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A candidate can solve a technical problem correctly and still struggle in the personal interview. Another candidate can communicate well, build rapport, and then fall apart when the technical questions begin.
For students in engineering, computer science, software, cybersecurity, and other technical fields, interview preparation usually has to cover both sides.
Knowing where you need work can save you from spending hours practicing the wrong thing. Read on to learn how to prepare for both, whether you’re pursuing your first job, a career change, or a promotion.
Persuasive Interview works with students in technical majors through mock interviews, communication and social skills coaching, and broader career preparation. If you’d like personalized help preparing for both sides of the interview, book a call with me.
What Is a Behavioral Interview?
“Behavioral interview” isn't a universal hiring term. Depending on the company, you may hear phrases such as personality interview, culture interview, team interview, or values interview.
For this article, I’m using behavioral interview to describe the part of the hiring process where the interviewer wants to understand how you work with other people and how you present yourself professionally.
Questions might sound like:
“Tell me about a time you disagreed with a teammate.”
“How do you handle deadlines?”
“Tell me about a mistake you made.”
“What type of team environment do you prefer?”
“Why are you interested in this company?”
Behavioral interviews typically ask candidates to use previous experiences to demonstrate skills such as leadership, teamwork, and problem-solving.
As a career coach, I recommend preparing specific stories and using a structure such as STAR: Situation, Task, Action, Result.
A personality-focused interview isn't really asking whether you have a “good personality.” The interviewer is trying to understand how you communicate, make decisions, respond to other people, and behave in situations that are relevant to the job.
What Is a Technical Interview?
A technical interview focuses more directly on whether you can perform the work required in the role you’re applying for.
Depending on the field, that could involve coding, engineering problems, technical concepts, debugging, calculations, system design, or questions about the tools and methods used in the role.
There is also an important detail that many candidates miss: getting the right answer isn't always the only thing being evaluated.
You may also be expected to explain how you arrived there.
An interviewer might be paying attention to whether you:
Clarify an ambiguous problem before solving it
Organize your thinking logically
Explain why you chose one approach over another
Notice a mistake and recover from it
Communicate technical ideas clearly
Behavioral vs. Technical Interview Coaching
The easiest way to separate the two is by looking at what each type of coaching is trying to improve.
Behavioral Coaching
Technical Interview Coaching
Primary focus
How you communicate and work with people
How you apply job-specific knowledge
Typical practice
Stories, behavioral questions, communication, delivery
Problems, exercises, coding, calculations, technical questions
What the interviewer learns
How you collaborate, communicate, respond, and make decisions
How well you understand and apply technical concepts
Common weakness
Vague answers, rambling, weak examples, underselling experience
Weak fundamentals, poor problem-solving explanation, rushing
Coaching goal
Help you explain your value through relevant examples
Help you solve and explain technical problems effectively
What Behavioral Interview Coaching Actually Works On
Personality coaching shouldn't try to turn an introvert into an extrovert or teach someone to perform a different version of themselves.
Good coaching gives you a clearer way to communicate what you've already done.
Suppose an engineering student is asked:
“Tell me about a time you worked through a disagreement on a team.”
A weak answer might be:
“We disagreed about part of the project, but eventually we figured it out and everything worked out.”
Nothing is necessarily wrong with that answer. There just isn't enough detail for the interviewer to understand how you handled the situation or what it says about the way you work.
A stronger version would explain what the disagreement was, what the candidate personally did, how the group reached a decision, and what happened afterward.
That is where structured storytelling helps.
It also helps technical students recognize that their examples don't have to come from years of corporate experience. Class projects, research labs, internships, hackathons, student organizations, volunteer work, and personal projects can all provide material for interview answers.
An interview practice coach can help candidates identify those experiences, build an Interview Theme around what they want employers to understand about them, and practice communicating that message across different questions.
How to Get Better at Behavioral Interviews
Start by building a small bank of experiences rather than memorizing an answer for every possible question.
Go through your work, school, and project experience and identify situations where you had to:
Solve a problem
Work with another person
Learn something quickly
Deal with a mistake
Take initiative
Handle disagreement
Then practice explaining each experience with enough detail that the interviewer understands your contribution.
Pay particular attention to the word I. Technical students sometimes describe a project entirely in terms of what we did:
“We designed the system, we tested it, and we fixed the problem.”
In that case, the interviewer still doesn't know your role.
Try:
“Our team was responsible for testing the system. My part was analyzing the failed test results, and I noticed that…”
Now the interviewer can see what you actually contributed to the project.
What Technical Interview Coaching Should Work On
Technical interview coaching has two possible meanings, and candidates should know which one they need.
The first is technical knowledge coaching. You may need help with algorithms, engineering fundamentals, system design, accounting concepts, data structures, or another subject specific to your field.
The second is technical interview performance coaching. You may understand the subject but struggle to demonstrate that knowledge while another person is watching, questioning, or interrupting you.
