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Behavioral Interviews Are Very Common for Interviewers to Use

Behavioral Interviews Are Very Common for Interviewers to Use

Behavioral interviews have grown increasingly popular among schools and school districts when hiring their teaching staff. The reason for its popularity lies in the fact that the types of questions asked are more specific and often force the interviewee to describe past experiences when giving their answer.

Past performance dictates future performance is the thought process utilized when implementing behavioral interview questions.

Schools want to know how you dealt with certain types of situations during your teaching in the past, so they can determine how you would deal with these situations in this position.

Behavioral interview questions are asked to determine if the candidate has relevant competencies and qualifications to match the teaching job function requirements.

Using the C.A.R. or the S.T.A.R. approach to develop effective responses to these behavioral interview questions will help you prepare for behavioral interviews.

C.A.R. consists of:

* What was the Challenge?

* What was the Action you took?

* What was the Result?

The S.T.A.R. approach includes:

* What was the Situation?

* What was the Task?

* What was the Action?

* What were the Results you achieved?

When preparing your examples or stories to prove competencies, try to make them relevant to the teaching position you are interviewing for as possible. This will show that since you could do this type of work for another school, you, therefore, can do it for them.

For example, if you apply for an elementary teaching position, make the response relevant to elementary teaching, where possible. Most of the questions will start with, “Tell me about a time when…”; “Give me an example of…:”; or “Describe a situation where you had to….”.

Examples of specific behavioral interview questions:

* Tell me about a time when you had to deal with a difficult parent.

* Tell me about a time when you had to deal with a difficult student.

* Tell me about a time when you had to go above and beyond the call of duty to complete a project.

* Tell me about a time when you had to meet a critical deadline and encountered a major obstacle.

* Give me an example of a time when you worked with a team of other teachers.

* Give me an example of a time when you had to use exceptional research skills to accomplish a goal or task.

This type of interview will uncover the candidate’s attitudes, leadership style, teamwork abilities, teaching skills, classroom management strategies, and personality. As you can see, it is important to draw from your past experiences to answer these behavioral interview questions.

Build rapport by turning your interview into a discussion-based meeting.

For this reason, it is critical to think ahead of time about projects you worked on, the tasks you completed, and how they contributed to the school community and student achievement.