List of Competencies and Sample Behavioral Based Questions
List of Competencies and Sample Behavioral Based Questions
Business Acumen
Change Agent
Collaboration Skills
Communication Proficiency
Customer/Client Focus
Decision Making
Ethical Conduct
Flexibility
Financial Management
Global Orientation
Human Resources Capacity
Initiative
Leadership
Learning Orientation
Performance Management
Personal Effectiveness/Credibility
Problem Solving/Analysis
Project Management
Results Driven
Stress Management/Composure
Strategic Thinking
Teamwork Orientation
Technical Capacity
Thoroughness
Time Management
Manager’s Tool-kit: Staff Hiring Guide
Business Acumen
Behavioral
Tell me about a time you used your knowledge of the organization to get an idea approved.
Tell me about a time you used financial, industry and economic environment data to support a
successful project.
What have you done in your positions at other companies that made a difference to the business and
for which you believe you will be remembered?
Situational
You’re new to an organization. How do you go about learning how that organization works?
You’ve been approached with a new idea for your department. How do you go about determining the
feasibility and possible success of that idea?
If you were given the responsibility to start a new department from scratch, what are the basics that you
would need to consider?
General
What difference does it make to organize departments in a centralized versus decentralized way? Do
you have a preference?
What role does a “corporate culture” play in the success of a company?
How have you participated in planning processes
Manager’s Tool-kit: Staff Hiring Guide
Change Agent
Behavioral
Have you ever had to champion an unpopular change? What was the situation and how did you handle
it?
Have you ever had to persuade a peer or superior to accept an idea that you knew he/she would not
like? Tell me about the resistance you met and how you overcame it.
Have you ever had to persuade a group to accept a proposal or idea? How did you go about doing it?
What was the result and how did you feel about it?
Describe a time you recommended a change to procedure. What did you learn from that experience?
How did you apply that learning in other situations?
Tell me about a time when big changes took place in your job. What did you do to adjust to the change?
General
If you are hired for this position and are still with (name of company/organization) five years from now,
how do you think the organization will be different?
Manager’s Tool-kit: Staff Hiring Guide
Communication Proficiency
Behavioral
Give me some examples of how and when you were the spokesperson for your current or most recent
company.
Give an example of how you carefully considered your audience prior to communicating with
them. What factors influenced your communication?
Describe a time you used your communications skills to negotiate with an angry person.
Have you ever given a presentation to a group? How did you prepare for it? What would you do
differently?
Describe a time when you were able to overcome a communications barrier(s).
Tell me about a time when effective listening skills helped you in a problematic situation.
Tell me about a time when you thought someone wasn’t listening to you. What did you do?
General
Management requires both good writing and verbal skills for effective communication. When it comes
to giving information to employees that can be done either way, do you prefer to write an email/memo
or talk to the employee? Why?
How well do you communicate with others? What communication techniques do you use?
When do you think it is best to communicate in writing? When do you handle it face-to-face?
Manager’s Tool-kit: Staff Hiring Guide
Customer/Client Focus
Behavioral
Tell me about a time when you went out of your way to give great service to a customer.
Tell me about a time when you asked for feedback on your customer service skills from your manager or
co-worker and then used that response to improve your work.
Describe a time when you had to deal with a difficult guest/client-relations problem. What was the
outcome? What did you learn?
Tell me about a time when you knew that your customer might not get what he or she needed on time.
How did you handle this?
Tell me about a time when you had to say “no” to a customer because it was against company policy.
Tell me about a time when you had trouble working with a difficult or demanding customer. How did
you handle this?
Tell me about a situation in which you “lost it” or did not do your best with a customer. What did you do
about this?
Describe a time when you exceeded a customer’s expectations.
Describe a time when you lost a customer. What would you do differently?
Can you share an example of a time when you developed rapport with a customer? What strategies did
you use? How did you transfer the use of those strategies to other customers?
Situational
What would you say or do if upon entering a patient’s room the patient screamed, “Get out of my
room”?
What would you do if you encountered a patient’s family member alone and crying in the hallway?
How would you react if upon entering a patient’s room, you were told that the family was upset over
the care the patient was receiving?
“Yes” is the word clients/customers/guests like to hear. However, if you had to say “no,” how would you
do it?
General
What do you like about being in customer service? What do you find is the most difficult part of being in
customer service?
Describe a process or system that you improved so customers would be better served.
When are policy exceptions to customers warranted? Not warranted?
