Some of the most popular questions to ask candidates in the interview process are behavioral interview questions and they can be incredibly challenging to answer. And this is no different in Capital One. In the Capital One interview process, they are absolutely going to ask you behavioral interview question. In today's video, I'm going to tell you what those are. I'm going to teach you how to answer all behavioral interview questions and I'm going to give you some of the specific questions they ask in the Capital One interview process.

Now, this is video two of a four-part series. So, if this happens to be the first video you're seeing, make sure you go to the playlist video one. And stay tuned to the very end of this video because at the end of the video, I'm going to tee up video three right here on the screen. With that being said, let's get started. Okay, so first things first, what is a behavioral interview question? A behavioral interview question is a question in which the interviewer asks you to recall a specific scenario that happened in your past and then walk them through how you handled whatever the situation was.

Now, these are challenging to answer because in the moment, when you're in an interview, it is really hard to just think of that super specific circumstance, that super specific situation, and talk them through how you handled it. Now, how you know you're being asked a behavioral interview question is you're going to hear it kind of go like this. Can you give me an example of a time when? Tell me about a time when. Those two words, time when, are used in about 90% of behavioral interview questions, but generally speaking, any question where they're asking you to recall something in the past and walk them through how you reacted to the stimuli is a behavioral interview question.

And when you're asked one of these questions, you want to use the STAR method. Now, this is an acronym to help you answer behavioral interview questions and include all necessary information. Now, the STAR method stands for situation, where were you working, what was your role? Task, what specifically came up? Action, how did you respond to whatever the situation was? And our result, what was the outcome of all of this?

And by using the STAR method, you'll be able to walk them through a behavioral interview question answer, you'll be able to capture all the necessary information and try to make this last anywhere between 45 and 90 seconds. Now, the first behavioral interview question they're going to ask is tell me about a time when you took initiative on a project. Now, this is great. I call this an opportunity question because it is pretty open.

It's an open question in which you can pick from a myriad of examples from your past in which you took initiative on a project. So, what you want to do is you want to use one, the STAR method, situation, task, action, result, but then two, you want to identify a story from your past in which you were going to look like a superstar. You took initiative on a project, you were able to do something that significantly moved the needle for your team or organization, and there was a fantastic outcome.

That's really what it comes down to. Now, additionally, you want to make sure that when you're telling the story, they can hear passion and enthusiasm in your voice. People buy passion and enthusiasm, so including it here is only going to help you. The last thing I would recommend is if there was a way to quantify your impact, I would recommend that you do it. For example, you can use the XYZ method, meaning I did X, because of that we improved it to Y, and the outcome was Z, right?

You're basically saying I was able to do this thing, this was the amount of improvement, and the net result was a cost savings of blank, or we were able to reduce downtime by blank. What you're trying to do is just show them the impact of what I did was this. Hiring managers love that because it allows them to imagine your impact in their role. Okay, so the next question is tell me about a time you influenced others.

This again is a pretty open-ended question. Use the STAR method. Um one of the things I would do here is make sure that when you're telling the story, you come across as a good teammate, right? You're working collaboratively as part of a high-performing team, and you're able to persuade them to take a specific course of action, and then the outcome has to be positive, right? If you can give any example, you want to make sure that the end of the day, it was a positive outcome.

That's really important to making sure that this is a really strong answer. Now, I can't give you an exact example cuz this needs to be something from your past. But, if you can answer this in 45 to 90 seconds, you can use you use the STAR method and you're able to describe a situation in which you're a happy, positive member of a high-performing team influencing others to make a positive change, you're going to do great.

Now, the last question that I'm going to cover today is tell me about a difficult problem that you solved. Now, you'll notice this wasn't time when, but this still qualifies as a behavioral interview question. Now, again, this is an opportunity question because it's pretty open-ended. You can pick any problem you have solved in your career and use it as an example. So, use the STAR method because again, it's going to make sure that you're including all necessary details, 45 to 90 seconds.

I would pick a problem that was really challenging. It was something that was certainly stress testing the team that you were a part of, but you were able to resolve it and move the team forward, right? In this circumstance, you were the hero. You were able to do something that really helped your team. You solved a big problem and there was a significant payoff. Again, if you can quantify your impact, I would certainly do so.

One thing I would caution here is you don't want to make up a story. You want to use something from your past because often when they use behavioral interview questions, they're going to ask secondary questions that deeper dive into details. And if you're making it up, it's going to be hard to come up with those numbers on the spot. So, ideally, you would familiarize with whatever situation this was so you can talk them through.

Well, how long did it take? How much money did you save? How many people were on the team, etc., etc., etc. So, make sure you're ready to answer those secondary questions. Now, one of the questions you're going to need to be able to answer in the Capital One interview process is why do you want to work at Capital One? It is one of the most, if not the most important question and it's why I made this video here. In this video, I teach you three really powerful ways to answer that question.

That way, you can position yourself as an excellent candidate. So, I'm done here, but I'll see you over there.