When Are Behavioral Skills Evaluated During Interview Process
The 3 moments candidates should be prepared for
Hey, Prasad here 👋 I’m the voice behind the weekly newsletter “Big Tech Careers.”
In this week’s article, I share when you as candidates should be prepared to showcase behavioral skills during the interview process and provide you resources to prepare.
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Here’s something that surprises most technical professionals: behavioral skills aren’t just evaluated during the dedicated behavioral interview round. They’re being evaluated from the very first question, often before the technical interview even starts.
Many candidates believe behavioral assessment happens in a separate block, usually near the end of the interview process. In reality, hiring teams are evaluating your behavioral competencies across every single interview. Your ability to be hired at the right level depends on consistent performance across three distinct evaluation moments, and each requires different preparation.
The Three Moments When Behavioral Skills Are Evaluated
First, there’s the opening conversation. This starts with your recruiter call and continues into the first technical interview. Then, behavioral evaluation happens throughout your technical interviews themselves. Finally, there’s the dedicated behavioral interview round. Each moment assesses different aspects of your competencies and requires different strategies.
Most candidates focus only on the third moment. They prepare answers to “Tell me about a time when...” questions but neglect the other two. This is a critical mistake. The interviewer who speaks to you first forms an impression that influences how every other interviewer perceives you. The technical interviewer who watches you explain your architectural choices is simultaneously assessing your judgment and decision-making process. By the time you reach the dedicated behavioral round, the narrative about you is already partially written.
Let’s look at each moment, what’s being evaluated, and how to prepare.
Moment 1: Tell Me About Yourself
The question “Tell me about yourself” appears everywhere. It’s asked by the recruiter on your initial call. It’s asked by the technical interviewer at the beginning of the coding round. It’s asked by the hiring manager. It’s asked by the panel interviewer before the system design discussion. Some candidates face this question five times in a single interview loop, sometimes with slightly different framings like “Walk me through your resume” or “Tell me about your background.”
Most candidates completely underestimate its importance. When you’re asked “Tell me about yourself,” the interviewer isn’t looking for your resume recited out loud. They’re assessing several behavioral competencies simultaneously.
Can you communicate concisely? Do you highlight impact or just responsibilities? Do you show self-awareness about your growth? Do you understand what matters for this specific role? Can you tell a coherent story about your career progression?
Your answer shapes how the interviewer perceives you before any technical question is asked. If you ramble for five minutes without clarity, they’ve already formed an impression. If you jump between random accomplishments without connection, they’re questioning your communication skills. If you focus entirely on what you did without explaining the impact, they’re seeing a junior mindset.
Here's an article with a framework to help you prepare your answer for "Tell me about yourself.":
Moment 2: Behavioral Skills During Technical Interviews
Many candidates don’t realize that behavioral assessment happens throughout technical interviews, not just when answering explicit behavioral questions.
During a coding interview, the interviewer might ask “Why did you choose this data structure?” or “How would you optimize this further?” These are behavioral moments. They’re assessing how you think about tradeoffs, whether you consider constraints, how you handle feedback, whether you communicate reasoning clearly.
During a system design interview, when you’re drawing architecture on the whiteboard, behavioral evaluation is happening constantly. Can you explain your decision-making process? Do you consider the viewpoint of your interviewer? Do you ask clarifying questions before diving in? Do you acknowledge tradeoffs or do you present your solution as obviously optimal? Do you listen when challenged or do you defend rigidly?
The technical answer is only part of the evaluation. How you arrive at that answer, how you explain your reasoning, and how you discuss tradeoffs all signal your seniority level.
Read this article to discover how behavioral skills can help you stand out in technical interviews:
Moment 3: Dedicated Behavioral Interview Questions
It’s where you have the most time and space to demonstrate behavioral competencies in depth. It’s where you seal the narrative that’s been building throughout the interview and get hired at right level.
Here are few resources to help you prepare for behavioral interviews:
What This Means for Your Preparation
You need to prepare for all three moments, not just the behavioral round.
First, master your “Tell me about yourself” answer. This is your opening act. Make it strategic, concise, and tailored to the role. Practice it until it feels natural, not robotic. Know multiple versions for different interview contexts.
Second, develop the ability to articulate your thinking during technical interviews. Learn to explain not just what you decided, but why. Practice talking through your decision-making process, your assumptions, your tradeoffs. When an interviewer pushes back or asks a clarifying question, see it as an opportunity to demonstrate your thinking, not as an attack.
Third, prepare deep answers for behavioral questions. Depending on the company you are preparing for, have five to fifteen well-developed stories that you can adapt to different questions. Know the underlying behavioral competencies you’re demonstrating with each story.
The candidates who get hired at the right level aren’t necessarily the smartest in the room. They’re the ones who communicate clearly across all three moments. They tell a coherent story about their career, their judgment, and their impact from the first question to the last.
Big Tech Interview Preparation Course
While I share everything for free here in this newsletter, if you need all the material in a structured course format with a deep dive into preparation methodology for each of these three moments, I have a self-paced course for you.
Here is the full curriculum along with the time duration of each section that is covered in the 3+ hour course:
1) Build a Strong Foundation (33:22)
How to introduce yourself in an interview? (13:39)
How to stand out in technical interview using behavioral skills? (02:53)
Examples of technical interview answers showcasing behavioral skills (10:44)
How to handle technical questions for which you do not know the answer (06:06)
2) Gain expertise on STAR format (01:16:31)
What is STAR (Situation, Task, Action, Result) format (09:07)
How to use STAR format effectively to answer behavioral questions (11:56)
The Three Pillars of Senior-Level Responses (Scope and Impact) (11:22)
The Three Pillars of Senior-Level Responses (Technical Depth and Complexity) (08:09)
The Three Pillars of Senior-Level Responses (Leadership and Collaboration) (08:43)
Effectively use the Three Pillars of Senior-Level Responses in STAR format (06:25)
Key themes you should be preparing for your behavioral interviews (07:40)
Number of stories you should be preparing for behavioral interviews (13:19)
3) Become an Expert Interviewee (26:09)
How long an answer should be (05:06)
How to answer follow-up questions? (05:21)
How to handle scenario questions for which you don’t have experience (10:59)
How to read the clues by the interviewer and course-correct (04:43)
4) Real answers that landed MAANG+ jobs (27:36)
Real answers that landed MAANG+ jobs (Customer/User Focus Story) (06:59)
Real answers that landed MAANG+ jobs (Success Story) (03:09)
Real answers that landed MAANG+ jobs (Failure Story) (09:30)
Real answers that landed MAANG+ jobs (Conflict Story) (07:58)
5) Next steps and Action plan to get a dream job in next 6 months (16:58)
Next steps and Action plan to get dream job in next 6 months (12:24)
Take home exercise (04:34)
In the course, you’ll learn following:
✅ Deliver high-impact STAR-format responses
✅ Craft compelling technical achievement stories
✅ Effectively communicate leadership experiences
✅ Blend technical depth with strong behavioral skills
✅ Prepare mentally for four to eight rounds of interviews
✅ Stay authentic while following structured frameworks
✅ Navigate past failures and conflicts with confidence
✅ Deliver senior-level responses to get hired at the right level
Check the course page for more details.