Behavioural Job Interview
Read the questions below, then press Play (about 75 seconds).
1. What was Mateo's role in his last job?
2. What were the two senior staff members arguing about?
3. Why did Mateo speak to each person separately?
4. What did Mateo discover about the person who wanted fixed shifts?
Read the transcript of this part
Try listening first, then use the text to check what you heard. Audio uses a computer-generated voice.
Interviewer: Thanks for coming in, Mateo. I'd like to start with a behavioural question. Tell me about a time you had to deal with a conflict in your team. Mateo: Sure. In my last job, I was coordinating a warehouse team of twelve people. Two of our senior staff disagreed about the night-shift schedule. One wanted fixed shifts; the other wanted a rotation so that nobody was stuck on nights permanently. The disagreement got quite personal, and it was starting to affect the rest of the team. Interviewer: What did you do? Mateo: First, I spoke to each of them separately, because I didn't want either of them to feel embarrassed in front of the others. I asked them to explain not just what they wanted, but why. It turned out that the person who wanted fixed shifts had childcare problems, and the other one was worried about fairness. Once I understood that, I suggested a compromise: a rotation, but with the option for people to swap shifts with each other if they had family commitments. We tried it for two months.