A lot of companies rely on behavioral questions in their interviews, and they may seem easy and straightforward, but they actually require some preparation and can definitely set candidates apart from each other. Most of them are situational questions that demonstrate your soft skills, and I found that the best way to prepare is to come up with 4-6 scenarios/past experiences that could cover many kinds of behavioral questions. You can reference them in all your interviews so you don’t have to keep coming up with new ones based on the question you get asked. The interviewer expects that you have already thought about a lot of these questions. The following is a compilation of such questions that is by no means exhaustive but is a great resource:
- why should we hire you?
- why are you the best candidate for the job?
- what makes you special?
- why are you the right fit for the position?
- what would you bring to the position?
- how would your best friend describe you?
- why did you choose your major?
- give me one word that best encapsulates who you are
- what serves as your biggest motivation?
- give me a situation where you acted as a leader
- what are the most important values and ethics a leader should have?
- give me a situation where you failed as a leader
- what is your biggest failure?
- what is your biggest achievement?
- give me a situation where you had to settle differences within a team
- pitch me an a trade idea/startup idea
- give me an example of project you have worked on in the past
- what are your strengths?
- what are you weakness?
- why should we hire you with no finance/tech/consulting experience?
- what are you looking to get out of in this internship/job?
- what is the biggest obstacle or challenge you faced and overcame in your life?
- what is the toughest decision you had to make?
- describe what you did in a group where someone wasn’t contributing / most difficult and frustrating individual you have worked with
- give a situation where you had to innovate
- what was your favorite/least favorite class in college and why?
- give an example of a time when you persuaded others to do something or convinced someone to see your point of view
- give a situation where you nearly missed a deadline
- what’s your opinion on the global economy at the moment?
- give me a situation where you had to make a split second decision
- what would you do if don’t get along with your boss
- give me an example when you made a bad decision and what did you learn from it
- tell me a joke
- give a situation where you were faced with a problem and describe in details how you solved it
- what is the most intellectually challenging thing you have ever done?
Feel free to share any questions you’ve gotten during interviews as well as any interesting answers you have given in the past!