Behavioral Based Questions Flashcards by Eve Horbol

Tell me about a time when you didn’t have enough data to make the right decision. What did you do? What path did you take? Did the decision turn out to be the correct one?

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Tell me about a strategic decision you had to make without clear data or benchmarks. How did you make your final decision? What alternatives did you consider? What were the tradeoffs of each? How did you mitigate risk?

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Tell me about a time when you made a difficult decision with input from many different sources (customers, stakeholders, partner teams, etc.). What was the situation and how did you arrive at your decision? Did the decision turn out to be the correct one? Why or why not?

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We don’t always make the right decision all the time. Tell me about a time when you made a bad decision. What was the impact of that decision? What did you learn? How have you applied what you learned?

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We don’t always make the right judgment all the time. Tell me about a time when you made an error in judgment. What was the impact? What did you learn? How have you applied what you learned?

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Tell me about a time when you discovered that your idea was not the best course of action. What was your idea? Why wasn’t your idea the best course of action? How did you find out it was not the correct path? What was the best course of action? Who provided it? What did you learn from the experience?

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Describe a time when you brought different perspectives together to solve a problem. What types of different perspectives were represented? How did you seek out different points of view? What was the outcome? Where there any key learnings from this experience? Knowing what you know now, would
you have done anything different?

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Give me an example of a calculated risk that you have taken where speed was critical. What was the situation and how did you handle it? What steps did you take to mitigate the risk? What was the outcome? Knowing what you know now, would you have done anything differently?

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Tell me about a time when you worked against tight deadlines and didn’t have time to consider all options before making a dec ision. How much time did you have? What approach did you take? What did you learn from the situation?

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Describe a situation where you made an important business decision without consulting your manager. What was the situation and how did it turn out? Would you have done anything differently?

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Tell me about a time when you had to gather information and respond immediately to a situation. What was the outcome? Would you have done anything differently?

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Give me an example of when you had to make an important decision and had to decide between moving forward or gathering more informati on. What did you do? What was the outcome? What information is necessary for you to have before acting?

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Tell me about a time when you saw an issue that would impact your team and took a proactive approach to solve it. What was the issue? What did you do and what was the outcome? What did you learn from this situation?

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Tell me about a time when you felt your team was not moving to action quickly enough. What was the situation? What did you do? What was the outcome? Would you have done anything differently? (Manager)

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Tell me about a time when you were able to remove a serious roadblock/barrier preventing your team from making progress. What was the barrier? How were you able to remove it? What was the outcome? Knowing what you know now, would you have done anything differently? (Manager)

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Give me an example of when you were able to anticipate a customer need with a solution/product they didn’t know they needed/wanted yet. How did
you know they needed this? How did they respond?

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Give me an example of a time when you asked for customer feedback. How did you use that feedback to drive innovation or improvement? How did the
customer respond?

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Tell me about a time when you evaluated the customer experience of your product or service. What did you do? What was the result?

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Give me an example of a change you implemented in your current team or organization to meet the needs of your customers. What has been the result?
(Manager)

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Give me an example of a time when you were able to deliver an important project under a tight deadline. What sacrifices did you have to make to meet the deadline? How did they impact the final deliverable? What was the final outcome?

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Tell me about a time when you had significant, unanticipated obstacles to overcome in achieving a key goal. What was the obstacle? Were you eventually successful? Knowing what you know now, is there anything you would have done differently?

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Tell me about a time when you not only met a goal but considerably exceeded expectations. How were you able to do it? What challenges did you have to overcome?

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Tell me about a time when you or your team were more than half way to meeting a goal when you realized it may not be the right goal or may have unintended consequences. What was the situation? What did you do? What was the outcome? Looking back, would you have done anything differently?

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Give me an example of a mission or goal you didn’t think was achievable. What was it and how did you help your team try to achieve it? Were you successful
in the end? Looking back, would you have done anything differently?

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Tell me about a time when you did not effectively manage your projects and something did not get completed on time. What was the impact? What approaches do you use to make sure you are focusing on the right deliverables when you have several competing priorities?

It can be difficult to set goals for a team that are challenging, yet achievable. Tell me about a time when you hit the right balance. How did you approach setting the goals? What was the outcome? (Manager)

Tell me about a time when you were trying to understand a complex problem on your team and you had to dig into the details to figure it out. Who did you talk with or where did you have to look to find the most valuable information? How did you use that information to help solve the problem?

Tell me about a situation that required you to dig deep to get to the root cause. How did you know you were focusing on the right things? What was the outcome? Would you have done anything differently?

