showhide

Behavioural interview questions assess your actions and reactions in a specific professional setting or situation. These questions usually begin with phrases such as, "Tell me about a time when..." or "Give me an example of..." and often directly relate to key competencies or skills required for the job. Prepare to discuss teamwork, safety, problem-solving and leadership skills with behavioural interview questions.

Understanding Behavioural Interview Questions

When going into your construction job interview, understanding what behavioural questions will are be advantageous to any candidate. So, what are behavioural questions? Questions such as…

  • Describe the most successful construction project you oversaw. What did you do that made it so successful?
  • Tell us about a project that you planned. Include details about budgets, processes and deadlines. What actions did you take to receive approval? What was the result?
  • Tell us about the biggest obstacles you have encountered during a project. What steps did you take to resolve them?

…can all be classed behavioural interview questions. The interviewer will ask these questions to assess your problem solving, teamwork, communication and leadership skills through your experiences and decision-making processes. These skills are key competencies for construction professionals, this is why you should expect to be asked behavioural based questions.

Preparation Strategies

Research the Role

Before any job interview it’s important to research both the role and company that you are interviewing for. When researching a job description pay in particular to the key skills and responsibilities of the job role, this is what the interviewer wants to see from you in the interview. By researching the role, you can also understand the priorities of the company, safety, invocation and sustainability are key areas that construction companies may want to focus on.

Review Your Experience

After you have completed your research into the job role you can now begin to align your previous experience with the skills and responsibilities that the interviewer will be looking for. Focus on the challenges that you had to overcome in construction settings, using your experiences from past projects will show the interviewer that you posses all the necessary skills for the job.

Practice Common Questions

Once you have your experienced aligned with the job description requirements you can begin to practice for your construction interview. Anticipating and thoroughly preparing for these questions can showcase your ability to think on your feet, showing you're not just parroting rehearsed answers.

The STAR Method for Structuring Responses

STAR is an acronym for situation, task, action and result. The STAR technique is a storytelling method for organising your answers. Let’s take a deeper look at each component:

Situation

In my current organisation, we were regularly short of staff on projects. However, our deadlines didn’t reflect the availability of resources, which left our team vulnerable to consistently missing those deadlines. Missing deadlines negatively impacts team morale, and it can also impact our performance reviews.

Task

I needed to find out why management applied those deadlines, despite our lack of resources for completing the projects in my department. Once I understood the motivation for the deadline, I could find a solution and better protect the project team and the deadline.

Action

I set a meeting with the department leader to discuss the rationale for the deadlines they set. I learned that the deadlines were not the result of an identifiable business driver and weren’t conditional on a business objective. As a result, I was able to work with the leader and use project management techniques to better manage the leader’s expectations and improve the team’s chance of success. We found that the time expectation wasn’t in alignment with the cost and scope of the project. So, I was able to add more resources to the project to better balance the project requirements.

Result

After working with the leader to align time, scope, and cost, my team began hitting deadlines 87% of the time as compared to only 45% of the time prior to the solution. Additionally, engagement grew across the team. Anecdotally, team members were noticeably less stressed and better able to problem solve on their own, which will help them grow.

Using the STAR technique will help you prepare clear and concise answers with real-life examples. This is beneficial if you want to quickly highlight your experience and skills and back them up with examples.

Common Behavioural Questions in Construction

  • Describe a time when you had to resolve an unexpected issue on-site.
  • Share an experience where you led a team through a challenging project.
  • Tell me about a situation where you ensured safety protocols were followed under pressure
  • Give an example of how you handled a miscommunication with a client or subcontractor.
  • Describe a time when a project didn’t go as planned and how you adapted.

Conclusion

The most important thing to landing a job is to ensure that you are fully prepared for the interview. By preparing, you will feel much more in control. You'll have anticipated what will get asked in the interview, you will have learnt so much about the business and you'll feel cool, calm and collected. You can use the STAR method to structure the examples that you want to give in an interview. For your next job practice answering interview questions and seek feedback from friends and family.

Author