All You Need To Know About Behavioral Interviews (for software engineers)

Summary

This video offers an in-depth guide to behavioral interviews in software engineering, explaining what they are and the types of questions to expect. It emphasizes their importance, even compared to technical interviews, and provides tips for success. The video also announces a new resource on Algo Expert, featuring sample behavioral interview questions and answers to help candidates prepare effectively.

Takeaways

• 😀 Behavioral interviews are a crucial part of the software engineering interview process, assessing non-technical skills and traits.
• 🔍 These interviews vary by company, with names like 'googliness' at Google and a focus on leadership principles at Amazon.
• 🎯 Behavioral questions aim to reveal how candidates have handled past situations, reflecting on their problem-solving and teamwork abilities.
• 💡 The video introduces a new resource on Algo Expert, offering sample behavioral interview questions and answers.
• 🗣️ Interviewers look for detailed responses that provide insight into a candidate's experiences and the lessons learned from them.
• 🤔 There are no right or wrong answers; the focus is on how candidates' stories demonstrate valuable qualities and skills.
• 👥 It's important to balance showcasing individual achievements with examples of teamwork and collaboration.
• 📚 Preparation is key, which includes selecting and practicing responses to potential behavioral interview questions.
• ⏱️ Candidates should not hesitate to take a moment to collect their thoughts before answering, ensuring a thoughtful and impactful response.
• 📈 The video emphasizes the importance of behavioral interviews, suggesting that they are not to be underestimated in the hiring process.

Q & A

What are behavioral interviews in the context of software engineering?

Behavioral interviews in software engineering are non-technical interviews that assess personal qualities and traits such as humility, initiative, stress management, teamwork, and leadership. They are conducted to evaluate a candidate's soft skills and how they align with the company's values and culture.

Why are behavioral interviews important in the software engineering hiring process?

Behavioral interviews are crucial as they help companies assess candidates' soft skills and cultural fit, which are essential for teamwork and collaboration in a work environment. They ensure that candidates possess not only technical skills but also the interpersonal abilities needed to succeed in the role.

How do companies like Google, Amazon, and Facebook conduct behavioral interviews?

Companies like Google, Amazon, and Facebook conduct behavioral interviews in various ways. Google calls it a 'Googliness and Leadership' interview, Amazon focuses on its leadership principles, and Facebook simply refers to it as a non-technical interview. The format can vary, including full behavioral interviews or hybrid interviews that combine technical and behavioral elements.

What types of questions can one expect in a behavioral interview for software engineering?

Behavioral interview questions often focus on past experiences and how candidates handled specific situations. Examples include questions about handling team conflicts, giving and receiving feedback, managing challenging projects, and onboarding new team members.

What is the significance of the term 'googliness' in Google's behavioral interviews?

The term 'googliness' at Google refers to the company's unique set of values and characteristics that they look for in their employees. It encompasses qualities like being a good team player, showing humility, and demonstrating leadership, which are considered essential for the company's culture.

How can candidates prepare for behavioral interviews in software engineering?

Candidates can prepare for behavioral interviews by reflecting on their past experiences, identifying situations that demonstrate key qualities, and practicing how to articulate these experiences clearly. Utilizing resources like Algo Expert's behavioral interview content can also provide sample questions and answers to help with preparation.

Why is it beneficial to be detailed in your answers during a behavioral interview?

Being detailed in answers allows interviewers to gain a clear understanding of a candidate's past experiences and how they handled various situations. This detail provides the necessary context for interviewers to assess whether the candidate possesses the desired traits and skills.

What is the role of practice in preparing for behavioral interviews?

Practice is essential for behavioral interviews as it helps candidates select and refine the most relevant and impactful stories from their past experiences. It also helps in structuring responses to effectively convey personal qualities and skills to the interviewer.

How should candidates approach questions in behavioral interviews if they don't have an immediate answer?

If a candidate doesn't have an immediate answer to a behavioral interview question, it's acceptable to request a brief moment to collect their thoughts. This ensures that they can provide a well-considered response that accurately reflects their experiences and skills.

What is the importance of balancing individualistic qualities and teamwork in behavioral interview answers?

Balancing individualistic qualities and teamwork in answers is important because it shows interviewers that the candidate can excel both independently and as part of a team. This balance demonstrates versatility and adaptability, which are valuable in a work environment.

