i just went through the Goldman Sachs behavioral interview as part of their technology division hiring process and wanted to share what it was like, because the prep advice i found online was pretty generic.
Goldman has a set of published values: client focus, integrity, commitment, and excellence (among others). the behavioral questions are not subtle about connecting to these. you'll get asked things like: "tell me about a time you had to deliver difficult feedback to a client or stakeholder" (client focus + integrity) "describe a situation where you pushed back on a decision you thought was wrong" (integrity + commitment) "walk me through a project where the scope kept expanding and how you managed that" (excellence + commitment)
they're STAR format but the depth they want is higher than a typical startup. they'll follow up on follow-ups. my interviewer asked me three follow-ups on a single story before moving to the next question. be ready to go deep on one or two stories rather than having a shallow stock of six.
a few things that helped me: i framed everything with business impact. "i pushed back and the team agreed" is fine. "i pushed back, we changed the approach, and it saved three weeks of rework" is better. when i didn't have a perfect story, i said so and gave the closest thing i had. they seemed to appreciate not being spun. the behavioral round at Goldman is NOT a formality. i've heard of candidates who cleared every coding round and got dinged on behavioral. they take the values seriously.
one thing i wasn't prepared for: they asked me about a time i had to balance speed with quality. in a finance context, that question has real weight. getting it wrong isn't just a sprint slip, it's compliance risk. i'd think about how you'd frame that for a regulated industry.