Leadership Interview Grid

Now that you know how to utilize the STAR method effectively, the next step to get ready for your interview is preparing a collection of stories that can be incorporated into your interview responses.

Preparing for behavioral questions in advance is crucial for a successful interview because it can save time during the interview itself. When you have situations prepared in advance, you won't have to spend precious interview time thinking on the spot about a situation that demonstrates your skills and experience.

While you can't predict every question you'll encounter during the interview, you can prepare stories about various experiences that you can modify for different inquiries.

In this lesson, we created two interview preparation grids for you:

• Leadership Interview Preparation Grid: This grid has categories of leadership questions relevant to individual contributors and managers.

• People Management Interview Preparation Grid: This grid is only relevant if you're applying for a management role.

Each row of the grids represents a category of questions. It's best to have at least one story for each category. We recommend you create a copy of the grids and fill them out with your examples.

Filling out a grid can assist you in providing a focused response to a particular interview question. For example, if an interviewer asks you to describe a situation where you had to collaborate with another team to resolve a challenge, you can use a story you prepared and rehearsed in advance from the "Collaboration and Team Work" category.

Leadership interview preparation grid

Filling out this grid is helpful for both individual contributors and managers. A leader is expected to mentor teammates and provide them feedback, collaborate with the teammates and with cross-functional partners, influence stakeholders, improve processes, and resolve conflicts.

Be sure to apply what you've learned about common mistakes while choosing a situation and how to choose the best situation when filling out the grid below.