Outlines

00:00

💼 Introduction to Behavioral Interviews in Software Engineering

The speaker introduces the concept of behavioral interviews in the context of software engineering, explaining that they are non-technical assessments of a candidate's traits and soft skills. He discusses how big tech companies like Amazon, Google, and Facebook structure their behavioral interviews differently, though the interviews ultimately aim to assess similar qualities. These traits include leadership, humility, teamwork, and the ability to handle stress. He emphasizes the importance of taking behavioral interviews seriously, citing Google’s formal training program for interviewers.

05:01

🤔 The Lack of Preparatory Resources for Behavioral Interviews

The speaker contrasts behavioral interviews with coding and systems design interviews, highlighting the limited availability of preparatory platforms for behavioral interviews. He humorously breaks character to introduce a new feature on AlgoExpert that offers behavioral interview questions with detailed answers. He mentions the new content is free with any AlgoExpert purchase and emphasizes its value, as it provides much-needed practice for these interviews.

10:02

📝 Sample Behavioral Interview Questions

Here, the speaker provides examples of common behavioral interview questions, such as resolving team conflicts, handling feedback, and navigating challenging projects. He explains how these questions explore past experiences in depth, offering insights into a candidate’s traits and problem-solving abilities. The speaker encourages detailed answers, as they provide clear evidence of how the candidate handled situations and learned from them, stressing that vague answers will not suffice.

15:03

📚 Tips for Behavioral Interviews

The speaker gives several key tips for excelling in behavioral interviews. First, he advises giving detailed answers to convey the necessary context for the interviewer to assess specific traits. Second, he suggests choosing past experiences wisely to ensure they reflect positively on the candidate. Third, he highlights the importance of balancing individual and team-related qualities in responses. Finally, the speaker encourages preparation and practicing answers to behavioral questions, even if it means taking a moment to think during the interview.

🎥 Final Thoughts and Call to Action

In the conclusion, the speaker reiterates the importance of thorough preparation for behavioral interviews, recommending AlgoExpert for high-quality content and practice. He invites viewers to like the video, subscribe to his channel, and follow him on social media for more content. He ends with a casual note, encouraging further engagement in future videos.

Keywords

💡Behavioral Interviews

Behavioral interviews are a type of non-technical interview commonly used in the software engineering industry to assess a candidate's soft skills and past experiences. In the video, the speaker explains that these interviews focus on qualities like humility, initiative, and the ability to handle stress, which are important for both individuals and team players in a software engineering role. Behavioral interviews are contrasted with technical interviews, such as coding or systems design interviews, which assess technical knowledge and problem-solving abilities.

💡Big Tech Companies

Big tech companies, also known as 'FANG' companies (Facebook, Amazon, Netflix, Google), are large technology corporations that are often the subject of discussion regarding interview processes and hiring practices. The video mentions that these companies use behavioral interviews as part of their assessment strategy for software engineering candidates, each with their own unique approach or terminology, such as 'googliness' at Google or leadership principles at Amazon.

💡Non-technical Interview

A non-technical interview is a session where the focus is on evaluating a candidate's personal attributes and interpersonal skills rather than their technical knowledge. The video script highlights that behavioral interviews are a form of non-technical interviews, aiming to understand how candidates have acted in past situations and how they might apply those experiences in a future work environment.

💡Leadership Principles

Leadership principles are a set of values or guidelines that define the leadership style and expectations within an organization. The video script specifically mentions Amazon's leadership principles, which are publicly available and form a significant part of their behavioral interview process. These principles help to assess how candidates align with the company's culture and values.

💡Hybrid Interview

A hybrid interview combines elements of different types of interviews, such as both behavioral and technical aspects. The speaker shares a personal experience where their interview at Facebook was a hybrid, consisting of both behavioral and coding segments. This approach allows companies to assess a broader range of a candidate's skills and qualities in a single session.

💡Soft Skills

Soft skills are personal attributes that enable someone to interact effectively and harmoniously with other people. The video emphasizes that behavioral interviews assess soft skills such as humility, the ability to take initiative, and being a good team player, which are crucial for success in a software engineering role, especially when working in teams and managing interpersonal relationships.

💡Past Experiences

Past experiences are a candidate's previous encounters or projects that they have undertaken, which can be used to demonstrate their skills and qualities during an interview. The video script suggests that behavioral interviews delve into a candidate's past to understand how they have handled various situations, which can provide insights into their character and potential future performance.

