Hirevue Behavioral Bank (6 Questions)

The Goldman Hirevue is a 6-question recorded video interview, 30s prep + 2 min answer per question. Five questions rotate from a small behavioral bank focused on integrity, deadlines, teamwork, and ethics; the sixth is an engineering-specific closer. Requirements 6 questions, recorded sequentially in one session. 30 seconds of prep per question, 2 minutes to answer (prep time was cut from 45s in 2024). One take per question; no re-record. Five behavioral + one engineering-specific. The engineering closer is its own card — see Explain Recursion to a Non-CS Audience. Notes The behavioral bank is small and predictable. Confirmed recurring prompts: Resume walk-through (asked of every candidate). Tight 90-second narrative arc. Time conflict / dropping a project — "Describe a time you had a time conflict and had to give up some projects. Walk through your thinking, the decision, and the result." Non-contributing teammate — "Tell me about a time when you were working on a project with someone who was not completing his or her part. How did you build teamwork and accountability? How did you work through resistance?" Highly challenging goal — "Describe a time you successfully met a goal others thought you would not." Client request violating firm policy — "A major-client deal will close if you go through with it, but the client's request violates firm policy. What would you do, who would you talk to, how would your actions be received?" (Ethics signal — the expected answer is to escalate to compliance / supervisor and decline the request, never to find a workaround.) Mis-sent confidential information — "You accidentally send confidential info to a client. How do you handle it? Who do you talk to?" Suspicious email / phishing — "You receive an email asking for sensitive information. How do you determine if it's fraud and what do you do?" Project derailed by something outside your control — "A project you cared about was negatively impacted by something out of your control. How did you solve that?" Repeated-failure-then-success — "When you repeatedly tried something and finally succeeded, what did you learn from the unsuccessful tries?" Turning down an opportunity — "Tell me about a time you had to turn down a project or opportunity because of a conflict or competing deadlines." Decision with many pros and cons — explain how you compared options, what criteria mattered, and what the outcome was. Learning / expertise-building — describe a topic you want to become expert in, why it matters, and what resources or steps you use to improve. Big O notation closer — define Big O briefly and give a couple of simple algorithm examples. Preparation Pre-write 3 STAR stories that can be re-pointed across these themes (deadline conflict, teammate accountability, an unexpected setback). 30 seconds of prep is too short to construct a story from scratch. For the policy-violation and mis-sent-confidential-info prompts, the scoring axis is integrity and escalation, not creativity. The correct beat is: pause the action, escalate to the right person (manager / compliance / legal), document, and resume only with approval. Practice with a 30-second timer, including 2-minute answers. The pacing is unusual and most candidates run out of time on the first take. Record yourself once before the real Hirevue — body language and pacing on camera are non-trivial for first-timers.