Situational interview question

Where a behavioral question asks “what did you do?”, a situational question asks “what would you do?” It puts the candidate inside a moment from the job and asks them to reason through it.

Examples

• Retail: “A customer wants to return an item without a receipt, and the store policy doesn’t allow it. The customer is getting louder. What do you do?”
• Operations: “Two urgent orders arrive at the same time and you can only ship one today. How do you decide?”
• Support: “A customer asks for a feature you know is months away. What do you tell them?”
• Sales: “A prospect says your price is double a competitor’s. How do you respond?”

When situational questions work best

They suit candidates without direct experience: graduates, interns, career changers and people applying for their first job. They also work for anyone when the scenario is specific to how your team operates.

How to write a good one

1. Start from a real incident. Ask the team for a situation that came up last month and was harder than it looked.
2. Build in one tension. Policy versus customer happiness, speed versus accuracy, two stakeholders who want different things.
3. Avoid trick questions. If only one answer is acceptable and it’s obvious, you’re testing whether they can guess what you want to hear.
4. Write down what a strong answer covers before you ask anyone.

Scoring

For the retail example above, a strong answer might calm the customer first, explain the policy plainly, look for what the associate can offer (store credit, an exchange) and know when to call a manager. A weak answer refuses flatly or gives in without checking.

Pairing with behavioral questions

Using one of each for the same skill gives you both views. A candidate who describes an ideal approach and can also point to a time they did something close to it is a strong signal.