💡Sample Questions

Sample questions are hypothetical or example questions that are provided to help candidates prepare for interviews. The video mentions that there are limited resources for behavioral interview questions with sample answers, but the speaker's company, Algo Expert, has launched a new section with such content. These sample questions help candidates understand the types of scenarios they might be asked to discuss.

💡Algo Expert

Algo Expert is a platform mentioned in the video that provides resources to help software engineering candidates prepare for technical interviews. The video script announces the launch of a new behavioral interview content section on Algo Expert, which includes sample questions and answers to assist candidates in preparing for behavioral aspects of their interviews.

💡Promo Code

A promo code is a special sequence of characters that can be entered by users to receive a discount or other benefits. In the video, the speaker mentions a promo code 'clem' that can be used for a discount on the Algo Expert platform, illustrating a common marketing strategy to incentivize purchases and also to show appreciation to the audience.

💡Interview Preparation

Interview preparation refers to the process of readying oneself for an interview, which can include researching the company, practicing answers to common questions, and understanding the interview format. The video emphasizes the importance of preparation for behavioral interviews, suggesting that candidates should select and practice discussing past experiences that highlight their positive qualities and skills.

Highlights

Introduction to behavioral interviews in software engineering, covering what they are, typical questions, and tips for success.

Explanation of the different types of interviews used by big tech companies: coding, systems design, and behavioral interviews.

Behavioral interviews are non-technical and assess soft skills, leadership, and qualities like humility, respect, and teamwork.

Different companies have variations of behavioral interviews; for example, Google's 'Googliness and Leadership' interview and Amazon's focus on leadership principles.

Behavioral interviews can vary in structure, from full 45-minute sessions to hybrid interviews combining behavioral and technical questions.

Key traits assessed include humility, initiative, handling stress, teamwork, leadership, conflict resolution, and receiving/giving feedback.

Behavioral interviews are important and should not be underestimated, especially at major tech companies where they're taken very seriously.

Sample behavioral questions include: handling team conflicts, challenging projects, giving and receiving feedback, and onboarding new team members.

Detailed answers are crucial to provide the interviewer with a clear picture of your experiences, skills, and how you handled specific situations.

There are no right or wrong answers in behavioral interviews, but you must pick past experiences that highlight valuable traits.

It's important to balance individual accomplishments with how well you work in a team, emphasizing both personal strengths and teamwork.

Preparation is essential—selecting the right past experiences ahead of time ensures you can share meaningful and relevant stories during the interview.

Taking time to think before answering is acceptable in behavioral interviews—it's better to give a thoughtful, detailed response than a quick but poor one.

Algo Expert offers resources, including behavioral interview questions with full sample answers, to help prepare candidates for these interviews.

Final tip: Practice answering behavioral questions to ensure you can clearly and effectively communicate your strengths during the interview.

