Behavioural Interview Questions for Software Testers

As a Software Tester, you will be interacting with a lot of people from different sections of a business. For example, if you are a QA in an Agile team, you need to be constantly talking with developers, product owners, scrum masters and other fellow testers.

It is possible that sometimes you face a difficult situation, have to make snap decisions and deal with awkward colleagues. The way you handle these situations can say a lot about your attitude towards work and other colleagues and will help the interviewer to judge whether you are suitable for the role or not.

Honesty is important but you need to be diplomatic in how you answer these questions.

These set of Interview Questions may or may not be asked at a Software Testing Interview, but it is useful to prepare in case you get asked any of these questions.

Answers to these interview questions are related to the situation and the person so answers are not provided, but the interview questions are food for thought.

1. How do you normally deal with conflict?  Give me an example.

2. Tell me about a time when you strongly disagreed with an idea or plan a co-worker had.  How did you get him/her to change his/her mind?

3. Tell me about a goal you recently set for yourself.  Did you reach it and if so how did you go about achieving it?

4. Tell me about a goal you set for yourself that you failed at.  Why do you believe you failed?

5. What have you done in the past or recently to help foster a positive team spirit or environment within your department?

6. Tell me about a time that you had multiple assignments to finish within a short time frame.  How did you go about getting them all done?

7. Tell me about a time when you had to tell a subordinate they weren’t doing their job well.

8. Tell me about a time when you had to go beyond the call of duty to get a job done.

9. Tell me about a difficult decision you’ve made within the last year.

10. Tell me about a situation where a co-worker or boss was extremely difficult to work with.  How did you handle the situation?

11. Tell me about an instance or situation at your company that you were particularly proud of?  Something that you accomplished that no one else at the company had succeeded in doing before. Why were you successful in this task when no one else was?

12. Tell me about a time when something was extremely important to you, where you were forced to speak up and sell your ideas to others.

13. Tell me about a situation when you were asked to do something that you thought was a conflict of interest.  How did you deal with the situation?

14. Tell me about a time when you were asked to complete a task that you didn’t know anything about.  How did you complete the task?

15. Tell me about the worst customer you ever had and how you dealt him/her.

16. Describe the steps you would take if a customer came to you with a problem that was beyond your knowledge and/or responsibilities.

17. Describe a recent situation when you didn’t know with whom you needed to speak with in an organization to get something done. What did you do?

18. Describe how you handle rude, difficult or impatient people.

19. Tell me about a time when you had to follow your boss’ orders when you did not agree with him or her.

20. Describe the types of people you get along with best and why.

21. Describe the types of people you have difficulty getting along with and why.

22. Tell me about a situation where you had difficulties with a team member.  What, if anything, did you do to resolve your differences?

23. Give me an example of a time that you were faced with a very difficult task.  What resources did you use to accomplish the task?  How did you prioritize your time to finish the task?

24. Describe a work situation in which you weren’t proud of your performance.  What did you learn from the situation?

25. Give me an example of when you were able to meet the personal and professional demands in your life yet still maintain a healthy balance.