Job Interview Questions - Behaviorally-Anchored Questions

Behaviorally-Anchored

These questions generally look for specific examples/demonstration of the attributes or values that are important to the organization. They often encompass management or leadership style and approach, problem solving skills, teamwork, presentation skills, and strengths and weaknesses. Remember to choose stories or examples from your resume and background that are most relevant to each interviewer. The questions in the first group are followed by hints to help you structure your answers.

. How do you set an example for others? They are really asking: "Are you a leader?"

. Describe your major life accomplishments. This sums up what is really important to you. You may include personal accomplishments, but the majority should be work related. If you have no work experience, talk about your extracurricular activities--civic, social, sports. Talk about the team aspects, dealing with various personalities. If you organized something, talk about your organizational skills or your ability to generate interest in others.

. Tell me about your weaknesses. Never provide more than two. Describe how you are overcoming your weaknesses. Alternatively, you may choose to focus on improvements you are making in technical or leadership skills or other areas where you recognize you need to add to your professional "tool kit".

. Tell me something at which you failed. Be honest. We have all failed. The interviewer wants to see how you view failure and what you do with failure.

. What conditions at Yale have been most stressful to you? The question is designed to see your tolerance for stress. Recruiters are looking to see how you deal with ambiguity and change. Recruiters may also ask about your course load.

. Compare and contrast [two things]. This is designed to test your analytical and reasoning skills.

. Walk me through a situation in which you had to get information by asking a lot of questions of several people. This is asked to see how you process things. Analytical skills are assessed.

. The interviewer may cite examples of problems going on at work and ask you how you would go about solving them. This provides an assessment of your analytical skills and probes to see how much you know about the company.

. What tricks or techniques have you learned that make your schoolwork or your job easier? The question is used to determine your ability to learn and your initiative. Are you able to master new information? How quickly? Are you proactive? This answer is different than the one about analytical skills.

. Do you prefer to work on a team or alone? If your answer is "on a team", then be prepared to describe a successful team experience and your role on the team.

. How did you get around an obstacle that prevented you from completing a task? The interviewer wants to learn about your flexibility and initiative. S/he is trying to see if you can adjust to changing situations and if you can overcome barriers to get the job done.

. Have you ever had to "go the extra mile" for a customer? What did you do? They want to learn about your customer service skills.

. Tell me about a situation in which you made a decision too quickly. This is asked to learn about your judgment.

. Tell me about a risk you took. This is put forward to see if you are risk averse or a risk taker.

. The interviewer may describe an ethical dilemma and ask how you would handle the situation. Be prepared for ethical questions, particularly with Wall Street firms.

. Describe a time when you were part of a particularly difficult team. What was the situation? What role did you play? How did you handle it? What was the outcome?

. Give me an example of a time when you successfully worked within a team. What was your role? What was the outcome?

. Tell me about the last time you took the initiative to move a project ahead. What happened?

. Tell me how you reacted when given "constructive" feedback on one of your projects/responsibilities that wasn't going as well as others had expected. Who was providing the feedback?

. Describe a time when you have had to influence the actions or decisions of more senior people, yet did not have the requisite authority to dictate behavior. How did you handle it? What was the outcome?

. Give me an example of a leadership role you have played in an event, meeting, presentation, or project, when everything did not go as planned. How did you handle it? What was the outcome? What did you learn from this experience? What might you do differently next time?

. What was the most difficult decision you've had to make in the last 12 months?

. Discuss a setback you have overcome in the last 12 months.

. Describe a problem situation where you had to seek out and prioritize relevant information. How did you define key issues, decide which steps to take to achieve the desired results, and gain approval to implement them?

. Tell me about a time when you have successfully resolved a conflict. What was your role in the situation? How did you handle it?

. Give me an example of a creative or innovative idea you have had recently. What was the context? What made your idea innovative? What did you do with this idea? Where does it stand today?

. How do you stay abreast of industry/functional news?

. Tell me about a time when you made effective use of primary and secondary research data to create consensus and bring others to your way of thinking. How did you approach this situation? What was the outcome?

. Give me an example of how you assessed a situation and achieved good results by focusing on the most important priorities. How did you determine what the priorities were? What was your strategy and plan to achieve the desired outcome?