How do you go about deciding what strategy to employ when dealing with a difficult customer?
We all have customers or clients. –Who are your clients and how do you identify them?
What have you done to improve relations with your customers?
How would you define guest/client satisfaction?
What does “customer” mean to you?
What does “servicing the sale” mean to you?
Describe a time when someone failed to provide satisfactory service to you. How could that person
improve his or her performance in that particular situation?
Give an example of one thing that is important in building repeat-customer business.
What types of behaviors do you find most annoying or frustrating in a client/customer? How do you
handle those behaviors?
Manager’s Tool-kit: Staff Hiring Guide
Decision Making
Behavioral
Tell me about a time you had to make a work-related decision and the steps you took to reach your
decision.
Give a specific example of a decision you made that was not effective. Why do you think it was not
effective, and what did you do when this realization was made?
Describe a time when you had to make a very important and difficult decision that affected everyone in
your department.
Situational
How would you react if the following should occur: A co-worker or customer suddenly collapses on the
floor. After a few minutes, a large crowd with loud voices and making demands gathers around.
You have a critical decision to make for your department, and all alternatives will likely be unpopular
with your staff. What input do you gather before deciding? What factors do you take into
consideration?
General
What methods do you use to make decisions? When do you find it most difficult to make a decision?
Managers need good information to be able to make good decisions. Do you tend to gather information
up to a deadline in order to make a better-informed decision or gather just enough information to make
a good decision quickly?
Manager’s Tool-kit: Staff Hiring Guide
Ethical Conduct
Behavioral
Describe for me a time when you have come across questionable business practices. How did you
handle the situation?
Have you ever faced a significant ethical problem at work? How did you handle it?
Describe a time when you made a mistake at work. How did you deal with this situation and what was
the outcome?
Have you worked in a situation where an employee, vendor or supplier had a conflict of interest? How
did you handle this?
Situational
You have found a co-worker’s or client’s belongings in the main corridor (communal space). Describe
how you would take care of the situation.
Suppose your supervisor asked you to get information for him or her that you knew was confidential and
he/she should not have access to. What would you do?
If you observed a co-worker who made inappropriate sexual or racial remarks to another employee, and
it was obvious to you that the situation was creating an uncomfortable environment, what would you
do?
Several of the clients this position services use direct mail marketing. Suppose that you just received a
supply of the final conference brochures that you developed, proofed and sent to the printer for one of
these clients. The deadline for mailing the10,000 brochures is tomorrow. You notice that there is an
error in the date of one of the conference sessions. What would you do?
As our president/CEO, how would you proceed if the board of directors adopted a policy or program
that you felt was inconsistent with the goals and mission of our company?
General
Define professional behavior and/or conduct appropriate in the workplace.
Explain the phrase “work ethic” and describe yours.
Are there any types of marketing that you consider unethical?
Manager’s Tool-kit: Staff Hiring Guide
Flexibility
Behavioral
Give an example of a time when you were trying to meet a deadline, you were interrupted, and did not
make the deadline. How did you respond?
Give an example of a time when you had to quickly change project priorities. How did you do it?
Situational
Suppose you are in a situation where deadlines and priorities change frequently and rapidly. How would
you handle it?
General
People react differently when job demands are constantly changing. How do you react to this?
Manager’s Tool-kit: Staff Hiring Guide
Financial Management
Behavioral
Describe some recent projects you were involved in to improve accounting’s efficiency/effectiveness.
What did you do?
Describe for me a time when you have come across questionable accounting practices. How did you
handle the situation?
Describe your most challenging encounter with month end/year end closing. How did you resolve the
problem?
Have you ever been over budget? Why? How did you handle this?
General
Describe your budget creation and management experience.
Tell me about your fiscal management experience: budgeting, reporting, cutting costs, building and
maintaining reserves.
Have you completed month end/year end closing? How much experience do you have with this?
Describe your PL (profit/loss) experience.
What type of inventory audits have you been involved in? Describe challenges you’ve faced.
Tell me about your knowledge of commissions accounting.
What experience have you had with tax accounting?
Have you ever done a cost-benefit analysis? Tell me about it.
What experience do you have with financial planning and analysis?
Manager’s Tool-kit: Staff Hiring Guide
Global Orientation
Behavioral
What difficulties did you experience adjusting to previous international assignments? How did you
overcome them?
On your last expatriate assignment, what did you do to ensure that your adjustment into the new
environments went smoothly?
