Behavioral Interviewing for Employers

Hiring for a Pediatric Position

Are you thinking about hiring a new physician, nurse practitioner, or other staff member? If so, you need to learn about a new trend in interviewing.

Behavior-based interviews have become popular recently, replacing loosely structured, traditional interviews. This type of interview allows employers to ask the candidate questions about how they have handled previous situations in an effort to predict their future behavior. Behavioral interviewing is used to help ensure that there is a good match between the employer and employee, can lower turnover rates and increase job satisfaction and performance. Behavioral interviewing focuses on asking about a situation in the past, the action taken to address the situation and the outcome.

Getting Started:

  • Be prepared and create the questions ahead of time. Analyze the skills that are needed for the position and create questions based on the candidate’s experience using those skills. If the position requires working in a team atmosphere, create questions based on their past working on a team. For example, "Tell me about a time when you worked on a successful project with a team. What did you do to contribute? What was the outcome?"
  • Create questions that are focused on specific traits and skills (e.g. decision making, working effectively with others) that are expected of individuals in their job performance.
  • Use positive language when asking questions.
  • Allow time for the candidate to answer a question. Silence may be needed while the candidates think of their answers.
  • If you are getting a lot of positive answers from a candidate, ask a question about a difficult situation. For instance, "Tell me about a time when you had a difficult situation with a co-worker. What did you do to resolve the situation?"
  • If more than one candidate is being interviewed for the same position, the same questions should be used for each candidate.
  • If more than one interviewer is questioning a candidate, the questions selected should be divided between the interviews. This way, a candidate is not answering the same question more than once.

Here are some examples of interview questions using the behavioral interviewing model:

  • Tell me about a project or an idea that was successful mostly because of your efforts.
  • Think of a time when you had to make an important decision without enough information. Explain your decision-making process.
  • Tell me about a time when you encountered a difficult patient who was unhappy with his or her service.
  • Tell me about a time when something unexpected happened that changed the way you planned your day.
  • Tell me about a situation where you had to overcome or manage an obstacle to accomplish your objectives.
  • Give me an example of a situation where you found a new or improved way of doing something significant.

Feedback

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Disclaimer

These resources have not been investigated by the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP). The AAP takes no responsibility for these resources.