Transcripts

what's up everybody how's it going in

this video i'm going to tell you

everything that you need to know

about behavioral interviews in software

engineering

what behavioral interviews are what

types of questions you can expect to get

in a behavioral interview

and i'm even going to give you a few

general tips on how you

can do very well in your behavioral

interviews

so with that let's jump right into it if

you're familiar with big tech

companies and startups especially the

fang companies like amazon facebook

google

you know that they assess their software

engineering candidates

using a few different types of

interviews there's obviously coding

interviews

systems design interviews and third but

not least

you guessed it behavioral interviews

behavioral interviews

unlike coding and systems design

interviews are non-technical interviews

they are non-technical now the

interesting thing about behavioral

interviews is that depending on the

company

that you're interviewing at and

depending on other circumstances

they might look a little bit different

they might be labeled differently

they might be proctored or given

differently

for example if you're interviewing for a

software engineering position at google

your behavioral interview is going to be

called a googliness

and leadership interview where

googliness is basically an umbrella term

for

the perfect human being if you're

interviewing at amazon

not really by the way but kind of if

you're interviewing at amazon

then the behavioral interview is really

going to focus on amazon's

leadership principles which are publicly

available if you're interviewing at

facebook

the behavioral interview as far as i

remember is just called a non-technical

interview now on top of that

the behavioral interview itself might

look a little different

depending on the company or depending on

who you are

for example you might have a full

45-minute interview

that is a behavioral interview

alternatively you might have a

hybrid interview that's actually what i

had when i interviewed at facebook it

was my last interview of the day

and it was half behavioral interview and

half coding interview

about 25 or 30 minutes behavioral and 20

to 15 minutes

coding so the point is these behavioral

interviews come in

all sorts of shapes and sizes and

flavors and colors

but at the end of the day regardless of

what they're called or what they claim

to assess

they all do end up assessing basically

the same thing and we'll get into what

they assess

in just a minute and on top of that

across the board

they are very important this is not an

interview that you can just disregard

or treat as like a guaranteed thing that

you know you're gonna pass

or something that you might not even get

no this is a very important

interview and if i remember correctly as

of 2018 when i was still at google

the googliness and leadership behavioral

interview for example

became a mandatory thing at google that

was taken very seriously people had to

get trained i had to get trained to get

those interviews

and is this something very important not

to underestimate

at this point you're probably wondering

okay what do they assess these

behavioral interviews

and the answer is they assess a few

qualities and traits that you can have

as a

person that are generally viewed as very

positive

both in a human being generally speaking

but also

especially in an employee and in a

software engineer

so things like humility whether you're a

respectful person

whether you're able to take initiative

whether you're able to

handle ambiguity and stress

whether you're able to manage work

properly

whether you're able to be a good team

player

to be a leader and they also assess some

more

like nuanced software engineering skills

things that you might find yourself

needing as a software engineer on the

job that are non-technical

so for example you know the ability to

give and receive

feedback in a good way or the ability to

resolve conflict if there is conflict on

a team

all of these kind of soft skills and

nuanced

skills are the things that they assess

now at this point you're probably

wondering

how do they assess this how are these

behavioral interviews

actually conducted and the answer to

that is very simple

these behavioral interviews are

basically a long conversation

between you and the interviewer where

the interviewer

asks you a lot of questions a lot of

behavioral interview questions and these

questions

are about your past about your

experience and they're trying to gain

visibility into your past and your

experiences

in order to see if you possess some of

these traits and qualities and nuanced

skills that we just mentioned before now

this is where behavioral interviews

kind of suck compared to coding

interviews and systems design interviews

because for those other types of

interviews there are

a lot of platforms and preparatory

resources out there

that give you the types of questions

that you might expect or that you might

be able to get

on those interviews for example just my

company i'll go expert

we help prepare you for coding

interviews and systems design interviews

by giving you sample questions and

answers that you might get in a coding

interview or a systems design interview

for behavioral interviews

there are no such platforms there are no

platforms that give you

actual behavioral interview questions

with legitimate

sample answers that's one of the

critical things that's always

missing and oh sorry one second

i'm getting a phone call i have to take

this hello

oh oh you want me to tell the viewers

what the

algo expert just launched today a brand

new

behavioral interview content section

that's got 15 videos 12 of which are

exactly that sample behavioral interview

questions

with actual answers like full-blown

answers oh yeah

oh and they're filmed by me oh right

yeah yeah i filmed those

okay and this behavioral interview

content is free for anyone who buys

either algo expert systems expert or

both

okay great yeah i'll tell the viewers

okay all right so

that's right we just launched a brand

new behavioral interview section on algo

expert

you heard all the details from that

sketch phone call that wasn't really a

phone call

but okay if this little skit that i just

did there

even remotely made you like internally

chuckled like

inside your brain your mind you were

like

that was that was like kind of funny

that made you know

a conceptual internal smile

then you owe me a smashing of the like

button it doesn't even have to be a

smash thing

it can be a tap of the like button but

you owe it to me oh and of course if you

decide to purchase algo expert or

systems expert don't forget to use the

promo code clem clem for a discount on

the platform okay where was i the point

is yes we have a bunch of

sample behavioral interview questions

and answers on algo expert

i'll share a few sample questions with

you right now

the types of questions that you can

expect to get in the behavioral

interview

are things like tell me about a time

when you had a

conflict on your team how did you handle