Tell me about a time when working in a different country you had to adapt to the culture. What
adaptations did you have to make? How did you go about it?
Describe a situation where you have had to work in a multicultural environment and the challenges you
had. How did you approach the situation and what was the outcome?
Tell me about a time when you worked in a remote location or situation that was totally foreign.
General
How many expatriate assignments have you completed?
Please share with me the main reasons why you chose to accept your previous expatriate assignments.
Was the success or failure of your expatriate assignments measured by your employers? If so, how did
they measure it?
During your last international assignment, do you recall when you realized your situation was a success
or a failure? How did you come to that determination?
Why do you wish to be assigned an international position?
What experiences made it easier to interact with the locals in the countries where you were on
expatriate assignment?
Please describe what success or failure means to you when referring to an expatriate assignment
Manager’s Tool-kit: Staff Hiring Guide
Describe to me in a few sentences the purpose of the following basic federal regulations: (select one or
more, as applicable)
o Title VII/Civil Rights Act
o FLSA
o WC
o FMLA
o ADA
What benefits experience do you have?
What has your current company (or most recent employer) done in response to the PPACA?
What compensation experience do you have?
What recruiting experience do you have?
Tell me about your experience with HRIS systems? What is your proficiency?
Have you processed payroll? What other payroll functions are you familiar with?
What HR metrics does your current/former organization monitor? What is your involvement with these
metrics?
What vendor relationships were you responsible for managing?
Have you ever been involved in a department or company reorganization or big change? What was the
process and how did it end up?
Manager’s Tool-kit: Staff Hiring Guide
Initiative
Behavioral
Can you tell me about a time during your previous employment when you suggested a better way to
perform a process?
Tell me about a career goal that you have accomplished and why that was important to you.
Could you share with us a recent accomplishment of which you are most proud?
Describe a time when you performed a task outside your perceived responsibilities. What was the task?
Why did you perceive it to be outside your responsibilities? What was the outcome?
Describe a time when you kept from getting bored when dealing with routine tasks.
What was the most creative thing you did in your last job?
Manager’s Tool-kit: Staff Hiring Guide
Leadership
Behavioral
Give me an example of a time when you needed to help other employees learn a new skill set. What did
you do?
Have you ever been in a position where you had to lead a group of peers? How did you handle it? Tell
me about problems you had and how you handled them.
Have you ever managed a situation where the people or units reporting to you were in different
locations? Tell me how this worked.
Tell me about your experience working with a board of directors. What approach and philosophy did
you follow in working with boards?
Tell me about a time when you organized, managed and motivated others on a complex task from
beginning to end?
Managing requires motivating employees as well as accomplishing tasks.
Give me an example of how you have motivated your employees.
Situational
A new policy is to be implemented organization-wide. You do not agree with this new policy. How do
you discuss this policy with your staff?
General
Describe an ideal supervisor/manager.
Tell us about your management style—people, teamwork, direction?
What is the largest number of employees you have supervised and what were their job functions?
Tell me about your experience in leading and managing an organization similar to ours.
Tell me about your experiences with staff development.
What is your own philosophy of management?
What do you do to develop employees you manage?
Do you find it more natural to point out what’s wrong so employees can accomplish tasks competently
or to praise employees for their work and then point out what may need correcting?
Manager’s Tool-kit: Staff Hiring Guide
Learning Orientation
Behavioral
Describe a time when you took a new job that required a much different set of skills from what you had.
How did you go about acquiring the needed skills?
Have you had an occasion when a prior strength actually turned out to be a weakness in another
setting? How did you cope?
Throughout your career have you learned more about your profession through coursework or through
on the job experience? Explain.
What area of your last job was most challenging for you? Why was this specific part of the position
difficult? Is this still challenging? Why or why not?
Tell me about a time when you volunteered for an assignment to expand your knowledge and skills.
General
Tell me about the one person who has influenced you the most during your career? Was he or she a
manager or mentor? What did you learn from him or her? Why do you think you learned so much from
him or her?
What is more important to your profession, experience or continued education?
How do you stay informed of current ideas on management and the (industry field for the
company/organization)?
Under what kinds of conditions do you learn best?
In what areas would you like to develop further? What are your plans to do that?
What are your career path interests?
Why should employees seek to improve their knowledge and skill base?
What was the best training program in which you have participated?
What are your major professional reading sources?
What sorts of things have you done to become better qualified for your career?
Careers grow and develop just like people do. Where do you see your career now? Why? What are you
doing to sustain it?
