Your next interview is important, so you prepare by studying the company's recent performance and reviewing the job requirements. You also assess your strengths, weaknesses and goals and practice possible responses to questions about them. As the meeting begins, you're ready for questions about how you'd handle hypothetical job issues.

A few minutes into the interview, though, you realize you aren't prepared at all. These interviewers have little interest in hypothetical situations or canned statements about your strengths and weaknesses. Instead, they're taking copious notes about your responses to these questions:

Tell us about a time in the past year when you had to deal with a difficult team member and describe what you did.

Give us an example of a time when you used your customer philosophy to deal with a perplexing problem.

Welcome to the behavioral-based interview, an assessment technique that focuses on what candidates have done in the past, not on what they say they might do in the future. This allows hiring executives to assess applicants more thoroughly, fairly and accurately than other methods, say human resources specialists.

"The premise is that past behavior predicts future behavior," says Paul Green, CEO and president of Behavioral Technology Inc., a Memphis consulting firm that trains hiring managers and interviewers in behavioral interviewing strategies. "It's a very common-sense, practical way of thinking, because people tend not to change."

Interviewers pose structured, open-ended questions to determine which skills candidates have used successfully in prior positions. The assumption is that candidates will behave in the future much as they did in the past. Knowing how they acted can help employers more confidently predict how well they might perform in a particular job, says Dr. Green.

Another advantage to the technique is that interviewers don't have to become amateur psychologists to use it successfully, says Bill Byham, president and CEO of Development Dimensions International Inc., a Pittsburgh firm that trains interviewers at such companies as General Motors and Coca-Cola.

"After an interview," Dr. Byham says, "an interviewer can say, 'In my interview, this candidate was able to give me three excellent examples of how he could lead a team and accomplish something on time. Therefore, because that's an important attribute of this job, I believe this person will do well in the job.' " This removes "pseudo-psychology" from the interviewing process, Dr. Byham says.

Consultants estimate that at least one-fourth of interviewers are using the approach, and the numbers are increasing. This may be good news for candidates. Although behavioral interviews may sound intimidating, they offer advantages not found with "traditional" interview techniques--if you know how to make the most of them. The following advice can help you excel in such sessions and improve your chances of winning an offer.

Before a behavioral interview, hiring managers and human resources professionals identify specific "competencies" or abilities needed to succeed in the available position. Those include technical skills (like expertise in a certain software program) and performance skills (like leadership ability or creativity), says Dr. Green.

From these competencies, the interviewers develop a list of questions, which are designed to elicit descriptions of skills candidates used in the past. Each candidate will be asked the same questions, which ensures uniformity. Candidates should feel relieved, not worried, about the consistency of the questions since a systematic approach reduces the likelihood that stereotypes, quick judgments or pet theories will play a role in hiring decisions, says Dr. Green, author of "Get Hired! Winning Strategies to Ace the Interview" (1996, Bard Press).

"The interview is administered as a structured conversation," he says.

At its best, the practice allows candidates to be judged on what they've done, not on their personalities or demeanor in interviews, says Adeline Sullivan, a staffing consultant for Hewlett-Packard in Cupertino, Calif.

She should know, having been through a behavior-based interview before being hired for her current position. That session gave her a rare opportunity to comprehensively present her skills and capabilities, she recalls.

Drawbacks to behavioral interviews include the possibility that you may "lose control" of the conversation, says Ms. Sullivan.

"In behavioral interviewing, the interviewer is asking you situational questions related to a specific behavior," says Ms. Sullivan. "You have to respond with an experience that's related, and that may not be your best accomplishment. It may not even be what you were prepared to talk about."

She advises candidates to prepare beforehand by thinking about their experiences and how they relate to the available opening.

To succeed in a behavioral interview, you must be able to relate stories that link your experiences and skills to the potential position and employer. Begin by learning about the company, just as you would when preparing for any other interview, Ms. Sullivan says. Pay close attention to the organization's core values, since some questions will likely relate to them.

Next, focus on the job and key competencies the employer wants. Ask for a copy of the job description and try to identify technical and performance skills it requires. Seek out contacts within the company and ask them about skills that might be most important.

Also ask the hiring manager what abilities will be assessed in the interview, says Mike Ray, senior staffing consultant at Intel Corp. in Santa Clara, Calif.

"The employer doesn't have to tell you, of course, but I've done it so many times," says Mr. Ray, who has used behavior-based interviewing for seven of his 24 years at Intel. "It never hurts to ask."

The next step is to tap your memory for detailed stories involving work and other critical experiences that you can use when answering questions about job competencies or the company's values.

Practice telling stories using a "STAR" framework, which stands for Situation/Task, Action and Result, says Mr. Byham. You must identify a Situation or Task you faced, describe the Action you took in response and explain the Results of your actions. This framework can be helpful in other interview formats as well, he says.

Don't take the word "story" literally and regale interviewers with tales that never happened or you'll be disqualified, warns Katie Sween, regional staffing manager in Sunnyvale, Calif., for Hewlett-Packard Corp.

"When someone is lying, you can detect it in a second, and it doesn't go over very well," says Ms. Sween.

But prepared candidates won't need to rely on fiction, says Dr. Green. Instead, they'll be confident in their ability to use actual experiences to answer interviewers' questions.

"In behavioral interviewing, [the key is] preparation, preparation, preparation," he says. "If you're prepared, it won't matter when an interviewer pulls out a structured interview form. You'll be ready with specifics that will show the interviewer how valuable you really are."

--Mr. Vogt, a graduate student in counseling at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater, writes about career issues.