Tell me about a problem you had to solve that required in-depth thought and analysis. How did you know you were focusing on the right things? What was the outcome? Would you have done anything differently?

Walk me through a big problem or issue in your organization that you helped to solve. How did you become aware of it? What information did you gather? What information was missing and how did you fill the gaps? Did you do a reflection at the conclusion of the project? If so, what did you learn?

Tell me about a specific metric you have used to identify a need for a change in your department. Did you create the metric or was it already available? How did this and other information influence the change? What was the outcome of this change?

Have you ever created a metric that helped identify a need for a change in your department? What was the metric? Why did you create it? How did this and other information influence change? What was the outcome of the change?

Tell me about a time when you had to validate the assumptions underlying a direct report's project. How did you decide follow up was necessary? What steps, if any, did you take to validate the assumptions? What was the result? (Manager)

Tell me about a time when you had to communicate a change in direction that you anticipated people would have concerns with. What did you do to understand the concerns and mitigate them? Were there any changes you made along the way after hearing these concerns? How did you handle questions and/or resistance? Were you able to get people comfortable with the change?

Give me an example of a tough or critical piece of feedback you received. What was it and what did you do about it?

Describe a time when you needed to influence a peer who had a differing opinion about a shared goal. What did you do? What was the outcome?

Tell me about a time when your team’s goals were out of alignment with another team you relied on in order to meet your goal. How did you work with the other team? Were you able to achieve your goals?

Tell me about a time when you uncovered a significant problem in your team. What was it and how did you communicate it to your manager and other stakeholders? What did you do to address the problem? How did you manage the impact of this problem for the rest of your team?

Give me an example of a time when you were not able to meet a commitment. What was the commitment and what were the obstacles that prevented success? What was the impact to your customers/peers and what did you learn from it?

Describe a time when you improved morale and productivity on your team. What were the underlying problems and their causes? How did you prevent them from negatively impacting the team in the future?

Tell me about a time when a team member was struggling to keep up or fit in and you stepped in to help out. Why did you think they were struggling or not fitting in? Why did you decide in step in and support? What did you do to help out? How did it impact your work? What was the outcome? What did you learn from that situation?

Tell me about a time when a team member was not performing well and impacted your work. How did you handle that situation? Why were they not performing well? What was the outcome? What did you learn from that situation?

Give me an example of how you have helped save costs or eliminate waste within your role or organization. What was the situation? What was the impact?

Describe a time when you had to get a project or initiative completed with limited resources. How did you approach the situation? What was the impact? Knowing what you know now, would you have done anything differently?

Tell me about a time when you didn’t have enough resources to do something you felt was important but found a creative way to get it done anyway. What was the situation? What other options did you consider? How did you decide on a path forward? What was the outcome?

Tell me about a time when you had to make tradeoffs between quality and cost. How did you weigh the options? What was the result? Would you have done anything differently?

Tell me about a time when you generated a creative solution to a problem or project without requiring additional resources. What was the problem? What was the solution and how did you come up with it? What was the outcome?

Give an example of a time you requested additional funding/budget to complete a project. Why was it needed? Did you try to figure out another approach? Did you get the additional resources? Why or why not?

Describe a time when you had to decide whether or not to award or ask for additional resources. What criteria do you use for making the call? What was the outcome? Knowing what you know now, would you have done anything differently? (Manager)

Give an example of a time when you challenged your team to come up with a more efficient solution or process. What drove the request? How did you help? What were some of your biggest challenges? What were the end results? (Manager)

Tell me about a time when you strongly disagreed with your manager or peer on something you considered very important to the business. What was it and how did you handle it? Knowing what you know now, would you do anything differently?

Describe a time when you took an unpopular stance in a meeting with peers and your leader. What was it? Why did you feel strongly about it? What did you do? What was the outcome?

Often, we must make decisions as a group. Give me an example of a time you committed to a group decision even though you disagreed. What factors led you to commit to the decision? Would you make the same decision now?

Describe a time when you felt really strongly about something on a project but the team decided to go in a different direction. How hard did you press the issue? How did you approach that project afterward?

Tell me about a time when you pushed back against a decision that negatively impacted your team. What was the issue? How did it turn out? Would you have done anything differently?

Give me an example of when you submitted a great idea to your manager and they did not support it. What was the idea? How did you handle the lack of support?

Describe a time when you had to support a business initiative that you didn't agree with. How did you handle it? How did you deliver the message to your team?

Tell me about a time when the business gained something because you persisted for a length of time. Why were you so determined? How did it turn out?

Tell me about a time when you helped one of your team members develop their career. How did you help that team member? What was the result?