What’s the most valuable thing you’ve learned in the past year? Why?
Do you feel you are knowledgeable about current industry-related legislation or trends? Why or why
not?
What was the last work-related educational seminar or class you attended? Why did you attend this
course? How have you transferred the knowledge gained in the course to your work?
Manager’s Tool-kit: Staff Hiring Guide
Performance Management
Behavioral
What was the most challenging employee performance issue you’ve had to deal with and how did you
handle it?
Explain, step by step, how you have handled an employee who had performance problems.
Describe a time when you needed to discipline an employee who reported directly to you.
What coaching or mentoring experience have you had? With groups or one-on-one? How did you
determine the appropriate way to coach/mentor and what were the results?
General
When making a decision to terminate employment of an employee, do you find it easy because of the
company’s needs or difficult because of the employee’s needs?
Discuss and differentiate between remediation, corrective action and discipline.
What’s the difference between coaching and counseling and discipline?
Manager’s Tool-kit: Staff Hiring Guide
Personal Effectiveness/Credibility
Behavioral
What strengths did you rely on in your last position to make you successful in your work?
What do you do when you know you are right and your boss disagrees with you? Give me an example of
when this has happened in your career.
Tell me about a situation you wish that you had handled differently based on the outcome. What was
the situation? What would you change (or will you change) when faced with a similar situation?
Describe a time when you had to deal with a difficult boss, co-worker or customer. How did you handle
the situation?
General
How do you get people not under your authority to do work on your project?
How would you describe your abilities as a business developer? As a business maintainer?
Give us an example of how you stay organized when juggling multiple tasks.
How would your co-workers describe your work style/habits?
Manager’s Tool-kit: Staff Hiring Guide
Problem Solving/Analysis
Behavioral
Describe for me a decision you made that would normally have been made by your supervisor? What
was the outcome?
Describe a time when you needed to use the principles of logic to solve a problem.
Have you ever solved a problem that others around you could not solve? Tell me about it.
What was one of the toughest problems you ever solved? What process did you go through to solve it?
Tell me about a time when you had a work problem and didn’t know what to do?
Tell me about a time when you solved one problem but created others?
Tell me about a time when a work problem was more than it at first appeared to be.
How have you approached solving a problem that initially seemed insurmountable?
What have you done when faced with an obstacle to an important project? Give me an example.
How do you analyze different options to determine which is the best alternative?
Describe for me how your prior positions required you to be proficient in the analysis of technical
reports?
Give an example of when you used analytical techniques to design solutions to solve problems.
General
Do people ever come to you for help in solving problems? Why? Give me an example of when this
happened.
Manager’s Tool-kit: Staff Hiring Guide
Project Management
What type of projects have you managed in the past?
Have you had a non-productive team member on your project team? What happened and how did you
handle this situation?
What did you bring to the last position you were in? Describe how your strengths improved the team.
What was the last big project you worked on?
o How did you start this project?
o What were the deliverables?
o What metrics did you use to measure ongoing project status?
o What, if any, cost overrun issues did you have? How did you handle these?
o What other obstacles did you overcome?
o Were the deadlines met? (Why or why not?)
o What would you have done differently?
Describe specific project for this position.
o How would you start this project?
o Who should be on the project team? Why?
o What are the three biggest risks for this project?
o What control measures/techniques would you put in place to overcome these three risks?
Manager’s Tool-kit: Staff Hiring Guide
Results Driven
Behavioral
Tell me about your current position (or most recent position) and how you helped the organization
accomplish its goals and mission.
How have you reacted when you found yourself stalled in an inefficient process?
Tell me about a time when you inherited a process that wasn’t working and you had limited time to fix it
Manager’s Tool-kit: Staff Hiring Guide
Stress Management/Composure
Behavioral
Tell me about a work ‘nightmare’ you were involved in. How did you approach the situation and what
was the outcome?
Have you ever been caught unaware by a problem or obstacle that you had not foreseen? What
happened?
Situational
You are angry about an unfair decision. How do you react?
Manager’s Tool-kit: Staff Hiring Guide
Strategic Thinking
Behavioral
Give me an example of a time when you had to engage in future planning.
Tell me about a time when you participated in developing your departmental or organizational business
strategy. What was your role? How did you approach it?
Behavioral suggestions: Tell me about a time when you identified a need for a new approach or product
to meet a market need.
General
Tell me how the duties and responsibilities of your current (or past) position related to the
organization’s business strategy.
