Lying for behaviourals

Is it safe to make up stories for fit/behavioural questions in interviews?

I’m not talking about reframing or stretching the truth of a real experience - I mean completely inventing a story for a question like, “Give an example of a time you encountered an obstacle and explain how you overcame it.”

I’m specifically asking whether it’s considered acceptable/expected to make up these stories, and if there’s any practical risk if you understand the fake story well enough to answer all the follow-up questions convincingly.

7 Comments
 

Wouldn’t recommend this. Not because I think it’s wrong, but because the risks far outweigh the rewards.

Bankers are working 80-100+ hour weeks man. They’re half listening to you at best. A marginally better story that is completely false, won’t move the needle in your candidacy nearly as much as you think it will.

But now you run the risk of a banker thinking that you’re not telling the truth, which is as close to an immediate no as you can get. Most people suck at fabricating stories so assume you’re no different.

 
Most Helpful

zero risk, I’d rec doing this. Js don’t be an idiot and make it smth far fetched but yes this works well. Be able to think on your feet too though in case you get a follow up you aren’t prepped for.

 

perception matters more than the truth?

"we do not reach the peaks of these mountains, without first learning to give up our want to surrender" - shanke koyzcan
 

Agree with both comments made above. On the one hand the R:R is asymmetric in a bad way, so try to prep as many as possible on real experiences but you may one time run into one question that catches you completely off guard in which case lying here is all about whether you can make it land. You know your bs-ing abilities better than us

 

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