How to use this course?

This course does two things. It shows you the structure that makes a behavioral answer work, and it gives you 22 real questions with full written answers you can study.

What it does not give you is a set of answers to memorize. That approach fails, and it is worth being clear about why before you start.

Why memorized answers fail

Interviewers hear rehearsed answers constantly and recognize them quickly. The tell is not the wording. It is what happens next.

They ask a follow-up question, and a memorized answer has nothing behind it. Only you know the real details of your own projects, and those details are what a follow-up asks for.

Every question in chapter 3 includes the follow-up you should expect and how to handle it. That is deliberate. The follow-up is where prepared candidates and rehearsed candidates separate.

How to use the sample answers

Use them for shape, not content. From each one, take:

• how much context is enough before you get to what you did
• where the result belongs, and what a real result sounds like
• what to leave out

Then rebuild the answer from something that actually happened to you.

The order that works

1. Read chapter 2 first. It covers the structure and how to prepare.
2. Write your own stories before you read chapter 3. Six or seven will cover most questions.
3. Then read chapter 3, and compare each sample answer against your own draft for that category.

Reading everything first and writing later is the more comfortable order. It also produces worse stories, because you end up adapting the example instead of remembering your own work.

What you should have at the end

A written set of six or seven stories. Each with a specific situation, your own actions, and a result with a number in it. Each one said out loud at least once.

That is what this course is for. The reading is the smaller half.