Behavioral Interviews: Strategies for Neurodiverse Folks
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The time has come to take that little condensed document of your whole career life known as “A Resume” and expand upon it in spoken word—aka, The Interview. But not any type of interview, The Behavioral Interview. You know, the one where every question opens with “Tell me about a time…” or “Give me an example of when….” These are called behavioral questions as they are using your past experiences to “see if correct behaviors will be identified” and predict how you may act in a situation.
Behavioral Interviews have become far more popular these days with about 75% of companies saying they are using them to evaluate your soft skills, (which BTW: “93% of employers consider soft skills an “essential” or “very important” factor in hiring someone”). You can thank Dr. Tom Janz, an industrial psychologist, who released his book in the 1980s for this process.
While this might sound terrifying especially when you’re already spending possibly up to 10 hours preparing for an interview, let’s talk how to save time, make you successful and crush it. Also, big pro of this process: you only need to do this big lift one time and you have a template for interviews going forward.
Common challenges for neurodiverse Folks
There are a few extra special challenges for Neurodiverse folks when it comes to Behavioral Interviews, particularly if you are someone who has difficulty with Executive Function; specifically the organization, communication, adaptable thinking, and memory elements.
Why? Because these types of interviews are asking you to recall an example from your past with enough detail to include metrics, stakeholders, what you did and why, but in a clear and concise way (about 5 minutes of talking). Then there will be follow-up questions—some related to your experience, some on the fly that are asking you to expand or show how you’d handle a similar hypothetical situation. That is a lot for your brain and body to coordinate while still appearing confident, qualified, and cordial.
As with most things, preparation and practice are going to be key. How you do this will depend on how your brain works—Top-Down thinking or Bottoms-Up—so let’s dive into some options and which preparation and practice paths may work best for you,
The STAR Method…for Bottom-Up Thinkers
You may have heard the best structure to prepare for a behavioral interview (and really, any interview) is called the STAR Method: Situation. Task. Action. Result. This format of response cohesively explains an experiential narrative that reflects your skills.
Situation: give context to the interviewer so they can follow along. Detail your role, when, team and relevant high-level background. This is a simple, direct sentence that provides context and flows easily into the next secion.
Task: explain “issue” or “problem” you’re about to fix and why it’s important. This is about 2-3 sentences that defines the issue that needs a resolution and why it was crucial to fix it for the business.
Action: describe the efforts you did or didn’t do to resolve the task and why you chose those specific actions. Usually the meat of the narrative. It will include you analysis the Task and why you chose to do what you did and how you did it.
Result: detail both analytical and anecdotal outcomes, both positive and negative. This section wraps back into the Task in that you should report on the whole resolution of the project and their results.
I recommend the following way to get yourself to both understand your Strengths and get your brain and mouth connected in a concise, yet authentic way while managing anxiety. Additionally, this is to do what the interviewer will be doing back to you after you tell them your narrative to confirm understanding: I call it the Dwarf STAR Method.
It’s a super-duper condensed version of STAR: instead of a single massive narrative, you’re going to break it down and write only one sentence for each part of STAR and work your way up.
Strategies for preparation
This whole process may feel long, but this is a do-it-once-and-you-can-reuse thing. Here we go:
Look back at your work history and find your 6 favorite projects or wins. Also find 2 things you failed at or weren’t too proud of.
Document those stories as they pour out of you
Assign Hard and Soft Skills to each story
Refine it into the Dwarf STAR Template
Expand it to full STAR Template
Practice reading until you’re comfortable explaining
If you’re a Top-Down kinda person or very confident in your Career Projects and skills, you can likely start at number 5 completing full narratives.
1. Finding Your Stories
Figure out your best and favorite moments in your career and this does include volunteer work, portfolios, etc. Think of at least 5-6 of your “hell yeah!” make-you-smile and spark joy moments. If you have a Career Project Tracker (check this post) now is the time to whip it out.
2. Get Those Stories Out
Now, word vomit them into a document or even an audio memo or video; the goal is to get it out of your head and make the information easily accessible to you again.
3. Assign Skills
Next, assign both Hard and Soft Skills (3 max) that you think you demonstrated well in each story.
4. Dwarf STAR Gazing
Use the following template below to write ONE sentence for each section in the Dwarf STAR based on each skill you used. Here are some starter examples where you can fill in the blank from your story spew session:
S: When I was [Job Title] at [Company], I was responsible for [a thing]…
T: …that [had an issue] that [impacted the business this way].
A: I fixed it by [using Hard/Soft Skill] to [what you actually did to fix the thing].
R: The results were [Number] and/or [personal or team win].
That’s it. Don’t embellish. Don’t even use adjectives. Just get straight to the core points.
PS you can stick your raw stories into GenAI and ask it to condense the into the Dwarf STAR per skill if you need help to edit and not get overwhelmed.
5. Expand Dwarf STARs into Giant STARs
This is the tricky part as it’s sometimes considered one of the cons of the Behavioral Interview—you can seem TOO practiced. It’s considered a con because you may not seem “adaptable” which is why some interviewers will ask you a situational question as a follow-up.
Now, take your Dwarf STARs and can make them into a (Giant) “regular” STAR format. Expand on your narrative and create that cohesive story with more details to express your experience. By having the core elements of your STARs done, you will be able to use your awesome brain to think and riff on possible responses or focus on follow-up questions.
6. Practice Practice Practice
Read and work on your Giant STARs until you are happy with how you tell your story as naturally as possible. Now, you’re ready to do some mock interviews to try it out in real time!
Some Things to Consider
Having Notes
As both an interviewer and interviewee, I’m a fan of having notes. Some interviewers are not. It’s good to ask your recruiter if notes are appropriate ahead of time. You can help keep your eye contact by taping your resume to the side of your monitor. You can put Dwarf STARs all around your monitor or desk. However you do it, you need to be able to find a response within under about 45 seconds and ensure you’re not just reading and looking off screen at said notes or that’s considered a red flag.
How Much Is Too Much
I recommend you’re able to tell your complete STAR narrative in 5-7 minutes without rambling (under 10 minutes). You want to be able to answer all basic questions from the Dwarf STAR method while adding details to minimize clarifying questions from your interviewer (e.g. “Can you tell me why you decided to do that?”) and have more dynamic questions (e.g. “What would you had done if that stakeholder vetoed the whole idea?”).
Accommodations
If you feel you need more help or support, reminder that in the US under the American Disabilities Act (ADA) you are allowed to ask for accommodations during your interview process—this, by the way, is why you see that blurb on job descriptions. I understand this opens a whole personal can of worms but know you have this option.
Remember you’re a star (ha ha) with your experiences. Get them out of your brain and into a format where you can express yourself best. Create a smaller mind map Dwarf STAR, expand it to the Giant STAR, and practice, practice, practice.
If you’re looking for a handy way to do write you Dwarf and Giant STAR Stories, assign skills, and have associated interview questions in on place, you can check out this Notion Template for sale in my store above.