Tell me about a time when you invested in an employee's development. What did you invest in and why? What was the outcome? Can you share an example where investing in an employee's development didn't work out?

Give me an example of a time you provided feedback to develop the strengths of someone on your team. Were you able to positively impact their performance?

Tell me about a time when you provided coaching for a team member. What started the coaching? What was the outcome?

Tell me about someone you hired that you thought complemented your skills. How did you coach an individual in areas where you have a weakness? (Manager)

Tell me about a time when you helped a remote team member develop their career. Can you give me an example of a specific team member and how you helped them develop across the geographic distance? (Manager)

Describe a person who struggled to get promoted under your leadership and how you helped facilitate their success. (Manager)

Tell me about your most challenging talent review and promotion process that you conducted for your team. What made it challenging? What factors did you consider in your talent review? What factors did you consider in the promotion process? Did you incorporate a tool to counter unconscious bias? If yes, how? How do you manage perceptions of unfair treatment? What did you learn from this process? Knowing what you know now, would you have done anything different? (Manager)

Describe a time when you constructed a team to accomplish a goal. What factors did you consider in constructing the team? Did you factor diversity into your team construction? How did you balance work requirements, team skill composition, and team stretch opportunities? What do you consider when you allocate work? How did you ensure team members were able to work effectively together? Would you have done anything differently? (Manager)

Tell me about a time when you had a low performing individual on your team. How did you deliver feedback? Did their performance improve? (Manager)

Describe a time when you refused to compromise your standards around quality/customer service, etc. Who was your customer? What was the result?

Tell me about a time when you were unsatisfied with the status quo. What did you do to change it? What was the impact? Would you do anything differently in the future?

Tell me about a time when you worked to improve the quality of a product / service / solution that was already getting good customer feedback. Why did you think it needed improvement? How did customers react?

Tell me about a time when you had to make a decision between standards and delivery. What tradeoffs did you have make? What was the outcome? Knowing what you know now, would you have done anything differently?

Give me an example of a goal you’ve had where you wish you had done better. What was the goal? How could you have improved on it?

Describe the most significant continuous improvement project that you led. What was the catalyst to this change and how did you go about it? What was the outcome?

Tell me about a time when you used feedback about your team to drive a change. How did you gather or receive feedback on your team's performance? What was the outcome? (Manager)

When have you influenced a team to take a new direction?

When has your strong emotional connection to our brand translated to positive energy and vision for your team? Can you give a specific example of a project made better due to your connection to our brand?

How has your personal connection to sport and/or passion for the brand improved your marketing prowess?

How do you ensure your consumer instincts are up to par? When have your consumer instincts lead to a successful marketing strategy and when have they failed you? What do you contribute to the win and to the loss?

Tell us about a time when the environment in your corporate culture was negative. How did you handle it?

Describe a time when you turned a problem into an opportunity?

During your tenure with Nike, when has your professional pride been at it's highest point? How did you use your pride to inspire the team?

What is your favorite Timberland Maxim? How do you apply it to your role?

How has your understanding of Nike's heritage guided some of the business decisions you've made?

Tell us about a time you stepped into a new role or a project, and all the answers weren't available. How did you identify key stakeholders and gather the info you needed to be successful in the role?

Describe a situation in which you did not have the skills or abilities for a specific task? What did you do to accomplish it?

Describe your strengths and how you've used them to accomplish goals. What have you done to overcome or improve weaker skills?

What motivates you? Have you identified what is de-motivating for you?

What have you done beyond your baseline accountabilities to benefit the business?

In the spirit of "there is no finish line", tell about a time when you knew that even though you'd been successful, you knew you could raise the bar the next time?

What have you done this past year to elevate your game?

Tell us about a time that you encouraged others to evolve professionally.

Give us an example of a time when your technical or professional knowledge was relied upon to make a business decision.

What would others say you were "expert" in?

Professional growth is often based upon self awareness - what are the things you are working on and growing in to deepen your expertise?

How do you keep yourself informed of current industry trends? Give an example of how/when this has benefited you in your job.

Who are Timberland's Key competitors? What do you think they do well, or not so well? Do you see the competitive landscape changing?

What are some of the new trends developing in this industry that you will believe will affect the way NIKE does business?

What have you done this past year to upgrade your functional expertise?

When have you been honest or transparent about a failure, and you had to say you were sorry professionally.

Can you talk about a time when you balanced making a decision on your own versus working within the team to get consensus?

Give us an example of a time when you've been able to maintain confidence in your position or agenda, when being directly challenged by a strong personality or someone of authority.

Tell us about a time when doing the "right thing" wasn't the easiest thing.