Tips to Prepare for Behavioral Job Interview :

Behavioral Job interviewing is basically a standardized method of interviewing designed to assess how you will perform on the job. The principle behind the technique is the belief that the best indicator of future behavior is past behavior. Behavioral job interviewing is a popular and mainstream mode of job interviewing for employers to evaluate a candidate's experiences and behaviors so they can determine the applicant's potential for success.

The interviewer identifies job-related experiences, behaviors, knowledge, skills, and abilities that the company has decided are desirable in a particular position through behavioral interview technique.  Behavioral-based job interviewing is touted as providing a more objective set of facts to make employment decisions than other interviewing methods. Traditional interview questions ask you general questions such as "Tell me about yourself." The process of behavioral interviewing is much more probing and works very differently.

In a behavioral job interview, it's much more difficult to give responses that are untrue to your character. But in the interview, your response needs to be specific and detailed. Candidates who tell the interviewer about particular situations that relate to each question will be far more effective and successful than those who respond in general terms.

It's is also difficult to prepare for a behavior-based job interview because of the huge number and variety of possible behavioral questions you might be asked. So preparation is key to a behavioral job interview. Prepare the behavioral job  interview responses that will address the gap in skills.

* Before you undergo a behavioral job interview, it is a good idea to do some research about the company and the job itself. Think about the job title and any listed skills needed on the job application.

* In a behavioral job interview, an employer instead of asking how you would behave, they will ask how you did behave. The interviewer will want to know how you handled a situation, instead of what you might do in the future. Be aware of your body language during behavioral job interviews.

* During a behavioral job interview, you will be asked a series of standardized questions designed to get you to talk about how you handled or responded to certain situations in the past. With each answer, you'll be expected to describe situations from your past and your feelings and observations about them. Identify six to eight examples from your past experience where you demonstrated top behaviors and skills that employers typically seek.

* Behavioral job interview questions are in a "STAR" format, which stands for Situation, Task, Action and Result. The interviewer will ask such questions as: "Give me a situation in which you took a risk. What was the situation? What was the task that you performed? What was the action(s) that you took? What were the end results?" The interviewer is looking for specifics and will ask probing questions to understand the thought processes behind the behaviors performed.

* In Behavioral job interview, you need to listen carefully to each question, and provide an appropriate description of how you demonstrated the desired behavior. If you are not sure how to answer the question, ask for clarification. It's important to keep in mind that there are no right or wrong answers. The interviewer is simply trying to understand how you behaved in a given situation. So it's fine to take a little time to frame your response if you're not sure how to respond to the question.

* Be sure to include these points in your answer:

* A specific situation

* The tasks that needed to be done

* The action you took

* The results i.e. what happened

Hence succeeding in behavioral job interviews requires knowledge and confidence.