When recruiters hire, they ask themselves 3 fundamental questions that will lead to you being hired,

• Can you do the job?
• Are you willing to do the job?
• Do you fit the existing company culture?

Most recruiters use traditional hiring methods to interview candidates. These interviews centre on the education, qualifications and experience of the candidate. If an applicant appears to fulfil these requirements and responds to interview questions as expected, the applicant is judged qualified for the position. 

Traditional interview questions rarely tell the interviewer about how you actually perform on the job, or about job experiences and accomplishments in specific situations, and you do not necessarily give answers that focus on what you did in a specific situation.

The types of questions you will be asked at a traditional interview are usually opinion and experience based questions. 

Opinion Based Interview Questions
These questions include:

• What are your strengths and weaknesses?
• How would others describe you?
• What would be your ideal job?
• Why should we hire you?
  

These questions ask what you think about a topic, not how well you will perform once you are in the job.

Experience Based Interview Questions

• How long have you been in your current job?
• Were you responsible for any new product design?
• How many people did you supervise?

These questions ask whether you can do the job, but not how willing you are to do it or how well you do it.

On the other hand, behaviour based interviewing is fast gaining popularity to counter flaws in traditional interviewing methods. Behaviour based interviewing is founded on the principle that in order to predict how a candidate is going to perform, you must determine how well the individual has performed in a similar series of tasks or jobs in the past. The questions they ask will be directly related to the behaviours required to be top performers in the position you will be interviewed for.

Therefore, you would be well advised to learn about the technique, and practice answering behavioural questions. You can prepare for behaviour-based interviews by:

• Conducting a thorough self-assessment analysing the type of positions to which you are applying.
• Understanding the required competencies (skills and qualities) for the job.
• Preparing your relevant examples, even those when results didn't turn out as planned;
• Rehearsing your responses to anticipated questions including those to tricky questions (for example, "Describing an occasion when you conformed to a policy with which you did not agree.");
• Rehearsing answers to questions that probe for consistency: " What did you do then?" "What were you thinking?" "How did you feel?"
• Remembering your successes at work, educational, volunteer activities.

When answering a behaviour based interview question, remember to describe the situation, describe how you reacted to the situation and describe the end result of your action. You might also want to get references from previous employers.

When describing a situation, you should ask yourself:

• What was the situation?
• What were you doing?
• What were the circumstances?

When describing your reactions and actions to the situation, ask yourself:

• What actions did you take?
• What specifically did you do?
• How did you handle that?

When describing the end results, ask yourself:

• What results did you get?
• How did the other person respond?
• What kind of reaction did you receive?

Here are a few examples of behaviour based questions:

• Tell me about a time you were unable to deliver a product or service on the date it was promised.
• Tell me about a time when you resolved a customer's complaint to the satisfaction of both your company and the customer.
• Can you tell me about a time when you had to interact with high-level executives within a large corporation.