How to improve your behavioral/fit answers
So I realized that behavioral/fit questions are not my forte. I think when I speak I tend to mumble and come off as lacking confidence especially when I’m nervous. I always have these awkward pauses between sentences and a lot of times I just can’t think of words. I honestly don’t know what I can do to fix this. Behavioral questions are very unpredictable and there’s no way I’m gonna be able to memorize the answers to all the potential questions but I just don’t come off as a great conversation guy when asked to answer something on the spot. Any tips would be greatly appreciated.
So this is just my opinion, but I think that there are a couple problems, and I mean no disrespect by offering my insight. Firstly, these questions are not meant to be memorized. They are meant to be opportunities to see what you're like, what you've done and what experiences you value. Also attempt to see if you've worked in teams and overcome problems in a variety of formats. The best thing you can do to 'prepare' is to think about things that you've achieved and times you've overcome hardship. To some extent you can use formats like "STAR" and others to show off skills you've used etc. but most of the time the firm just wants to see how you speak and if you're interpersonal. It sounds more like a problem with public speaking so put yourself out of your comfort zone and practice it!
Your mumbling, lack of confidence and awkward pauses are because your answers are artificial. You're trying to provide the answer you think they want to hear, rather than the answer you are best off providing.
Yes, there's a trick to answering those questions. Your answer has to be of a certain format and a good example for the behaviour you're trying to demonstrate. But it also has to be a story that you've actually experienced and an actual demonstration of your personality. People fail these questions because they try to portray a personality that just isn't theirs.
How do you speak to your parents? Your friends? Do you mumble or come off as lacking confidence as much as when you're in interviews? I doubt it, because you're more like your natural self when talking to people you know.
@low eq watchdog
both of these tactics led to night and day improvements for me. they are painful at first but if you do them consistently, they become second nature. You need it to be second nature/involuntary because the heat will only turn up higher when you’re under pressure in real interview:
I personally believe that a lot of people approach ‘fit/behavioural’ questions incorrectly. These types of questions are used to gauge a combination of your personality, confidence, charisma, social skills and ability to come off unrehearsed but insightful. Memorising generic answers is attempting to mask (arguably quite poorly) an underlying problem that you should address even if you weren’t trying to aim for IB.
Otherwise you fall into a trap of having to relearn all these answers every time you need to interview and/or conduct yourself in real life. Are you going to grind fit questions when you go to a client meeting or when your manager asks how your day was?
If you still have time, I’d recommend trying to just improve all of these organically. Catch up with some old friends on Facebook, pick up a new hobby and do some activities on campus out of pure interest and you’ll very clearly see the results come. At that point you just need to remind yourself of your experiences before an interview as opposed to learning questions. That will not only benefit all aspects of your life but it will increase your self worth and ability to articulate yourself which is >>>>>>> anything you can fake using some m&i guide etc.
Just my 2 cents though
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