Interviews seek out best behaviour

The most nerve-racking part of a job application process is the interview.

It doesn't matter whether it is conducted by phone, one-on-one or the dreaded panel interview, many candidates fall by the wayside because they perform poorly in the interview and fail to show their true potential.

According to Hays Recruitment Australia and New Zealand director Grahame Doyle, the recent trend in job interviewing has been towards behavioural or competency-based interviews.

Although behavioural-based interviews have been used for more than a decade, they have traditionally been used only for senior management or executive positions.

"Behavioural interviewing is about looking at your previous experiences and situations and behaviours that you demonstrated to try to gain insight as a predictor of your future performance," Mr Doyle says.

Examples of real-life situations are the best way for employers to understand how candidates are likely to handle similar scenarios in the position being filled.

"You're automatically getting an insight into people's verbal communication skills, how they can think on their feet and how they handle being in a pressure situation, because an interview is a pressure situation for a lot of people."

Behavioural questions are usually complex with multiple parts.

"If we are looking for someone in a management role, conflict resolution may be one of the competencies we are looking for. So the type of questions could be: 'Can you give an example of a situation where you've had to deal with conflict? How did you go about it? What type of techniques did you use and what were the results of the situation?'."

Even if an interview begins with traditional questions, candidates shouldn't assume there won't be any behavioural questions as well.

"Most interviews are a combination of that older style thing such as, 'Why are you seeking a position with our company or why do you want to be in this type of position?'," Mr Doyle says.

"Part of the interview is to gain factual information from the candidate, the second half is to try to get an intuitive insight into the candidate's suitability for the role. That's really where the behavioural interviewing techniques come in."

Job seekers can find a wealth of knowledge on behavioural interviews on www.careerone.com.au

"Simply by doing some standard searches, candidates can get a very quick idea of the style of question that can be asked of them and therefore do some preparation about aspects of their background that answer those questions," Mr Doyle says.

The people who leave the best impression are the ones who come to the process with a positive frame of mind, he says.

"Things like body language and those non-verbal communication skills are important; people make decisions not just in the verbal answers but also by the body language with which they are delivered."

Candidates should also dress and act professionally during the interview.

"First impressions are important," he says.

"I don't think there is ever a time in an interview where bad language is appropriate.

"Candidates need to be careful when building a rapport with their interview that they do it in a professional manner rather than breaking into social language."

Mr Doyle says despite the complex nature of behavioural questions, candidates' answers should be to the point.

The easiest way to make sure the question has been answered completely is to remember the acronym: STAR: situation, task, action, result.

"Describe the situation you were in, what was the task you were doing, what actions you put in place, and what results you achieved," Mr Doyle says.

It is also important to let the interviewer finish the question and not interrupt.

"If you don't understand the question ask for the context in which the answer should be or ask for a little bit of time to think about the response," he says.