Behavioural interviews

In behavioural interviews, candidates are expected to provide structured answers to open-ended questions. Many interviewers expect STAR-based answers, especially employers in the New Zealand government sector.

The STAR model:

Situation - Describe the situation or problem.
Task - Describe the task that the situation required.
Action - Describe the action taken.
Result - Highlight the results achieved

Many migrants may not have come across this kind of question structure before and may not know the best way to respond to an open-ended question. While everyone needs to prepare well for a job interview, there are still things you can do to help get the best from migrant job candidates.

Here are some tips for interviewing migrant candidates: 

• Clearly state to the candidate your expectations regarding the answers they give, preferably at the start of the interview. Explain that you want to hear about a specific example from their past if you are using the behavioural interviewing technique.
• Be flexible enough to rephrase a question if you do not get the kind of answer you are looking for.
• Be patient and give the candidate time to think and respond. Let them quickly note down their ideas on a piece of paper if it would help them to organise their thoughts before answering.
• Prompt the candidate to provide a complete and structured answer to an open-ended question if they answer in an unsatisfactory way. A way to do this is to paraphrase the candidate’s answer to fit the STAR model, or prompt the candidate to finish their STAR answer, e.g.
  
  
  ‘What was the end result?’

• Remember that for migrants from cultures where saving face is important, it may be difficult for them to answer questions relating to failure, such as
  
  
  ‘Tell me about a time when something did not go well at work’.
  
  

Read more about the STAR interview technique