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216 PART 2 RECRUITMENT, PLACEMENT, AND TALENT MANAGEMENT<br />

BEHAVIORAL QUESTIONS Whereas situational interviews ask applicants to<br />

describe how they would react to a hypothetical situation today or tomorrow, behavioral<br />

interviews ask applicants to describe how they reacted to actual situations in the past. 12<br />

For example, when Citizens Banking Corporation in Flint, Michigan, found that 31 of<br />

the 50 people in its call center quit in one year, Cynthia Wilson, the center s head,<br />

switched to behavioral interviews. Many of those who left did so because they didn t<br />

enjoy fielding questions from occasionally irate clients. So Wilson no longer tries to<br />

predict how candidates will act based on asking them if they want to work with angry<br />

clients. Instead, she asks behavioral questions like, Tell me about a time you were speaking<br />

with an irate person, and how you turned the situation around. Wilson says this<br />

makes it much harder to fool the interviewer, and, indeed, only four people left her center<br />

in the following year. 13 In summary, situational questions start with phrases such as,<br />

Suppose you were faced with the following situation . . . What would you do?<br />

Behavioral questions start with phrases like, Can you think of a time when . . . What did<br />

you do? 14 More employers today are using (or planning to use) behavioral interviews. 15<br />

FIGURE 7-1 Officer Programs<br />

Applicant Interview Form<br />

Source: www.uscg.mil/forms/cg/<br />

CG5527.pdf, accessed May 9, 2007.

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