Speaking Confidently and Persuasively in a Behavioral Interview
Check out this amazing podcast with a communication expert
Behavioral interviews are essentially extemporaneous speaking gigs. Other than the few questions you’re almost sure to get, the rest of the interview is you speaking on topics chosen in real-time by someone else.
It’s natural to feel anxious in such an environment. This week Lenny Rachitsky’s podcast guest was Matt Abrahams, author and Stanford Business School Lecturer, an expert in communication skills. It’s an hour long podcast but worth the listen if you’re preparing for a Behavioral interview.
Here are my takeaways, specifically for those preparing for Behaviorals…
Visualization. Abrahams cites results about how even a few minutes of visualizing yourself in the speaking environment will help to reduce anxiety. As an aside, I’ve never tried nor talked with anyone who’s tried any VR interview prep—though we did consider such product ideas while I was supporting candidate-focused engineering teams at Meta—but Abrahams mentions VR as a great way to do this. Let me know in the comments if you’ve tried VR for interview prep.
Mocks. The conversation doesn’t cover this, but a great way to get comfortable with an interview environment is to participate in a mock interview. It doesn’t even have to be with a particularly competent interviewer—since most of us aren’t best friends with a FAANG engineering manager—just get familiar with answering questions about yourself over Zoom.
Practice. Of course you’ll be more comfortable if you practice the content in advance. If you want to know where to focus your prep and practice time, check out my previous post.
Know that everyone experiences anxiety. Part of reducing my own imposter syndrome has been learning about and acknowledging that everyone experiences anxiety in new tasks and when faced an evaluation. You should know that even very competent candidates experience anxiety when it comes to Behavioral interviews, including myself!
Have a mantra to manage negative self talk. I really liked this part, especially the discussion of having a truthful mantra you can lean into when overwhelmed. Something like, “I will be the best version of myself,” or “I have value to contribute to this company.”
Breathing, etc. The conversation covers a good review of breathing techniques in case meditation-related topics are new to you.
“Daring to be Dull” and employing structured responses. Abraham’s point here was to free up mental cycles by using response frameworks instead of trying to be fancy. In the context of Behaviorals, if you structure your responses with STARR (Situation, Task, Action, Result, Reflection), that will free up your mental cycles to focus on communicating what you think the key signal the interviewer is looking for.
Strive for connection. Behavioral interviews really are a conversation, so be sure you see the interviewer as a person and not simply as the source of questions.
Reframe anxiety as excitement. Just shifting your mindset from, “I’m worried about this interview,” to “I’m excited about the the possibility of working there,” will go a long way to helping your mind calm down.
Hopefully you’ll find these helpful in managing the speaking anxiety surrounding Behavioral interviews.
Let me know what you thought of the podcast in the comments!
P.S. Lenny’s Newsletter is an amazing resource, especially for product leaders, so subscribe if you want more!