Contents

Contents

Copyright

Introduction

How to use this program

Half-day training session

Role-play…………………………………………………………………………………………………… 12

A short guide to behavior-based interviewing

Analysis of interviews

Behavioral indicators

James’notes on Shawna

Candidate's resume'………………………………………………………………………………………..26

Post-course test

Post-course test answers

Copyright

The moral issue

In all likelihood, our company is a smaller organization than your own. We take a substantial risk every time we produce new training material and we spend a great deal of time and money on developing material that helps your organization get better at what it does. If someone uses our material without paying us, they are stealing our livelihood. If allowed to proceed unchecked, copyright theft will lead to unemployment in our industry and the loss of valuable training materials to society as a whole. Copying is dishonest. It is theft. It is unfair. And it usually involves larger organizations stealing from smaller ones.

The legal issue

This guide, the DVD and the PowerPoint® presentation are all copyrighted material. The copyright belongs to Telephone Doctor, Inc.

You are welcome to copy parts of this guide and to edit the PowerPoint® presentation provided you acknowledge the source as being Telephone Doctor, Inc.

You may never copy the DVD, not even as a backup. We will replace the DVD if it becomes unplayable within five years of purchase, even if this is the result of carelessness or accident. All you need do is send the unplayable DVD back to us and we will send you a replacement without charge.

The purchaser of the DVD has a license to use it for internal training purposes only. It may not be used in public events, or lent to other organizations. It may be sold provided that you notify Scott Bradbury of the sale and provided that the subsequent purchaser agrees to the same license terms as the original purchaser.

Introduction

Behavior and competency

Behavior and competency are two terms that you need to understand in order to understand behavior-based interviewing. We have simplified them in a way that we think makes them easier to use in a training context. We know that this is a gross simplification of the ideas but it works for us. We hope it works for you.

Behavior

A behavior is an instance of what someone does and how he or she does it. For example: gives clear directions in a crisis while remaining calm.

Competency

A competency is a cluster of related behaviors that drives effectiveness in a particular area of work. Examples are: leadership, teamwork and communication. Each one would be defined by a list of behaviors at different levels.

Behavior-based interviewing

Behavior–based interviewing involves being clear about what competencies you want a candidate to have in the job and then looking for evidence that he or she has them.

Many interviewers ask about a candidate’s experience. Experience alone is not a good predictor of how a person will perform in a new job. The fact that someone has done something tells you very little about how well they have done it. Also, success in one situation in one environment does not guarantee success in a different situation in a different environment. If this were true, there would be some people who were successful at every job and some people who were unsuccessful at every job. In reality, most people make a success of some things that they do and fail at others. That is because success is a combination of the person, the situation and the environment.

You want to know if a candidate will likely succeed in your situation and in your environment. You can do this by being clear about what behaviors – what people actually do and how they do it – work well in your situation and environment and then looking for evidence that a candidate displays those behaviors.

More about competencies

You don’t need to have a competency framework in place to use behavioral questions in your interviews. But it helps. Competency is a psychological term describing an underlying trait or characteristic that leads to effective performance at work. It might be a motivation, a personality trait, a prejudice, a value, a skill, an attitude or knowledge. Or it could be a combination of all of these things. It is the stuff inside you that makes you behave in a particular way.

This is different than competence. Competence is the condition of being capable. A competent brain surgeon is someone who is able to do the job satisfactorily. .

In a groundbreaking study in 1982, Richard Boyatzis (Professor of Organizational Behavior, Case Western University, Cleveland, Ohio), set out to find out what it was that made some managers successful while others struggled. This study is published in his book The Competent Manager, and one of the foundations of the competency movement. He defined successful managers as those whose peers and superiors believed them to be successful and he set out to find out what made them tick.

Boyatzis eventually identified 21 competencies that were present to varying degrees in successful managers. He gave them names such as Efficiency Orientation and Use of Socialized Power. He then analyzed each competency or underlying characteristic in terms of a person’s motive, his or her self-image and skill.

This is heady stuff. Much of it is far too obscure to be of use to today’s practicing manager. However, one powerful idea that has emerged from his work is this. We cannot hope to understand all the things that make us behave the way we do. But we can observe behavior and behavior is remarkably constant. When we know someone well, we can usually predict how he or she will behave with a fair degree of reliability. We may not know why they behave in a certain way, but we know that they do.

Many organizations today have set about studying what competencies make for success. They have identified the factors that they believe make people successful in their particular environment and situation. They have given these competencies names, such as Teamwork, and they have identified behavioral indicators that define them in terms of the way people work, such as works cooperatively and effectively with others in a complex political and social environment. These competencies are usually defined in terms of level, too, so that teamwork for the board of directors requires higher-order behaviors than those required of a production team.

