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Master Behavioral Interviews (for Software Engineers)

2 hours 12 minutes 41 seconds

🇬🇧 English

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Speaker 1

02:00:01

I might give like a slap on the wrist for that employee if they unintentionally did it and they realize that mistake if they intentionally did it for sure I'm going to complain to the HR but if it is unintentional and maybe mistakes anyone can make and they didn't know and it caused no harm but I will give like a written email showing that hey these are the things you did they should not have been done and like warning like maybe strike 1 and strike 2 at the same time but I would make sure I would try at least that that person does not lose his or her job and then maybe ruin their entire career. So this would be 1 of the ethical dilemmas that I can think of. Next 1 is describe a situation where you had to took a risk and paid off once again, taking calculated risk, understanding all the information. Maybe you have all the relevant data.

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02:00:53

Maybe you don't have all the relevant data. If you have the data, how would it impact your judgment? If you don't have the data, how would it impact impact your judgment? So think of these things.

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02:01:02

And this concludes all the 50 answers. Now, once again, for all the 50 answers, I hope you were following along and I'm sorry if I kept on and on about different questions, but make sure that for these questions, you have your own set of answers. Now let's move on to the next topic and that is dealing with difficult questions. So once again, all no questions are made equal.

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02:01:29

Some questions might be easy. Some questions might be difficult. Some questions might be easy for some people. Some question might be easy for difficult people.

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02:01:36

So it depends, varies from people to people, but always make sure that you understand that why the question is difficult. And that's where it came along that, hey, if you are giving the question that give me an example where you had to persuade the others. The important crux of this question is why did you had to persuade the others? What was the exact scenario and then what was your approach on persuading others for what you are trying to propose.

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02:02:04

So this this can be 1 of the examples. Next thing is whenever you have to speak about or talk about different weaknesses and failures of yourself be open to that many times. I've seen like and I personally experienced that in the past as well that I was always too reluctant to talk about my failures and the mistakes I made or weaknesses I had. But as I grew more mature in my career, I realized that This is what made me what I am today.

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02:02:33

All the mistakes I did, all the weaknesses I had and I had to overcome that. That gave me a huge confidence boost. It gave me the sincerity of how wrong things can happen. How can I learn from that?

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02:02:45

How can I move away from that? Why should not know? I not carry it on my shoulder as a burden, but rather than use it as a footstep to climb that next step and learn that next next thing. So always understand that These are some of the strategies you can have on your self.

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02:03:04

Whenever you are dealing with a difficult question, first try to stay calm and compose. You can ask the interviewer that, Hey, can I take like a 30 second pause or a 1 minute pause? Just to think about the formula, how to formulate the answer, what are all the aspects I'm going to talk about it. Maybe make some bullet points in your head and then start formalizing the answer using the star methodology.

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02:03:28

Okay, so this can be 1 of the good approaches. Always try to stay calm. Even if you encounter some questions that are like way out of your imagination, at least stay calm. Like previously Google used to ask this funny question that why manhole covers are circle and not square in the New York City.

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02:03:46

Makes no sense, but still they ask. They ask many people the same questions. What are you going to do if you don't know the answer? Some people be like, if I want to go down straight, I don't want to get myself hurt across 90 degree angles.

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02:04:01

So it was that that was a pretty good answer actually. So there can be many examples. Now let's understand that. How can you incorporate emotional intelligence in your interview and in your answers?

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02:04:14

Emotional intelligence is something that comes with practice and seeing things the way they are and the way they are not. It's like trying to understand both sides of the coin and how it can come into your answers or your interview. You always want to be empathized and try to find the root of the cause. So again, even if the interviewer is asking you a question, try to understand that what is the root behind this question?

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02:04:40

What is the purpose they're looking for? Or if you're giving some answer, Did you thought about all the scenarios where you dealing with empathy? So these are the things you want to always make sure that you want to be demonstrating that you are a person who has a lot of empathy for different people and that makes the situation 10 times lighter. Plus if you're self-aware about your behavior and what human tendencies other people can do, then it helps you make more sense of the situation and try to Tread the waters carefully.

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02:05:16

Okay. And of course, make sure that you balance the professional and personal lives and scenarios. You don't mix them. It's never a good idea.

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02:05:26

So always do that. So emotional intelligence in action is if you want, there are actually a lot of movies that have emotional intelligence in action but think about Michael Keaton from the Dark Knight Rises or sorry the original Dark Knight where he's explaining to Bruce Banner or Bruce Wayne that why Joker was doing all of these things and then he explained that the things about that some men just want to watch the world burn. So you can't reason with them. You can't argue with them, but you just have to deal with him and that gave Batman an idea that how to deal with the Joker.

