Why Do Employers Use Behavioral Interviewing?

This technique provides school district representatives with objective information that they don't get from a traditional interview question. For example, if an employer asks, "do you work well with people from diverse cultures?" your response will most likely be "yes". If the employer asks "Tell me about a time when you had to work with people from diverse cultures." you will respond with a story about a situation where this was the case. The employer will then be able to judge for him/herself whether you actually do perform well, according to his/her standards. This also gives you the opportunity to prove by example that you can handle the task at hand.

How To Answer

• Your answers to behavioral interview questions need to be specific and detailed.
• Listen carefully to what the interviewer asks so that you can give an answer that's relevant to the question. If you are unsure, ask for clarification.
• You can use examples from either school or work.
• Tell a story about something you've done, or talk about an event you were involved in.

Structure your answers in three parts:

1. Begin by briefly describing the situation
2. Detail what action you took
3. State the result (this should be a positive one, if not, discuss what you learned from the situation)

Examples of Behavioral Interview Questions

• Describe the biggest challenge you've had in a job or student teaching placement and how you handled it.
• Give me an example of a time when you had to persuade someone to accept an idea or proposal.
• Tell me about a situation when you had to learn something new in a short time. How did you do this?
• Summarize a situation where you had to generate a new idea or suggestion at work or school and tell me about how you got this idea implemented.
• How have you most constructively dealt with disappointment and turned it into a learning experience?
• Describe a situation where you had to work with a difficult principal, supervisor, professor or other person. How did you successfully interact with this person?
• Describe a situation where you had to "think on your feet" to handle an emerging unexpected situation.
• What specific approaches or ideas have you used in dealing with at-risk students?
• What strategies do you use to improve reading skills of students who are far below grade level?
• Describe the process you have used in dealing with a student who was disrupting the class.
• Describe a part of your portfolio that best indicates your teaching style and beliefs and tell us how you have implemented this in the classroom.
• What provisions do you make for meeting the range of skills and needs commonly present in a classroom?
• Describe a team project you have done and your role.
• What steps have you taken prior to a parent-teacher conference to ensure its success.
• Describe your experiences working with a diverse student body.
• Explain a difficult situation, how you handled it, what you learned from it and what would you do differently now.
• Tell me about a specific lesson plan or situation that did not go the way you anticipated. What did you do to improve it?

How To Prepare

• Refresh your memory about your achievements and highlights of your school and work careers over the past few years.
• Think about challenging problems or obstacles you faced.
• Demonstrate past behaviors by drawing on many experiences; think about student teaching, classes and projects, activities, team and sports participation, community service and full or part-time jobs.
• Decision making, leadership, organizational skills, problem solving and team building are among the many topic areas that behavioral questions probe into, so any experiences which involve these areas would be good for use in behavioral examples.