this conflict

what did you learn from it or what do

you think

about receiving and giving feedback tell

me about a time when you received

or gave tough feedback how did you

handle

receiving the feedback or giving it or

maybe something like

tell me about a time when you had a very

challenging project

why was it challenging how did you

handle the challenge

what did you learn from it and was there

any failure in the project

i'll give you one last example you might

be asked a question like

imagine that you're in the middle of a

huge project at work

and suddenly a new engineer joins your

team

you are tasked with onboarding them how

do you handle the situation

what do you do with the onboarding

process so as you can see

these questions come in the various

shapes and colors again like before

they are very different from one another

they cover a lot of different

types of past experiences and you have

to be able to talk about them

in a fair amount of detail so this

brings me to the last part of this video

i want to give you

a few tips on how you can do very well

in your behavioral interviews

the first tip that i can give you this

is perhaps the most important one

it's to be detailed in your answers

because you see like we said before

behavioral interviewers

are looking to get visibility into your

past experiences

to see if you have some of these skills

and traits that we mentioned

they are trying to get signal that you

possess

certain qualities and traits and all

that the only way that they can get the

signal

is if they get a clear idea a clear

picture of what you've done in the past

and how you've handled certain

situations

what you've learned from them and so on

and so forth in order for them to get

that clear picture to get that context

they need a good amount of detail so

it's important that you

not rush through answers or that you not

give

super vague answers we are not looking

for something like

tell me about the most challenging

project that you've worked on and you

just say

oh my most challenging project was a web

app that i built

no that doesn't tell me anything i need

detail

doesn't matter what the web app is

doesn't matter if it's something

super complicated or not that

complicated so long as you actually give

me detail

and you actually paint a story that

gives me signal

about those things now this brings me to

my second

tip here the second tip is that while

there are no

right or wrong answers in a behavioral

interview

in other words you know going off of the

example that i just gave if someone asks

you what the most challenging project is

it doesn't really

matter what you tell them like even if

it's something that's not

that impressive of a project or if it's

something that's super impressive

super complex doesn't really matter so

long as the story

that you're painting the story that

you're describing

actually conveys or shows

that you possess certain valuable traits

or

qualities or that you have certain

skills that's what matters

and so it's important that you you pick

certain past experiences to answer

behavioral interview questions with

wisely you want to pick past experiences

and stories that will actually be

meaningful

to be shared with an interviewer and

this is going to tie into one of the

other tips that i'm going to give you in

a second

first i want to give you a third other

tip which is that

when you're trying to convey that you

have certain

qualities and traits and so on and so

forth you want to make sure that you

strike a balance between

very like individualistic qualities

which are very important like you want

to show to your interviewer

that you are smart that you are capable

that you are able to

take initiative you want to talk about

yourself a lot because at the end of the

day this is an interview about

you as a singular individual

candidate at the same time you want to

strike a good balance with

talking about how you work as part of a

team how you can

work with others how you can give others

feedback help others how others can help

you

those are two very important kind of

distinct

things that you want to focus on so

ideally some of your answers to

behavioral interview questions

focus more on you and how good of an

individual you are

and others focus more on how

well you work in a team how you can

support others

that kind of stuff now this brings me to

the tip that i

kind of hinted at before at the end of

the day it's

very important to prepare for behavioral

interviews

in some sense you don't need to prepare

for behavioral interviews because

you've lived through past experiences

you have

your stories already in your past you

don't have to

study up on some sort of new knowledge

but at the same time you do have to

prepare because

you want to have picked the nicest or

the

the most appropriate stories to that

highlight

the best qualities in you ahead of time

you don't want to find yourself

in a behavioral interview talking about

an experience

that actually doesn't bring much value

to the conversation

or that doesn't paint you in a good

light maybe you're going to talk about a

story that's actually

kind of a bad you know image of you just

because

it's just a bad story and you don't want

to find yourself in that situation so

it's important to practice

and how do you practice with sample

questions and looking at sample answers

aka on algoexpert and here i'll give you

one last tip which i actually

don't mention in any of the algo expert

videos so

the youtube fam gets a bonus to appear

and this tip is that if you're in an

interview and

a behavioral interview and someone asks

you a question

don't be afraid to take a little bit of

time to collect your thoughts

and think about how you're going to

answer it in other words if you don't

have a

pre-planned answer then tell the

interviewer

hey give me like 20 seconds to just

think about this you know let me think

about

what the most challenging project i've

ever worked on was or let me think about

you know how i would handle distributing

work amongst engineers

don't be afraid to take a bit of time to

collect your thoughts

at the end of the day it is better that

you give a

good story that actually highlights your

strengths and qualities

even if it takes you a bit of time to

get to that story

rather than you give a quick but poor

story

that doesn't really highlight anything

so that's all i've got for you in this

video

hopefully you have a much better idea of

what behavioral interviews

are for software engineers like i've

said multiple times in the video

if you do want to prepare for your

behavioral interviews very seriously

and do consider checking out i'll go

expert or systems expert

one of the two will give you the bonus

behavioral interview content

for free and we have really quality

content there

if you found this video informative

don't forget to smash the like button

subscribe to the channel if you haven't

already if you enjoy short form written

content check me out on linkedin or

twitter and if you enjoy pictures

instagram and otherwise i will see you

in the next video