Hire the Right Engineer with Behavioral Interview Questions

Maile Goss

November 14, 2021

Hiring someone new is a big change that can impact the dynamic of your team completely. How does a hiring manager get to know the personal traits of candidates, that are beyond skills and experience, before offering a position? Learning the difference in behavioral response between candidates is the key to knowing which candidate to offer the job. The Behavioral Interview Questions Generator changes this difficult task into an easy process. One of the most efficient and effective tactics of building a high-performance team is to ask questions which will inspire the best prospects to give the most in-depth and insightful responses. The way a question is answered can give you an idea on how a prospective hire has handled various workplace situations in the past, with the logic being, that is how they would handle a similar situation in the future as your employee. This valuable knowledge shortens the interview cycle for reaching the best hiring decisions to develop teams with the right combination of skill sets and attitudes to meet your organization’s needs.

How behavioral interview questions deliver more valuable responses

In most cases, if the hiring manager wants to get to know the personalities of the candidates this means qualifications for skills and experience have already been validated. The purpose of behavioral interview questions is to help you gain a better understanding of who the candidate is as a person and determine if they are right for the position needed. Asking behavioral interview questions is an effective way for a hiring manager to predict the outcome of future performance and behavior, based on how the candidate explains past scenarios. This process prevents the risk of bad hires who, perhaps unintentionally, burn your dedicated time, energy, and training resources. The productivity of the hiring process is protected by discerning which applicants can provide the best in-depth answers.

How to determine relevant competencies to select from the Behavioral Interview Generator

The field of engineering is broad with many industry verticals that are each searching for a different variety of skill sets. The Behavioral Interview Questions Generator delivers a custom question set based upon the competencies that are most important for your open position.  In addition, it functions as a guide for measured evaluation of responses. Whether you are hiring for a mechanical engineer or a computer engineer, your question sets for each will be unique by choosing up to ten different competencies within the tool. the most insightful questions. This guide will provide you with questions that are far more relevant and insightful than what you can find on a premade list. To get more value from the questions, the generator also includes tips on what to look for in open-ended answers. For instance, if you are hiring for a management position, you will be looking for responses that demonstrate leadership and vision. On the other hand, if you are looking to fill a fast-paced job, you might look for answers that show your applicant is punctual and efficient. Remember, you are looking to gauge how successful this candidate will be in problem-solving the task that the position in question will be required to solve.

What to look for in candidate responses and pose the open-ended question for more insightful answers.

The best candidates respond to questions with answers that showcase their skills by elaborating on specific challenges they had to problem solve and overcome.. The responses given can help you understand their way of thinking, how well they work in a team and what motivates them to contribute to the success of the task at hand. If you are trying to figure out if an interviewee has good time management, you might pose the question “give an example of a time you had to manage multiple responsibilities at once and how did you prioritize your time?”. This opens it up for the applicant to demonstrate if they will be successful in juggling multiple projects they will be given if you were to hire them. Or if you need to fill a position that requires frequent up-to-date communication, you may ask the interviewee “elaborate on an experience you had where you had to say no, even though it was not easy”. This gives your applicant an opportunity to show how well they communicate their ideas or feelings on a topic. Analyzing the responses given to questions asked in an interview can give the greatest insight into the difference between top candidates and the right match for a position with your company.

Overall, behavioral interview questions are valuable for building high-performance teams of all types. The questions you ask during engineer recruitment can help gauge how they will impact your team and if they have the right characteristics, skills, and attitude to accelerate innovation and meet operational goals. If you are diligent in analyzing your applicants’ responses, you are more likely to develop the engineering team of your dreams.

by Maile Goss