AIG · Primly Community

AIG behavioral interview questions and values, what they're really assessing

sam_recovering · 4 replies

I interviewed at AIG last month. the behavioral round surprised me a little. I'm used to behavioral rounds feeling like a formality but AIG's was actually the most substantive part of my loop.

some questions they asked me, roughly: tell me about a time you had to push back on a stakeholder request you thought was wrong describe a project where the requirements changed significantly mid-stream. how did you adapt? give me an example of when you had to build consensus across teams with competing priorities have you ever delivered something you weren't proud of? what happened? tell me about a time you mentored or brought up someone junior

the last one caught me a bit off-guard. I wasn't expecting a mentorship question for an individual contributor role, but AIG seems to really care about whether senior people invest in others.

what I got from the debrief / recruiter feedback: they evaluate on a few dimensions that map roughly to their leadership principles. things like accountability, collaboration, customer focus, and integrity show up a lot. insurance is a trust-heavy industry. they want people who own their mistakes, not spin them.

the behavioral was with an EM, not HR, which meant they could go deep and follow up. mine lasted 50 minutes because the conversation kept going.

tip that helped me: I used STAR format but kept my situations specific and un-sanitized. I mentioned a project that actually failed partway through. the interviewer's body language changed in a good way when I didn't try to make it a triumph.

if you're coming from big tech where behavioral rounds are sort of vibes-checked, AIG takes these more seriously. treat it like a real interview, not a formality.

4 replies

returner_ren

the mentorship question is interesting. I've had that at a lot of financial services companies. I think once you're past 5-6 YOE they start screening for whether you'll contribute to growing the team, not just ship code.

recruiter_rita

the "delivered something I wasn't proud of" question is a really good signal question. candidates who have no answer or give a fake humble answer usually don't have real ownership mentality. the ones who give honest answers and explain what they'd do differently get remembered.

ae_andre

treating the behavioral as a formality is the number one way people fail big company loops. every structured question is giving them data. sounds like AIG actually uses that data.

brand_ben

the integrity angle makes sense given what AIG does. financial services companies get burned badly when employees cut corners on ethics. they're testing for that in the behavioral, whether explicitly or not.