A modern organizational framework consists of a list of competencies – personal factors that lead to success – and a description of the behaviors at different levels that result from those competencies. These are called behavioral indicators. If your organization has them then a large part of the preparation for a behavioral interview is done for you. You already know what behaviors you are seeking. You can concentrate on finding evidence that your candidate does, or does not, display them.

How to use this program

What is in this program?

  • DVD - A Question of Evidence
  • This manual
  • PowerPoint® presentation

Who is the program for?

Any person who carries out selection interviewing or who is likely to do so.

What does this program do?

  • Defines and discusses behavior-based interviewing
  • Promotes an understanding of the principles involved
  • Demonstrates how people can ask behavioral questions effectively.

How does this program achieve its objectives?

As a resource which your organization can use in several ways:

  • For individual self-study
  • As part of an existing training program
  • As a complete half-day training session.

Individual self-study

Individuals can use the DVD and a copy of A short guide to behavior-based interviewing, as an introduction to the subject or a reminder of the important principles.

In an existing training program

The program has been designed as a resource for your existing programs. You can use the DVD as a training video in the conventional sense. Or you can use the different interviews as the basis for exercises and discussions. We have provided you with an analysis of each interview that you can use to prepare your own exercises. And you are welcome to use the PowerPoint® presentation and the component parts of this manual in any way that suits you.

A complete half-day training program

This manual contains trainer’s notes for a complete training session lasting three hours and ten minutes.

Evaluation of learning

We have included a post-course test on page 27 along with an answer key on page 28. This will help you measure whether your participants have understood the key ideas. Role-play on page 12 will help you assess the participants’ skill in using the techniques presented in the program.

Half-day training session

Learning objectives

After this half-day training session, participants will be able to:

  1. explain the difference between behavioral, biographical and hypothetical questions and be able to explain the advantages and disadvantages of each.
  1. devise an effective opening behavioral question; given a set of behavioral indicators (an effective opening behavioral question is one that causes a candidate to disclose useful information about a critical incident).
  1. apply the P.R.O.B.E structure (see page 17 for an explanation of acronym), given a set of behavioral indicators and a candidate, in order to discover evidence that the candidate either does, or does not, display the behaviors required.

Resources

  • Meeting room
  • DVD player and monitor
  • DVD A Question of Evidence
  • PowerPoint® presentation and projector
  • Flip chart and pens
  • Job Materials
  • Copies of James’ notes on Shawna page 25
  • Copies of candidate resume page 26
  • or
  • Copies of your organization’s competency framework
  • Copies of anonymous candidate’s resume

Number and background of participants

Maximum of 16. Participants should be responsible for selection interviewing or should be about to undertake that responsibility.

Trainer preparation

  • Review the session plan
  • Read A short guide to behavior-based interviewing page 13
  • Review the PowerPoint® presentations and prepare your notes
  • Watch the DVD
  • Take the test

Participant preparation (what you need to do for participants)

  • Read A short guide to behavior-based interviewing on page 13 before the course.
  • Select a real job vacancy and review the job specification. If there is currently no vacancy, select a job that is currently filled. Bring the job specification to the session.
  • Review the organization’s competency framework relevant to the chosen job.

Room layout

Seating should allow the participants to work as a group and also in sub-groups of four. It must be possible for everyone to see the DVD, PowerPoint Screen and flip chart.

Timetable

Time / Elapsed time
Introduction / 10 minutes / 10 minutes
DVD / 20 minutes / 30 minutes
Behavioral and other questions / 15 minutes / 45 minutes
Examples of questions / 20 minutes / 1 hour 05 minutes
Analyzing questions / 10 minutes / 1 hour 15 minutes
Break / 15 minutes / 1 hour 30 minutes
Advantages of types of question / 15 minutes / 1 hour 45 minutes
Using different types of question / 15 minutes / 2 hours
Devising an opening question / 15 minutes / 2 hours 15 minutes
P.R.O.B.E. for evidence / 15 minutes / 2 hours 30 minutes
Putting it all together / 30 minutes / 3 hours
Summary and close / 10 minutes / 3 hours 10 minutes

Introduction

Welcome participants in your usual way, including any introductions and explanations of procedures that might be required.

Explain that the session will cover:

  • What behavioral questions are
  • Why they are beneficial
  • How to use them.

Show the DVD A Question of Evidence. Use the play complete video option.

Behavioral and other questions

Use the accompanying PowerPoint® presentation to explain what is:

  • A behavioral question
  • A biographical question
  • A hypothetical question.

Small group exercise – examples of questions

Divide participants into sub-groups of four. Ask the sub-groups to choose a job for which they might recruit and then to devise:

●Three biographical questions

  • Three behavioral questions
  • Three hypothetical questions.

