The competition for coveted positions is tough. Performance-based interviews make it even more challenging. The way you answer these interview questions decides your future.

What Are Performance-Based Interview Questions?

Performance-based interview questions primarily focus on your previous accomplishments. In other words, it analyzes a candidate’s ability by reviewing their past performances. Recruiters and employers use this systematic approach to gauge how successful you, as a potential candidate, will be in the future.

Frequently, hiring managers raise questions about your skills and abilities. They aim to determine how motivated you are for the job and whether or not you’re a good fit. How you answer these questions reveals your personality, work ethic, and character.

Performance-based questions can be used across all levels and industries. Interviewers can analyze how you apply your problem-solving and critical-thinking abilities to difficult situations to predict your future successes.

What is Performance-Based Interviewing?

Performance-based interview questions allow the hiring authorities to understand your past successes, how you handled hurdles, and the professional settings in which you thrive. These go beyond a simple Yes or No and are a perfect opportunity for you to talk about a time that still stays relevant and can help you add value to your future employment.

The questions are pretty standardized. However, the answers may be tailored to each candidate’s unique experiences and talents. These enable hiring managers to analyze your communication skills, leadership abilities, growth potential, and technical skills. They can uncover your true traits for the job while making the interview process fair and effective.

“Performance-based interviews focus on your previous accomplishments to gauge your potential for success in the future job.”

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What Do Interviewers Want To Know?

Interviewing supervisors wish to draw out responses that demonstrate your genuine abilities. They want to learn about your experiences and what would make you a valuable asset to their organization. They want to know about your approaches to a particular job. Primarily, they are concerned with the following:

• Strong work ethics
• Core values
• Real-world examples of your abilities

The major qualities they wish to assess include the following:

• If you can do the job
• If you want the job
• If you’d be satisfied and stay

Interviewers effectively and fairly gauge several factors that make you a suitable investment for their company.

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Frequently Asked Questions

No matter how hard you’ve worked on your resume and cover letter, there’s no resting. Practice for performance-based interviews so you can crack the interview. Here are some of the commonly asked questions to assess your suitability for the job:

• What drew you to this job opening, and why do you think you could be a good fit?
• What are your greatest assets? Could you share examples of how you’ve utilized those in the workplace?
• Is there any difficult situation you’ve overcome with innovative solutions?
• What are your flaws/ weakness, and how do you intend to address those?
• Tell us when you had to persuade someone to change their behavior and how you did it.
• Describe a time when you had to make your supervisors aware of a difficult situation.
• Tell us about a situation wherein you made a mistake, corrected it, or couldn’t, but it helped you with future decisions.
• How well do you handle multiple tasks at the same time?
• Have you faced a time when a customer/ coworker got upset with you? How did you break the barrier?
• Have you delegated responsibilities? What’s your approach to it?
• How’s the outcome when you’ve to work on strict deadlines?
• Do you have any proud professional achievements?

The key to answering these questions is to be clear and firm in what you say. Keep yourself on the other side of the process, see what they would expect from a candidate, and answer accordingly.

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Prepare For A Performance-Based Interview, Then Ace It!

Are you looking for opportunities to make an impact, challenge your skills, and do groundbreaking work? Many candidates are unaccustomed to discussing their achievements and failures and are forced to come up with answers rapidly. So, preparing for performance-based interviews and establishing your suitability for the position is crucial. How?

Research The Role & The Company: Before going all in, study the description of the position and the company. Interweave that knowledge into your answers and demonstrate your competence in the required skills.

Use The STAR Method: While thinking through the instances, analyze

• the Situation or Task you worked on
• the Actions you took
• and the Result of it.

This way, you can better structure your interview answers. You can also use PAR – Problem, Action, Results, to respond to performance-based interviews.

Narrative of Your Previous Achievements: Use focused examples and emphasize your strengths, showcasing how your experiences make you a good fit. It also makes your answers more compelling.

Demonstrate Results: Exhibit how your efforts helped you reach successful outcomes. Wherever possible, quantify those results. Be ready to explain the failed situations too.

Ask Questions: Don’t forget to ask questions from the hiring manager to understand if you’re ready for the role and the associated responsibilities. It shows you’re curious and gives you a good look into the position.

The idea is to be honest and sound reasonable. You must indicate your commitment towards the job you’re interviewing for without fabricating any information. Also, align your skills to the job requirements and competencies to succeed at the interview.

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Formulating Answers Based On the STAR Model

Performance-based interviews are getting popular. But they’re challenging. Impressing the panel, as well as your preparedness, gets you through. So, here’s a quick explanation of how you can crack these interview questions:

Situation

State a success story and address the situation, involved parties, and what happened. Provide context around it, and make sure you’re only providing relevant details.

Task

Next, detail your role associated with that situation or challenge. Allow the interviewer to understand why you were involved in the case, your responsibilities, and some background into the task.

Action

Once you’ve described the task, detail your actions to resolve the challenge. Your answer must include the steps you took and why you chose these approaches to finish the job.

Results

Finally, elaborate on the outcome. Talk about positive results, learning experiences, and how it helps you today.

To Conclude

During performance-based interviews, provide examples relevant to the question. Showcase strengths like teamwork, creativity, and adaptability. Try and give more weight and value to the answer. Avoid detailing anything that disqualifies you for the role.

The bottom line is that solid prep work is needed to succeed at a performance-based interview. Candidates must tactfully answer how they dealt with problematic situations in the past and how that learning can influence their future opportunities.

If you’re looking for expert guidance to advance in your professional goals, I can help. Book a consultation with me, and I can share the best advice to help you reach your full potential. Make sure you download your free career vision guide.

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Sources

Performance Based Interviewing (PBI) – US Dept of Veterans Affairs

13 Sample PBI Interview Questions and Answers – indeed

Don’t Ignore The Value Of Performance-Based Interviews – Forbes

Performance-based Interview Guide with Questions and Answers – LinkedIn