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Behavioral Interviewing....
- Ms. nubha M

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hi all another article by Padma.K Behavioral Interviewing By Padma.K I couldn't help wondering about the differences between what Americans perceive as personal questions and what I (and I trust a lot of my fellow Indians will) perceive. When I did my MBA at the University of Texas at Austin, I went through a few of these behavioral interviews and honestly felt like I was coming out of a Psychiatrist's office (not that I've been there and not that there is anything wrong with that either!) In India, it is perfectly natural and accepted at interviews to ask questions like: 'Are you married?' and if yes, 'So, where does he work?' or 'How many brothers and sisters do you have?' or 'What is your native place?' If the applicant is an obvious middle-aged man or woman aspiring for a middle management position (no pun intended!), then the interviewer may casually ask, 'How many children do you have?' These questions are not considered personal, and in my opinion these are simple but highly informative questions that can enable you to size the background and the general attitude of the candidate in a jiffy. I am not claiming that these questions will elicit answers that will enable you to perfectly forecast if the candidate is right for the job or not, but I am of the opinion that these are casual questions that will be answered honestly most of the time and will not make either the interviewer or the interviewee uncomfortable. But these are considered 'personal' questions in the United States. Let's examine the kind of questions you might face in the US under the behavioral interviewing category. The standard ones are: 'What are your greatest strengths?' and 'What are your weaknesses?' Now you must realize that this kind of interviewing is a well-played game. Both the interviewer and the interviewee know that they cannot and should not tell any groundbreaking strengths or weaknesses. If you say something like, ' I am brilliant technically, am very systematic and orderly in whatever task I embark upon, have a wide range of interests and get along very well with most people,' it is considered too good to be true and you may be suspected of lying. On the other hand, if you classified your weaknesses as, 'I am not very confident of major decisions I make' or 'I always worry too much before a big project, lose sleep and ruin my life until a major piece of work gets done,' the interview will soon end in a couple of minutes after a very polite handshake and some empty pleasantries. The candidate is expected to mention a slight weakness or shortcoming (no more than 2!) followed up very quickly by how she or he is rectifying it and what the results are. My diligent career advisors would keep saying, 'SAR, Remember SAR!' -- SAR stands for Situation, Action and Result. You are expected to spin out a situation, describe what action you took and wrap it up with a positive result. So this little game is played between the interviewer and interviewee much like the carpet-selling game in the Middle East or the vegetable/flower-selling game in Madras or any house ware-selling game in China. The vendors in these examples always talk of how many mouths they have to feed at home and of how tough life is for them. The experienced buyer always counters these arguments deftly and the entire bargaining process is considered a success if a fair price exchanges hands. Similarly, a well-prepared candidate (no, not me!) has a set of packaged answers to these questions. You are also expected to pause thoughtfully for a couple of seconds before answering questions like: 'What was your most embarrassing moment?' or 'What were the biggest mistakes you made while at your previous work or school?' The more talented amongst these candidates will roll their eyes reflectively attempting to recall their experiences from the deep recesses of their mind, when in reality they have their practiced answers at the tip of their tongues! Some of the questions I have been asked at a few of the interviews I attended still make me chuckle. And all the more so, because I had been interviewing for a technical position with some amount of management responsibility. The interview started predictably with a question about my weaknesses. I distinctly remember saying something like web surfing for a couple of hours on most days (at home, I was quick to add that!) and a slight difficulty in making small talk on social occasions. I was quick to conclude with how I was trying to improve my social skills by trying to read up on a lot of trivial stuff on the web so that I would have a sufficient number of topics to talk about during social settings. I was feeling very pleased with myself on how I had indeed connected both my weaknesses and left a positive spin at the end, as my patient advisor, Bruce used to recommend. Unfortunately, the weakness question didn't end there. My interviewer asked for more! I now don't remember what I said then, but it may have something to do with putting off doing things until the last moment. He still kept persisting for more, smiling and saying, 'Well, we all have room to improve. Tell me some more.' And on and on it went until I finally answered with a stony silence. Another question I was asked was whether I had lied or thought it was okay to lie. I was asked to describe my risk-taking characteristics. Then they were interested in knowing the most difficult decision I had made in my life and how I would handle failure, loss of a major business account or a loved one, etc., etc. They wanted to know what I would change if I could change or reverse one decision I had made in the past. Now I swear I have seen this question asked in a beauty pageant! So, you get the pattern! These are soul-searching probing questions. And yet these are not considered 'personal'! Now I agree that a very few of these questions may actually be relevant to your job. But I am of the firm opinion that the majority of them are not and then there is no way anything can be proved. The best answers are always the most carefully prepared ones anyway. If behavioral interviewing is indeed the best way to select candidates for management posts, then why is the corporate world rocked with scandals of top management people concealing information from investors and engaging in all flavors of accounting sleight-of-hand? Surely these people were chosen after dozens of these kinds of interviews. In my opinion, these interviews are all, 'Fake, fake, fake, fake,' as Elaine famously said in one of the Seinfeld episodes!

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