Today, Danny Sheridan of ‘Fact of the Day 1’ shared a POV on communicating the why of your decisions at work. Well the same applies (and then some) during a job interview, for both behavioral and case interviews.

From August 4: When Making a Decision, Share the Why:

Step 1: Be clear about the desired outcome; aim for a single, well-articulated outcome.

Step 2: Identify potential solutions and the trade-offs between them.

Step 3: Communicate the decision to get buy-in. Share the “why.”

Behavioral (Think Amazon and Startups)

You want to do exactly the same thing in behavioral interviews:

1. When telling the story, clearly articulate the outcome to reduce the cognitive load on your interviewer.

2. Explain the solutions and trade offs you considered.

3. Explain how you got buy-in.

Craft & Execution (think Google and Startups)

For execution (think Google’s new Craft & Execution questions), a similar approach works well.

1. Clearly articulate how you are going to tackle the problem framed around the desired outcome.

2. Identify solutions and trade offs (pros vs cons)

3. Talk about how you will get buy-in for your idea (think cross-functional comms)