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02:06:04

So this can be that shows that the butler Michael Keaton in that movie is a person with extreme emotional intelligence and sees the world from different angle. Now This is nowhere near in terms of correlation with your actual interview, but just an example. Okay. Next topic is nonverbal communication.

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02:06:24

How do you behave and how do you speak without speaking? This is really important. Your body posture and gestures, they make significant difference. So how do you take care of it?

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02:06:35

Your body language, you need to set up in like a good manner. Try to sit straight, try to look them in the eye, try to smile here and there. Everyone likes a smiling face and try to use like your hand gestures, your body gestures and in a decent manner, use the space around that is currently available in the room. Now with the interviews, there are now always going to be 2 scenarios.

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02:06:59

Either you are giving on premise interview or on site interview or you are giving a virtual interview. In both scenarios, the consideration for nonverbal communication would be completely different. If you are in person in place, how do you ensure that your nonverbal communication is on point? Smile here and there, have a good eye contact, Make sure that you are sitting at a reasonably well distance.

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02:07:24

Even if a conference room has a huge table, you don't want to sit too close with each other. You don't want to sit too away from each other. Just like use the space around yourself, but don't use it too crazily or too aggressively. Just be overall in the moment.

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02:07:39

So that that is going to feel really good. Plus have like smiling facial expression. Don't have creepy smiles or something like that, but just like everyone loves a smiling face. Next thing is if you have to talk about the virtual interviews, few topics would be at least try to look directly in the camera.

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02:07:57

Try to make sure that your background is clear or you are using appropriate filters. Your mic is working. You are reasonably well dressed, your hair looks good, your face looks good, you are at least being presentable for that interview and you are giving it the sincerity that interview deserves. So always be mindful of that.

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02:08:21

And now let's talk about some of the important preparation strategies. I know we have been talking quite a lot about all the different preparation strategies we can have throughout this entire session. But now let's just talk about a few of them. Number 1, make sure to write all the stories and all the experiences you had.

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02:08:40

Ideally, for each of the 5 categories we talk about, maybe have like 3 stories for each 1 of them. If you have like somewhere around 15 to 20 stories you are set you would be able to give all of the different options and any type of questions can be asked you now you just have to pinpoint okay for the In order to explain the disagreement with myself with a colleague. This is the story I'm going to say in order for a disagreement from myself with a client. This is what I'm going to explain what not and always make sure that you are practicing everything with star methodology situation, task, action, result, all 4 of 4 things because that way you are following up the whole timeline of the question.

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02:09:26

You are taking the interviewer throughout the exact situation and also ending up at what was the result achieved in the end. So practice the star method for each of the stories that you are going to write at least write 1 or 2 points that is going to be just for yourself. So you can quickly remind yourself that hey this was the situation and this was the action we took and this was what we did. Okay.

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02:09:47

Next thing is if you can do mock interviews, this is going to be really important. Find your friends, find some group. Maybe there are some online communities, reach out to them, find some strangers. You take their mock and you give mock interviews to them.

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02:10:05

This is going to be a win-win for both of you. You will be able to see from the perspective of an interviewer. Whenever someone else is giving the answer that, how does it feel and what was your intent and did they justify your intent or not? And the more interviews you give, the better and sharper your answers will get.

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02:10:24

So always, I cannot emphasize enough. If you just do mock interviews, you would be set And just any curveball, any random questions can be thrown at you. Be in the moment. This is a great opportunity for you to outshine yourself, to show the interviewer that what type of person you are, what type of character you have, what are the experiences you have learned.

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02:10:49

So behavioral interview, in my opinion, is a great way to showcase your skill. And that's why I take it as an opportunity rather than an obstacle. And it's going to be really helpful. Now we are going to talk about few resources.

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02:11:04

So number 1, just take these 2 books. They are really popular books, cracking the coding interview or 101 great answers to the toughest interview questions. Like There are online copies available. There are copies on the Amazon available, pick whatever you want to.

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02:11:21

And if you are a reader, just go through them. There are a lot of online courses available on LinkedIn learning course around and Udemy plus this course, you already have this. So I did not mention YouTube, but since you are already watching this on YouTube, so of course, YouTube is also going to be there. There are some popular subreddits on the Reddit website.

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02:11:42

So if you want to go to like jobs or interviews or CS career questions specifically for tech jobs. All these 3 are really good, really popular. They help you out with the resume reviews and questions and answers so you can understand what type of questions are being asked. What are the expectations at different companies?

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02:12:01

They also help you with like negotiations, strategies and salaries and what not. Okay. Next 1, couple of really good websites levels.fyi because it shows a lot of different things on different companies, how they behave and What are the benefits they have the perks they have the employees they have the compensation they have and plus they have a very good community page. So that they have a very active community where you can post many questions and next 1 is glass door where the appropriate employees of any particular company leave their experiences and reviews for that company.

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02:12:34

So that can come in really handy.