. Tell me about a time when you missed an obvious solution to a problem at work.

Questions by Function

Consulting

. What background do you have that would be helpful in consulting?

. Why consulting?

. How do you think the consulting industry is structured?

. What are some differences among the consulting firms that are important to you?

. What were the sales of your last employer? What was its profitability?

. Are you a generalist or specialist? Where do you see yourself specializing?

. Are you competitive?

. How are you going to make your decision if you get more than one offer?

Health Care

. Why are you interested in the health care industry?

. Why are you pursuing an MBA vs. Master in Health Administration?

. What strengths do you have for the health care industry?

. Prioritize the most important issues facing health care management.

. Provide your recommendations to address these issues.

. What is the current administration's goal towards health care?

. Why have some HMOs been successful and others have not? Elaborate.

Investment Banking

. What would you do if you weren't going into investment banking?

. What was your quantitative GMAT score?

. Some technical finance/accounting questions:

	How do you value a firm?
	What is an interest rate swap?
	What is DCF? How do you calculate the discount rate?
	How do you determine if a stock is undervalued?
	How would you price the stock for an IPO?
	What is the yield on a zero coupon bond trading at par with 10 years to maturity?
	What is working capital? Quick ratio? Free cash flow?

. Tell me what you know about [the firm].

. Tell me about the cultures of the different firms.

. How are you going to make your decision if you get more than one offer?

. What do you want to do and why- M&A, capital markets, or corporate finance?

. The bond market is going down; what is the stock market going to do?

. Where is the industry going? What is the market doing?

. What are the headlines in today's Wall Street Journal?

. What do you read regularly on the industry?

. Why choose investment banking? Why pick this bank?

. Tell me what an investment banker does.

. Tell me the difference between commercial and investment banks.

. Why pick corporate finance as opposed to sales and trading?

. What are your outside activities? Why would you be willing to give them up for such a demanding job?

. What role do you play in group situations?

. What would you do if offered drugs as part of the deal? (or other ethically-oriented questions)

. Sell us on your quantitative skills.

. How smart are you? How do we know how smart you are?

. If we made you an offer today, would you take it?

. What did the Dow, S&P, or NASDAQ close at yesterday?

. What stocks do you follow and why? (Be prepared to discuss the stock's performance.)

Marketing

. Give me the attributes of a good brand manager.

. Now take me through your background and demonstrate how you have each attribute.

. Rate Yale's marketing program.

. How would you sell more [Tide]?

. Talk about an ad-what makes it effective? interesting? etc.

. What are some examples of bad advertising? Why?

. How do you sell your ideas?

. What are you looking for in a consumer products company?

. What do you think are the most important traits in a marketing person?

. Describe your leadership style.

. Provide an example of your problem solving approach.

Sales and Trading

. What other firms have you talked to?

. What makes you think you can sell?

. Would you like to do sales or trading? Why?

. Tell me what you think a trader (salesperson) does.

. Why choose selling debt vs. selling equity?

. Why didn't you choose corporate finance?

. What do you think having an MBA does for you in this field?

. What particular markets or instruments are you interested in? Why?

. Will your personality make you a good trader? Why?

. How will you motivate yourself to make the calls you hate to make?

. What are your grades? (Yes, they know about the Yale SOM grading process.)

Strategic Planning and Corporate Finance

. What do you hope to gain by working for our firm?

. Where do you see yourself five years from now?

. How do you see your career progressing in our firm?

. What do you know about our industry?

. How would you describe our competitive position?

. Our ____ division is thinking of introducing a (such and such) new product. How would you go about determining if this is a good idea?

. We are having trouble managing our ____ division. What do you think are the key performance metrics? How would you improve them?

. How would you value our _____ for a potential sale, spin-off, or liquidation?

. How does M&A activity in banking affect our industry?

Venture Capital

. What is venture capital?

. What strengths do you have for venture capital?

. Tell me when you have worked with all management levels--from CEO to analyst.

. Describe your analytical and interpersonal skills.

. What operations exposure have you had?

. What managerial exposure have you had?

. What do you look for in a venture?

. Do you think more effort should be put into human capital or raising funds and investing them?