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Hospitality behavioural event interviews

General introduction

A behavioural event interview asks applicants for specific examples of past behaviours that relate to the competencies required to execute a job well. The principle being that the best predictor of future performance is past performance in similar circumstances.

A good behavioural event interview feels more like a conversation rather than an interview trying to find out facts. It finds out facts through "back door" questions rather than "front door questions".

Responses to behavioural event interview questions are much more difficult to exaggerate or distort than any other the other types of questions. If one is skilled in the art of reading body language one can tell if people are recalling information or making it up. Generally speaking, liars go left, the righteous go right.

However, interviewers with even rudimentary body language skills can tell when a person is genuinely confident about their response to the question. Good behavioural event questions make it hard to not tell the truth.

The validity of applicant’s responses may also be checked by asking applicants for the names and contact details of individuals who can verify the events.

People and team questions

Hospitality is about people. A key competence you want to establish each and every prospective employee has is interpersonal and team working skills.

Questions such as, "Are you a good team worker?" will get you a response of "Yes" with some appropriate embellishment. Better questions to ask might include:

• Tell me about the last time you had a disagreement with someone.

• Tell me about the most difficult person you have worked with.

• What qualities do you admire most in others?
• What kinds of people frustrate you?

A very useful question to use if you feel that you are still getting a sanitised version of what the applicant is like is, "What would your enemies or detractors say about you?"

This question usually throws people who have been assiduously giving you a "good news" story and in the flow of a conversation it is very difficult to lie about convincingly.

The answers to the question usually tell you about the applicant's strengths which other people see as being so strong it is a weakness

Work experience questions

In some work areas these questions are easy to develop. For a middle to senior role in a reataurant, for instance, ask, "Tell me about the best place you have ever eaten?" "What was good about it?” Tell me about the worst place?” What was bad about it?" "What do you think are the keys to running a successful restauarnt?" "If this was your restaurant what would you do with it?"

Questions like these should see them respond enthusiastically. The applicant, if they are passionate about the job, should hardly be able to stop speaking. Ask them further questions about the service what was good about it, what was bad about it. Ask about when they were in a team which did not care much about giving service. Ask what they did about it. Keep the conversation going; ask for specifics; times, dates and names. Complete the series of questions with who could you call that would remember the situation they described.

Verbal and non-verbal answers to a series of questions like that will tell you what you need to know. Asking the verification question at the end will tell you about their ability to tell the truth. If they stop cold after the question hesitating to nominate someone who would know, you should have enough doubts to follow through with a call. If they answer quickly and confidently, trust their answers have been true and make the call anyway. In job interviews today, the motto is "Trust but verify".

Download interview questions

Keep visiting this page. We will add, week-by-week, behavioural event interview questions for the major job roles in the hospitality industry. If you have any particular positions you would like to us to create some questions for, please do not hesitate to contact us on +61 3 98138198 or email us.

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