Before we discuss this question, let us recap what the Behavioral Interview Round at Facebook is.
Behavioral Interview Round is also known as the Jedi Interview round at Facebook.
It is about you and your history, your résumé, and your motivation.
The purpose of this interview is to assess whether the candidate will thrive in Facebook's peer-to-peer, minimal process, and unstructured engineering organization.
For Software Engineers, the behavioral interview is actually part behavioral and part coding. The coding part is a shorter version of the usual coding interviews and is included to supplement the other two coding interviews to get an additional coding signal.
Tips & Tricks to effectively prepare for Behavioral Interviews
Know yourself! Take the time to review your résumé, as the interviewer will almost certainly ask about key events in your work history.
Have concrete examples or anecdotes to support each of the questions.
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Familiarize yourself with Facebook's mission statement and its five core values:
- Be Bold
- Focus on Impact
- Move Fast
- Be Open
- Build Social Value
Be yourself! Be open and honest about your successes and failures.
Be humble and focus on teamwork, leadership, and mentorship qualities.
Now, let us review how to effectively answer this question.
Question: Tell Me About A Time You Received Constructive Feedback
Video Explanation with Evaluation Criteria, Response Framework, Tips & Tricks, Sample Answer (Example), and a Special Case of "Don't Have Any Work Experience".
"Tell me about a time you received constructive feedback" is one of the most challenging questions asked in the behavioral interview. Interviewers sometimes also ask this question as "What is your greatest weakness?"
Evaluation Criteria
Everyone makes mistakes in their careers and has received constructive feedback from their managers or peers. By this question, the interviewer's goal is not to trick you but to assess how you react when you receive feedback from others.
They want to get a handle on how well you can adapt and perform in challenging situations and unstructured environments. They are trying to judge your ability to stay calm and composed with the right attitude when receiving criticism of any type, whether constructive or negative.
Employers want to understand your enthusiasm to:
- Learn new things,
- Exercise judgment under pressure, and
- Shift gears when needed.
They are also evaluating your:
- Communication skills,
- Ability to identify the gaps in your skills, and
- The willingness to improve yourself continuously.
Response Framework
Our advice is to pick a compelling and honest story that can articulate a real-life experience where you received constructive feedback from your manager or peer at your workplace.
Describe the situation, the events that occurred, and explain what feedback you received and from whom.
Elaborate to the interviewer how did you react when you received the feedback. Show that you maintained a calm and composed attitude and were not defensive to the person who gave you the feedback.
Explain to the interviewer how you evaluated and decided your plan of action. Elaborate on the strategy that you used to improve yourself based on the criticism.
Finally, express to the interviewer that you are level-headed and act responsibly even in times of disagreement. Show that the steps you took helped you in addressing the feedback. Explain the learnings you took from this challenging situation and how they helped you become a better engineer.
Tips & Tricks
Here are some tips and tricks that will help you effectively prepare this question for the behavioral interview.
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Always remain calm, composed, and professional.
- Refrain from being negative and avoid blaming your employer, coworkers, or manager.
- Companies generally do not like to hire people who are always pointing fingers at others.
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Use a compelling story that is honest and believable.
- It is most desirable to describe a real-life example to the interviewer to show that you have actually faced such a situation in your career and not just talk about a generic strategy.
Choose a criticism or feedback that does not disqualify you from the job you are applying for.
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Do not sugarcoat your answer with irrelevant details.
- Spend more time talking about your strategy and the actions you took to improve yourself.
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The biggest way to mess up answering this question is by simply saying that you have never received constructive feedback at your workplace.
- Instead, explain your strategies for dealing with such situations from your day-to-day life or the projects you did in college.
Prepare the response for this question beforehand, as it will be tough to structure your answer on the spot during the interview.
Do not memorize the answer as it should come naturally, and you should sound confident to the interviewer.
Sample Answer (Example)
Here is Phoebe. She is currently working as a Technical Lead at a major technology company. She is interviewing for the role of Staff Software Engineer at Facebook.
🎧 Listen to her response to this question in this YouTube Video
Special Case: Don't Have Any Work Experience
It may be the case that you don't have any work experience. New Grads and entry-level software engineers usually fall under this category.
If you are in such a situation,
- Do not end your answer by simply saying that you have never received constructive feedback at your workplace.
- Remember, no human is perfect, and everyone makes mistakes in their life.
- Try to use a real-life experience from your everyday life or the projects you did in college.
This will help the interviewer evaluate you on the following attributes that we mentioned earlier:
- How you react when you receive feedback of any type, whether constructive or negative,
- Ability to stay calm and composed with the right attitude,
- Enthusiasm to learn new things,
- Communication skills,
- Ability to identify the gaps in your skills, and
- Willingness to improve yourself continuously.
Preparation Material
Learn more about the Evaluation Criteria, Response Framework, Tips & Tricks, and Sample Answers (Examples) to effectively prepare and answer these top questions asked in the Behavioral Interviews at Facebook. Certain special cases are also discussed which are usually faced by the candidates during these interviews.
⬇️ Detailed Notes on Top Facebook Behavioral Interview Questions - Part 2
Cracking the Facebook Behavioral Interview
If you have not read our first article on Top Facebook Behavioral Interview Questions, we recommend reading it by clicking the below link:
Cracking the Facebook System Design Interview
In case if you have not read our series on Cracking the Facebook System Design Interview, we recommend reading it by clicking the below link:
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This article is part of the series on Behavioral Interviews at Facebook. So, follow us to get notified when our next article in this series is published. Thanks for reading!
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