Introduction to Behavioral Interviews

The goal of behavioral interviews

Behavioral interviews are conducted to gain knowledge about the candidate’s experiences and how they make decisions. It is a structured approach to evaluate how candidates will perform in the role based on their past experiences. Questions in this interview can cover a variety of topics, such as communication, conflict resolution, personal growth, and personal motivation. Behavioral interviews aim to see if the candidate can grow and adopt the company's values.

These interviews are not limited to engineering managers only and are usually conducted for other engineering roles as well. However, the interview has a high bar for engineering manager roles as compared to engineering roles. EMs play a significant role in defining team culture. Their values and decisions have a great impact on the overall team's health and a leave a much larger footprint. Some examples of the decisions that require the involvement of EMs are hiring new team members, letting some team members go, promoting people, delivering critical feedback to the team, and doing a reorg of the team. Lack of good judgment and poor decisions on an EM’s part can affect the whole team and sometimes the whole org negatively. Behavioral interviews help identify the right qualities that are needed in the potential candidate, align with the company’s values, and can help them grow.