Those are different problems.
If you don't understand the technical material, you probably need subject-matter practice or a technical mentor.
If you know the material but have trouble explaining your reasoning, handling uncertainty, or communicating during the exercise, interview coaching can address that part.
Persuasive Interview’s work with technical candidates focuses heavily on the communication side: helping candidates explain technical skills, connect them to business value, and present themselves as well-rounded professionals rather than relying on technical ability alone.
How to Get Better at Technical Interviews
Don't practice every technical problem silently. Instead, practice explaining some of them out loud.
Suppose you're given a coding problem. Instead of immediately typing, you might say:
“Before I start, I want to make sure I understand the requirement. Are we optimizing primarily for speed, or should I also consider memory usage?”
Then explain your approach:
“I see two possible solutions. The simpler one would be…, but that would create…. I’m going to try the second approach because…”
The interviewer can now follow your reasoning.
The same principle applies outside software engineering. An electrical engineer can explain why they selected a component. A mechanical engineer can discuss the assumptions behind a calculation. A data analyst can explain why they chose one method rather than another.
Your reasoning becomes visible.
When you’re asked something you don't know the answer to, resist the temptation to bluff. You can say:
“I haven't worked with that specific tool before. Could you tell me a little more about how your team uses it?”
Then connect it to relevant knowledge if you have it:
“I have worked with a similar system, so my first approach would probably be…”
That way, you haven't pretended to know something you don't, and you've still given the interviewer useful information about how you approach unfamiliar problems.
PRO Tip: Sometimes an interviewee (you) will think the interviewer is asking you for more clarification because the answer is wrong. In most cases, they’re asking you to clarify because you found a better way to get to the answer that they may have not considered.
Technical Candidates Often Need Both Types of Preparation
One of the easiest traps for engineering and computer science students is preparing almost exclusively for the technical portion of a hiring process.
There is an understandable reason for that. Technical questions feel measurable. You can solve another coding exercise, review another formula, or study another chapter.
Communication, on the other hand, feels less concrete.
But a company hiring an engineer isn't hiring a test-taking machine. That engineer may need to explain a design decision, ask for help, work with a project manager, handle feedback, present findings, or collaborate with another team.
In my experience as an interview coach, technically proficient candidates can still give very short answers when asked about teamwork or conflict, making it difficult for interviewers to evaluate how they would operate in a collaborative environment.
That doesn't mean technical ability becomes less important. It means the employer needs evidence of both.
How the Two Sides Show Up in the Same Interview
In practice, you won't always get one clearly labeled “behavioral interview” followed by one technical interview.
In fact, the two can happen simultaneously:
Consider a technical question where your first solution doesn't work.
Your technical ability is being tested because you have to diagnose the problem.
But your response to the mistake may also reveal whether you become defensive, whether you can accept a hint, whether you communicate calmly, and whether you can adjust your approach if needed.
Now consider a behavioral question about a failed engineering project.
The question sounds behavioral, but your answer may reveal your technical judgment: what you noticed, why you changed the design, what tradeoffs you considered, and what you learned.
Trying to separate the two completely can therefore make your preparation too rigid.
A Better Way to Practice Both
Mock interviews are a great tool to practice both behavioral and technical interview questions.
You can start with normal conversational questions: explain your background, your interest in the role, and a few experiences from projects or internships.
Then move into technical problems. Practice thinking aloud, asking clarifying questions, and explaining your decisions.
Afterward, review both the substance and the delivery.
Ask yourself:
Did I actually answer the question?
Did I provide enough evidence?
Was my individual contribution clear?
Could someone follow my technical reasoning?
Did I listen carefully before responding?
When I got stuck, did I recover professionally?
If hiring an interview coach isn’t an option right now, record your mock interviews and review them afterward. Watching yourself back can make it easier to identify specific areas to improve.
Which Type of Interview Coaching Do You Need?
Look at where your interview process tends to break down.
If you're comfortable with technical questions but struggle with “Tell me about yourself,” teamwork questions, conflict, strengths, or self-promotion, behavioral or personality-focused coaching deserves more attention.
If you communicate comfortably but repeatedly struggle with technical assessments, determine whether the problem is your subject knowledge or your ability to perform under interview conditions.
And if you can pass each part separately but struggle during longer final-round interviews, practice combining them.
A strong technical candidate should be able to solve problems and explain them. A strong communicator still needs enough technical ability to do the job.
Preparing for both helps the interviewer understand whether you can do the work and how you would communicate, collaborate, and solve problems as part of the team.
If you want help identifying which part of your interview performance needs the most work, I can help.
At Persuasive Interview, I work one-on-one with students and early-career professionals in technical fields to practice behavioral questions, strengthen communication, and prepare for the interview process. Book a call with me to talk through your goals and see whether interview coaching is the right fit for you.