Is it more important to be a detail-oriented person or a big-picture person? Explain.
What do you think is the role of the president/CEO in strategic planning for the organization?
Manager’s Tool-kit: Staff Hiring Guide
Teamwork Orientation
Behavioral
We often work in teams. Tell me about a time when a team project failed.
Tell me about a time when you needed to work as part of a team to satisfy a client or resolve an issue.
Tell me about a time you worked on a cross-functional team. Were there different challenges compared
to a departmental-task team?
When groups work together, conflict often erupts. Tell me about a time that conflict occurred in one of
your work groups and what you did about it.
Tell me about a time you pitched in to help a team member finish a project even though it “wasn’t your
job.” What was the result?
Tell me about a situation where political power plays affected team dynamics. How did you or could the
team have overcome or avoided this situation?
Tell me about a time when you were a part of a great team. What was your part in making the team
effective?
Tell me the role you play within work groups and why.
Tell me about the most effective contribution you have made as part of a task group or special project
team.
Have you ever worked in a virtual team? If so, tell me about this experience. What were the team
dynamics? Was the team successful? If not, what do you perceive to be the advantages and
disadvantages of this type of team? What would you do differently? How would you suggest creating
team cohesiveness in a virtual setting?
General
What do you think are the best and worst parts of working in a team environment? How do you handle
it?
If I asked several of your co-workers about your greatest strength as a team member, what would they
tell me?
What do you think makes a team of people work well together? What makes them not work well
together?
How would people you work with describe you?
What is essential for a team to be successful?
Have you ever been engaged in team sales?
Manager’s Tool-kit: Staff Hiring Guide
Technical Capacity
Behavioral
The last time that you experienced a technical problem during your workday, to whom did you go for
help? Why did you chose this person?
Tell me about a time when you used your technical knowledge to solve a problem that appeared to be
unsolvable.
Describe a technical report that you had to complete. What did the report entail? What was the
purpose? Who was the audience?
When you have several users experiencing computer problems, how do you determine which users get
help first?
Describe your decision-making process when selecting which IT certifications to pursue.
General
Describe the types of network security features you have implemented or maintained in the past.
How would you describe your skills in Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Access (relevant software used in
the job)? Beginner, intermediate or advanced?
Describe your previous experience with travel planning and reservations.
What experience do you have scheduling meetings and conferences, ordering food and materials for
meetings?
How many words per minute can you type?
What do you believe is your most honed skill?
In your experience, what are the essential elements of an IT disaster recovery plan?
Of your certifications, which one(s) have you found most helpful when you encounter technical
problems on the job?
In your opinion, how does managing a staff of technical workers differ from managing other kinds of
workers?
What brands of hardware do you feel most comfortable dealing with?
What software have you had the most success supporting?
What characteristics do you feel are necessary for success as a technical support worker?
What support, either administrative or technical assistance, did you receive in your previous positions?
Describe the ideal technical support you would need to be most effective as (job title).
Manager’s Tool-kit: Staff Hiring Guide
Thoroughness
Behavioral
We are seeking employees who focus on detail. What means have you used to keep from making
mistakes?
When there’s a decision for a new critical process, what means do you use to communicate step-by-step
processes to ensure other people understand and will complete the process correctly?
Tell me the steps you take to monitor the quality of your work in your current job.
How do you decide when something is “good enough” or when it needs to be as close as possible to
perfection? When have you had to make this determination? Explain.
General
Tell me how the quality of your work impacts others around you. Give me an example.
Manager’s Tool-kit: Staff Hiring Guide
Time Management
Behavioral
Have you worked under time constraints before? Can you give us an example?
Was there a time when you struggled to meet a deadline? Tell us about it.
Describe a time you identified a barrier to your (and or others’) productivity and what you did about it.
When you have a lot of work to do or multiple priorities, how do you get it all done? Give me an
example.
Situational
It’s 4:30 on a Friday afternoon. Your supervisor gives you an assignment that needs to be finished by
8:00 Monday morning. You have already made plans to be away the entire weekend. What would you
do?
General
Tell me about your productivity and time management skills.
What do you do when someone else is late and preventing you from accomplishing your tasks?
How do you determine what amount of time is reasonable for a task?
How do you keep your team from feeling overwhelmed when various projects in process are equally
important?
What percentage of time did you spend on each functional area of your job?
Describe the workload at your current position. How do you feel about it? What would you change
about it, if you could?