand, disagreement is natural, common,
and sometimes essential to growth. So the interviewer should be asking about
times you disagreed with another person and then worked to resolve it between
you two without HR - rather than a time you came into conflict with a
coworker.

