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By Louise Fletcher

If you dislike job interviews, you're not alone. Many senior-level executives, accustomed to being in charge, are uncomfortable with the uncertainty of the interview environment. The good news is that you can take charge of every interview by using a common interview technique to your advantage.

The technique is known as behavioral interviewing, which simply means that interviewers ask very specific questions about real-life situations. The theory is that past behavior is the best predictor of how you will behave in the future, so employers probe your background for clues about how you behave, how you think, what you think and how you react.

Let's imagine that XYZ company is looking for a Marketing Vice President who can generate a lot of buzz and market visibility with a very small budget. In order to understand your experience in this area, a behavioral interviewer may ask:

"Tell me about a time when you had to promote a product with very little cash to fund your marketing efforts."

or:

"Describe a time when you created a lot of excitement about a new product launch using low-cost, non-traditional marketing techniques."

Behavioral interviewing has become quite common over the last 15 years and you may well have experienced it yourself, either as an interviewer or an interviewee. Provided you are prepared (and we'll talk about this in a moment), a behavioral interview gives you an excellent opportunity to speak in detail about your experiences and accomplishments. In fact, behavioral interviews often provide the very-best interview situation for you to sell yourself and all that you've achieved.

Unfortunately, many interviews still follow the same old format - the questions may be arbitrary, based on the content of your resume, on the preoccupations of the interviewer or on what is happening at that company on that day. They may also be very general in nature. For example, if the XYZ company isn't using behavioral interviewing, they may ask that same VP candidate a similar type of question but in an entirely different way:

"How much experience do you have working with a small budget?"

This question doesn't invite the same detailed response as the request for a specific example, but who needs an invite? The secret to wowing them at every interview is simply this: act as though you were asked a behavioral question, even when you were not!

Imagine two different candidates for this fictional position. When asked "How much experience do you have working with a small budget?", Candidate A replies, "I've had to do that a lot actually. Most of my companies were small to mid-size, so there was never a lot of money. I'm very good in those situations and always find ways to make things happen."

Candidate B, however, gives a behavioral answer: "I've had to do that a lot actually. Let me give you a recent example. You know the film "Dark Night?" I created the campaign around that movie with only a $10,000 budget. It came to my attention because it was the only film our staff was excited about, although it was a low-budget, independent production. I designed a really cool website themed around the film, and planted seeds of interest on countless Internet sites. The whole thing took off and the movie grossed millions. We never did run a single TV advertisement."

By answering in such a concrete and specific way, Candidate B ensures that he will be much more memorable than his competition.

You can use this technique for any question that is vague or general in nature:

Q: "How much do you know about ...?"
A: "I'm very familiar. Just recently, I ...."

Q: "How often have you ...?"
A: "That's something I've done frequently. Actually, I remember when ..."

The technique also works when an interviewer asks a hypothetical question:

Q: "What would you do if .....?
A: "Well, I faced a similar situation just last year. What happened was ... "

Preparation is key! To prepare effective stories, you must first focus on the employer's needs and then develop examples that demonstrate your ability to meet those specific needs.

The Employer's Needs
Research the company before the interview and identify their key business issues (Are they growing rapidly? In a crowded marketplace? Planning new product launches?) Get into the minds of the company's executives and ask yourself: Given their business issues, what will they want to know about you?

Developing Your Examples
Use the C-A-R (challenge-action-result) formula to develop stories that demonstrate your ability to meet the employer's needs. If you know that they need a sales executive who can forge new strategic partnerships, develop stories about your experiences in that area. Describe the initial challenge (e.g. need to enter a new market), the actions you took and the quantifiable results.

If your interviewers have been trained in behavioral interviewing, you'll be exceptionally well-prepared. If not, you'll be able to distinguish yourself by telling compelling, interesting and targeted stories that demonstrate your value and your contributions.

Louise Fletcher is the President of Blue Sky Resumes and the Co-Founder/Managing Editor of the Career Hub blog, a leading source of free job search information for professionals and executives. Louise is a frequent contributor to online job search publications and her work is featured in numerous resume books.

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