Course Content
Behavioral Interview
15 sections · 30 lessons
Planning your preparation, from full course to one-week sprint
This course splits into two halves that are used differently. Sections 2–5 are read in order, once. Sections 6–14 are a build queue you work through one competency at a time.
That plan assumes you have weeks. If your loop is in days, working through fifteen sections is not the plan, and the second half of this lesson gives you the one that is.
The two halves
Sections 2–5 — the framework. How the round works, what is being scored, how to structure a story, and which questions generate all the others. Read these in order before writing anything. Section 4 (High-Signal Storytelling) in particular is assumed by every section after it.
Sections 6–14 — the competencies. Nine sections, one per competency, all built on the same six-part shape: what it means, what gets scored, what gets asked, how to build a story for it, how the same story reads at different levels, and a worked example with follow-ups.
Section 15 — the room. Rehearsal, mocks, pacing, recovery, your questions, follow-up.
The build session
One competency per session. Roughly 75 minutes:
| Minutes | What you do |
|---|---|
| 0–25 | Read the section |
| 25–45 | Write one story card for that competency, in the story-card format |
| 45–60 | Write the answers to the three follow-ups the section names |
| 60–70 | Say the story out loud, timed, once. Do not read it |
| 70–75 | Note what you forgot when speaking. Fix the card |
The last fifteen minutes are the ones people skip and the ones that transfer. A story you have written but never spoken takes about twice as long out loud as you expect, and the parts you drop under time pressure are usually the stakes and the reflection — the two parts carrying the most signal.
The order to take the competencies in
You do not need all nine at equal depth. Prioritise by the level you are interviewing for:
| Interviewing for | Do these first | Can be lighter |
|---|---|---|
| Mid-level (roughly 2–5 years) | 7 Delivery, 8 Problem Solving, 9 Trust, 10 Learning | 13 Developing Others, 14 Strategic |
| Senior | 9 Trust, 8 Problem Solving, 6 Initiative, 7 Delivery | 12 Innovation |
| Staff and above | 14 Strategic, 13 Developing Others, 9 Trust, 6 Initiative | 10 Learning |
| Engineering manager | 13 Developing Others, 9 Trust, 14 Strategic, 7 Delivery | 8 Problem Solving (still asked) |
"Lighter" means read the section and have one story. It does not mean skip. Loops do not respect your priority order, and a competency you decided was irrelevant is the one you get asked about at 4pm on a Friday.
Where the raw material comes from
If you worked through How to Write a Good Resume, the evidence audit in its Section 9 is your starting inventory — the same projects, the same numbers, the same defensible claims. A resume bullet is a story compressed to one line. This course decompresses it.
If you did not, spend an hour first listing every project from the last three years with a sentence on what was hard about each. Mapping yourself to the rubric turns that list into a coverage map.
The one-week compressed path
Now the short version. If the loop is a week away, you trade breadth for depth on the few things that are asked everywhere.
What to read
Four sections, in this order:
- Section 4 — High-Signal Storytelling. Non-negotiable. It is the technique the entire round is scored on, and it is the difference between the same experience reading as mid or senior.
- Section 5 — The Essential Questions. The taxonomy, plus scripts for the two answers you will definitely be asked.
- Section 9 — Earning Trust and Dealing with Conflict. The most-failed competency. If you prepare one competency, prepare this one.
- Section 15 — Nailing the Interview. Pacing, recovery, and what to do when you have no story.
That is roughly three and a half hours of reading. The other eight hours go on writing and speaking.
The six questions to prepare properly
Prepare these six to full depth — story card, three follow-ups each, spoken out loud and timed. In rough order of how often they appear:
- Tell me about yourself. Asked in almost every round, including by interviewers who have no other behavioral questions.
- Tell me about a time you disagreed with someone. The trust probe.
- Tell me about the most challenging project you have worked on. The deep-dive opener.
- Tell me about a time you failed, or a mistake you made. The one people select badly.
- Tell me about a time you had to deliver under a hard deadline. The delivery probe.
- Why this company, why this role, why now. Cheap to prepare, expensive to fumble.
Six stories, though the same story often serves two of these. Four distinct experiences is usually enough to cover all six if you tag them well.
A seven-day schedule
| Day | Time | What you do |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 90 min | Read Section 4. List every project from the last 3 years, one line each |
| 2 | 90 min | Read Section 5. Draft cards for questions 1 and 3 |
| 3 | 90 min | Read Section 9. Draft the conflict card. This one takes longest — the selection is hard |
| 4 | 60 min | Draft cards for 4, 5, 6. Write follow-up answers for all six |
| 5 | 60 min | Read Section 15. Record yourself telling three stories. Listen back |
| 6 | 90 min | Mock with a partner using the scoring sheet from Running a useful mock |
| 7 | 45 min | Repair the two weakest stories. Do not add new ones |
What to cut, honestly
You will not have level-calibrated variants of every story, and you will not have nine competencies covered. Accept that. What you must not cut:
- Saying every story out loud at least once. Silent preparation does not transfer.
- The reflection on each story. It is the fastest senior signal available, and it is one sentence.
- The conflict story selection. A weak choice here cannot be rescued by delivery.