Top Behavioral Interview Questions on Facebook – Part 1

Have you ever wondered what questions typically arise in behavioral interviews on Facebook?

Before we discuss the main questions, let’s understand what behavioral interviewing is.

• The behavioral interview cycle is also known as the Jedi Maintenance Tower on Facebook.
• It’s about you and your story, your resume and your motivation.
• The purpose of this interview is to assess whether the candidate will thrive in the peer-to-peer, minimal and unstructured engineering organization of Facebook.

For software engineers, behavioral interviewing is actually partly behavioral coding and partly. The coding part is a shorter version of the usual coding talks and is included to supplement the other two coding talks to obtain an additional coding signal.

Tips and tricks for effectively preparing for behavioral interviews

1. To know itself! Take the time to review your resume, as the interviewer will almost certainly ask you questions about key events in your professional history.
2. Have concrete examples or anecdotes to support each question.
3. Familiarize yourself with Facebook’s mission statement and its five core values:
   – Be daring
   – Focus on impact
   – Hurry up
   – To be open
   – Create social value
4. Be yourself! Be open and honest about your successes and failures.
5. Be humble and focus on teamwork, leadership and mentoring qualities.

Now let’s go over the top behavioral questions that are commonly asked on Facebook.

Question 1: Tell me about a time when you disagreed with someone

This is one of the most frequently asked questions during behavioral interviews.

Interviewers also tend to ask this famous question in the following ways:

• Tell me about a time when you had a conflict with your manager.

• Share a situation where you faced a conflict at work.

• Have you ever worked with a difficult person?

• Describe a situation in which two teams disagree on the way forward.

• Tell me about a time when you had a communication problem with a colleague.

Evaluation criteria

Having conflicts is part of everyone’s career path. With this question, the interviewer tries to assess you on the following points:

1. Evaluate how you work in difficult situations or unstructured environments.
2. Judge your level of maturity, your communication skills and your willingness to express yourself, regardless of your colleague’s seniority.
3. Evaluate whether you are empathetic and respectful towards your coworkers while trying to understand your coworker’s motivations and views behind the conflict.
4. A crucial part of this question is that the interviewer seeks a positive resolution to the conflict that benefits the company and not just an individual.
5. Interviewers try to see if you are flexible in making compromises.
6. And open to learn from difficult experiences.

Question 2: Tell me about a time when you showed leadership

In behavioral interviews, candidates are often asked to talk about a time when they demonstrated leadership in their workplace.

Evaluation criteria

Using this question, investigators seek to rate you on various attributes such as:

• Strong communication skills

• Social skills

They want to understand what leadership means to you and see if you’ve ever taken the initiative to lead something in your current or past workplaces. For example:

• Manage an entire project

• Supervision of a junior engineer

• Suggest an alternative design to an existing problem

• Integration of a new engineer

• Take action to resolve an unexpected problem

They want to know that you can lead with good judgment when leadership is required within the team or the business.

Question 3: Tell me about a time when you failed or made a mistake

Tell me about a time when you failed or made a mistake is one of the most difficult and sensitive questions asked by interviewers.

Do not be afraid of this question. Mistakes and failures are inevitable, and everyone makes them at some point in their work.

Evaluation criteria

Through this question, the interviewer tries to understand your level of maturity and personal responsibility.

They want to see how you handle the situation when you encounter a setback.

They are looking for candidates who:

• Can take ownership of their actions,

• Strive to improve by using what they have learned from their past experiences.

Question 4: Tell me about the project you are most proud of

Another popular behavioral interview question is, “Tell me about the project you’re most proud of.”

Evaluation criteria

Through this question, the interviewer tries to assess whether or not your basic skills and work ethic correspond to the culture of the company.

They also try to get a read on how you define career success.

Your response should focus on the impact and results of the project, as this will show the interviewer what you consider important and how you do things.

Question 5: Tell me about a time when you had to deal with conflicting priorities

Time management is a crucial part of everyone’s career. Interviewers often ask candidates to talk about a time when they had to deal with conflicting or shifting priorities in their workplace.

Evaluation criteria

Everyone faces conflicting priorities and changing deadlines in their work.

1. The interviewer’s objective is to assess:
   – How you manage your time,
   – Use good judgment,
   – Communicate and
   – Change gear if necessary.
2. They want to know if you can manage competing priorities and understand the implications of missed deadlines.
3. Investigators try to assess whether you can work in difficult situations or unstructured environments and distinguish between the urgent and the important.
4. They’re also looking to see if your coworkers can count on you to get the job done.

Question 6: Tell me about yourself

A common question asked by interviewers at the start of behavioral interviews is: “Tell me about yourself.”

Evaluation criteria

1. This introductory question helps interviewers in one of their main goals, which is to get to know you.
2. Interviewers try to learn various aspects of you from:
   – Your current and past experiences,
   – Your strengths,
   – Your personality, and
   – Your ability to answer an unstructured question.
3. They also notice how well you can connect with your colleagues and communicate your ideas in a clear and effective way.

Question 7: Why do you want to leave your current position?

Interviewers often ask the question in behavioral interviews, why are you leaving your current role?

Evaluation criteria

Through this question, the interviewer tries to understand your intrinsic motivation to check if you are running away from something or running towards something.

This is a great opportunity to show the interviewer that you are someone who looks ahead with a generally positive attitude.

Question 8: Do you have any questions for me?

Interviewers often asked a critical question towards the end of behavioral interviews: “Do you have questions for me?

Evaluation criteria

This question helps the interviewer gauge your passion and interest in the current position you are applying for.

It would be best to formulate your questions specific to the position and the company you are interviewing for. This will help demonstrate to the interviewer that you have done your homework on their company and culture.

It also gives you the opportunity to end the interview on a high note.

Resources

Video explanation with evaluation criteria, response framework and tips and tricks to prepare and respond effectively to the above questions during the interview. Certain special cases are also discussed, which candidates generally face during these interviews.

This article is part of the Behavioral Interviewing on Facebook series. Stay tuned for Part 2. Thanks for reading!

?? Some images used are from freepik.com – Freepik, pch.vector, vectorjuice, pikisuperstar, rawpixel.com, slidesgo, stories, Upklyak, jcomp

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