The ultimate guide to behavioral interviews. Developed by FAANG engineers. Use real-world questions, video recording, and structured strategies to get interview-ready in just a few hours.

Many times, it’s not your technical competency that holds you back from landing your dream job, it’s how you perform on the behavioral interview.

Whether you’re a software engineer, product manager, or engineering manager, this course will give you the tools to thoroughly prepare for behavioral and cultural questions. But beyond even technical roles, this would be useful for anyone, in any profession.

As you progress, you'll be able to use Educative's new video recording widget to record yourself answering questions and assess your performance.  By the time you’ve completed the course, you'll be able to answer any behavioral question that comes your way - with confidence.

Grokking the Behavioral Interview

The first response details some do's and don'ts.

# Question #1

Tell me about a time when you experienced failure.

# Response 

 “I was leading the implementation of new shipping and inventory management systems for 35 manufacturing plants. During our pilot plant implementation, we had major hardware failures with the scanning solution installed on forklifts. The failures were so bad that we had to resort to manual processes to keep the business going. This required us to double our staffing during the pilot. I delayed further rollouts by 8 weeks to solve the hardware problems, increasing costs. The failures during the pilot created concerns with our stakeholders that we had to overcome.” 

**Take a look at this answer again. Did you notice how many times “we” was used versus “I”? Now, let's take a look at another version of the same response.**

# Alternate response 

" **I** learned how important it is to take responsibility for a failure as the leader of a team. By taking responsibility, acknowledging the problems, and committing to solutions, **I** was able to keep the support of the plant leadership. **I** also remembered that a few of the team members had asked me before the launch about doing more hardware testing and **I** had dismissed their concerns. **I** apologized to them and promised to do better going forward. **My** personal takeaway was to be a better listener and give full consideration to concerns that are brought to **my** attention."   

**How does this version of the answer read in comparison? Sounds more autonomous, right? When you're doing the practice activities in this module, assess your use of "I" and "We" in your responses.**



In this lesson, we'll look at a couple of prior experience questions and responses from experienced professionals. 

Parsing Prior Experience Questions

In this lesson, we'll look at a couple of prior experience questions and responses from experienced professionals.

Why Prepare?

Preparing/Homework

Patterns for Behavioral Questions

Interview Etiquette

Conclusion and Quizzes!

Parsing Prior Experience Questions

Question #1

Response