Allow ten to fifteen minutes for this, or until the noise dies down.

Invite members of each sub-group to volunteer their questions. Capture the questions on a flip chart. Ask members of the whole group to give their opinions on the questions. Participants agree that they are examples of the relevant type of question? If not, why not? Could the questions be improved and, if so, how?

Large group exercise – analyzing questions

Play the interview Randall from the DVD menu.

Pause the DVD after each question in the interview and ask the members of the group to tell you what type of question it is. Refer to the section Analysis of Interviews on page 19 to help you prepare for this.

Small group exercise – advantages of each type of question

Divide participants into sub-groups of four. Ask the sub-groups to discuss:

  • What are the advantages of each type of question?
  • What are the disadvantages of each type of question?
  • When would you use each type of question?

Invite participants to share their conclusions.

Using the different types of question

Use the PowerPoint® presentation to summarize the advantages and disadvantages of the three types of question and when to use them.

Small group exercise – devising an opening question

Divide participants into sub-groups of four. Give each sub-group a copy of the behavioral indicators on page 24 and a copy of the candidate’s resume on page 26.

Ask the groups to devise an opening question that they might use to begin the process of uncovering evidence that the candidate displays each of the behaviors on page 25.

Invite each sub-group to share one of its questions. Invite feedback from the rest of the group as to the likely effect of each question.

P.R.O.B.E. for evidence

Use the PowerPoint® presentation to explain P.R.O.B.E. Refer to page 17 for information on this acronym.

Role-Play:

This is a chance for participants to practice putting together effective behavioral questions. Divide the group into pairs. Each pair will consist of an interviewer and a candidate. These roles will be reversed in the second half of the exercise.

Each participant thinks of a real job that he or she might recruit for. Each participant needs to spend ten minutes preparing behavioral questions. He or she then interviews the “candidate” to obtain evidence that this person does or does not display the behaviors sought. Then reverse roles.

During the interviews walk around the room, listening to what is being said they and offering feedback where needed.

If your organization has a competency framework, use this as the basis for participants to prepare questions. If not, use the behavioral indicators from page 24. Or, prepare behavioral indicators in advance of the session.

Conclusion

Highlight the main points from the session. Administer the post-test on page 27 to evaluate what has been learned.

A short guide to behavior-based interviewing

What is behavior-based interviewing?

Behavior-based interviewing is a technique where questions are asked about past behaviors. It is effective because past behavior is the best indicator of how a person will behave in future.

It is different from biographical interviewing. Biographical interviewing also involves asking questions about the past and is what most interviewers actually do. In biographical interviewing, you ask questions like, “I see you worked in the engineering department for three years. What exactly did you do there?” You are likely to get an answer like this: “I worked on the design of the T54. My job was to take the specifications that the market research department had generated and convert this into an engineering specification”. This is useful information and you will often need to ask questions like this before you can ask behavioral questions.

A behavioral question goes deeper. It focuses on one specific incident, sometimes called a critical incident, and probes to find out how the individual behaved during that incident. An example of behavioral question is: “Can you tell me about a time during your work on the T54 when you realized that you were not going to complete a drawing on time? (“Yes”). What did you do?”

It is also different from hypothetical interviewing. Hypothetical questions are like this: “What would you do if you realized that you were not going to complete a drawing on time?” This can be useful for understanding someone’s thought process but not a reliable indicator of what someone will actually do. Someone could tell you that if the building caught fire they would rush repeatedly into the flames, rescuing children, cats and old people. What is more, they might believe it. But this does not mean that in an actual fire they would not clamber over children and elderly ladies in their rush to escape.

Behavior-based interviewing is also called competency-based interviewing or critical-incident interviewing.

What is behavior and why does it matter?

When psychologists talk about behavior, they refer to all the responses that a person has to a stimulus. This is different from the everyday use of the word, where we tend to talk about children behaving badly, for example. The psychologist means everything that goes on in and from a person in a particular situation. This includes what they think, what they feel and what they do. Being scared is behavior and laughing is behavior. So is hitting someone.

At work, we are interested in the way people do their job. This is observable behavior. All sorts of things might be going on beneath the surface but the part we can see is the way they do their job.

When we recruit somebody, we want to know how he or she will approach his or her job. In other words, what their observable behavior will be. The best indicator of this is their past behavior and that is why the behavior-based interviewer is interested in it.

A person’s observable behavior is like the tip of an iceberg. It is the visible portion of a complicated mass of things we cannot see. These are things like how the person feels and what he or she thinks, what motivates the person and what traits they have. In other words, behavior stems from the underlying personality, in all its complexity, of the person concerned.