Behavioral Interview Prep

[black300]

I recently applied for a position at CP Rail and received a phone interview. Right on the phone interview they told me they would like to invite me in for a in person interview. I only have a day to prep for this Behavioral Interview, just wanted to see if anyone has suggestions, tips and tricks or if anyone has interviewed at CP Rail before.

I understand it is more of a what if this happened, how would handle the situation but those are the ones that seem to stump me at times trying to think of a old experience/objective to compare to.

[Cagare]

Can you even prepare for those?

[Brent.ff]

Look up STAR interviews, the HR person will be ensuring you provide examples in that or similar format

[vengie]

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Look up STAR interviews, the HR person will be ensuring you provide examples in that or similar format

This is exactly what I was going to say.
Fire, police, Ems use these style questions when interviewing

[ExtraSlow]

Have your resume in front of you during the interview, and it's totally ok to bring in notes that will help you Remeber key actions you too previously.

If you have five key projects or situations either memorized or writes down with the STAR format, you can do quite well in these interviews.

Very few people can prep for the dozens of possible questions, or at least I can't. So I always focused on the key messaging I wanted to convey, and key events or actions.

[e31]

If you hold your breath it'll screw with the lie-detector.

[legendboy]

Take a Valium

[hampstor]

Presuming you're talking about an office job (and im not too late)... about 10 years ago I conducted a few interviews at CPR... they're went something like this:

They're going to give you a word, a definition, and then ask you about it. Example: "Collaboration, the definition of Collaboration is the action of working with someone to produce or create something. Tell me about a time you demonstrated collaboration."

Here's how I prepare:
1. Identify 5+ things you've done in your career that you are proud of. This is important, because these are things you should know really well and can spend lots of time talking about it (even if not in an interview setting).
2. Apply the STAR method to each of those examples. Write it down on paper or in a tablet/whatever. Bring this with you to the interview, tell them you worked on so many things in your career that you need notes to remember.
3. When asked a behavior, review the 5+ things in your career you want to talk about, and find one that includes that behavior they want you to see. Follow the STAR method about that example but make sure you weave the behavior through the story.

Because you're making an example you know really well fit vs. trying to fit the behavior into your example, you'll come across more confident, and if they ask you questions you generally know the answers. You'll often find that anything that you've worked on that you're proud of and can talk about easily will somehow fit into a behavioral interview question.

Top grade interviews... those are intimidating.

[ExtraSlow]

CP has probably the most organized and rigid interview process I've ever been a part of. But at least they are upfront about how it works. Had a behavioural interview sprung on me during what I thought was "just a chat" once. That was a mess.

Came in second place for a really cool role at CP a couple of years ago. Seems like an interesting organization. Maybe one day, but busy saving the entire oil patch now.

[ThePenIsMightier]

I get a chubby asking people who have worked for Royal Dutch Shell if they understand why Project _____ failed.
Answer that correctly and you're golden! Answer incorrectly and you might as well drop a deuce on the table and leave. No in between!
LoL.

[Misterman]

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I get a chubby asking people who have worked for Royal Dutch Shell if they understand why Project _____ failed.
Answer that correctly and you're golden! Answer incorrectly and you might as well drop a deuce on the table and leave. No in between!
LoL.

Guess you get a lot of table dumps then. I can't imagine too many people are word savvy enough to explain that the company is managed by a bunch of retards and rife with top heavy management that is forced to move to a new role every time they get their current role figured out, in interview palatable terminology.