Behavioural questions ask candidates to describe a real situation, such as a time they dealt with an angry customer or missed a deadline. Strong answers usually follow the STAR pattern: the situation, the task, the action taken and the result. Interviewers listen for specific details and the candidate's own part in events, probing with follow-ups like what they did next when an answer stays general.
Asking about real events makes it harder to give a rehearsed ideal answer and gives assessors concrete evidence to score. The questions work best when tied to the competencies a role needs and scored against agreed examples of strong and weak answers. For people with little work history, such as school leavers, accepting examples from education, volunteering or home life keeps the approach fair.