Behavioral Interviews: Your Competitive Advantage When Changing Careers
Here’s the good news about behavioral interviews. With preparation and practice, they are a powerful communication tool for you as an interviewee. In these situations, mastering behavioral interviews by formulating responses around transferable skills will make it easy for your interviewer see your ability to take on a new role and career.
For example, say, you worked your way up to become a store manager while in college before obtaining your Bachelor’s degree in Human Resources. As a store manager, you likely dealt with employee relations issues, were involved in training, and maybe even interviewed candidates as a hiring manager.
According to Onet, an entry level human resources role has the following tasks listed:
Process, verify, and maintain personnel related documentation, including staffing, recruitment, training, grievances, performance evaluations, classifications, and employee leaves of absence.
Record data for each employee, including such information as addresses, weekly earnings, absences, amount of sales or production, supervisory reports on performance, and dates of and reasons for terminations.
Explain company personnel policies, benefits, and procedures to employees or job applicants.
Provide assistance in administering employee benefit programs and worker's compensation plans.
Answer questions regarding examinations, eligibility, salaries, benefits, and other pertinent information.
A store manager may have a lot of these responsibilities, and can describe and demonstrate this experience well in a behavioral interview.
For example:
An interviewer for a Human Resources role may ask:
When you worked on multiple projects, how did you prioritize?
An effective response, using the STAR method, can read:
When I managed XYZ store, I was responsible for maintaining all employee records, coordinating and leading training, and interviewing candidates. To manage all of these competing priorities, I delegated some tasks and structured my weeks so that I could focus on one priority at a time. Trainings were always scheduled for Tuesdays and Thursdays and candidates were only interviewed on Wednesdays and Fridays. Scheduling this way enabled me to focus on other manager responsibilities on Sundays and Mondays. As a result, under my leadership, the organization was 100% compliant in record keeping and training.
This response demonstrates experience necessary for a role in Human Resources.
With preparation and practice behavioral interviews are the key to successfully changing careers.