came back to full-time work after a two-year caregiving gap and Merck was one of my first serious processes. i went in genuinely curious about how their behavioral round worked, partly because i knew my answers needed to be tight and partly because behavioral rounds are where i've seen the most variation company to company.
here's what the Merck behavioral round actually looked like for me (senior software engineer role, 60 min round).
they have a framework they call something like core values or leadership principles, and while they're not as codified as Amazon's LPs, the questions clearly map to categories:
integrity and ethics. they asked something like "tell me about a time you identified a process or decision that you thought was ethically questionable and what you did." for pharma, this is not abstract. they're a regulated company, people's health is downstream of their software. take this seriously.
patient focus. even for engineering roles, some version of "how does your work connect to patient outcomes" came up. i hadn't expected it. if you're coming from pure tech you'll want to think about this before you walk in.
collaboration. classic cross-functional conflict question: "tell me about a time you disagreed with a stakeholder and how you resolved it." nothing unusual here.
innovation. "describe a time you identified a better approach to something your team was already doing and how you got buy-in."
they used STAR format explicitly. the interviewer actually said "walk me through the situation and the result." so structure your answers that way.
one thing i noticed: they gave me a lot of space. if i got quiet while thinking, they waited. not uncomfortable silence, just patience. i appreciated it.
the questions weren't gotchas. they were real competency checks. if you have solid stories with clear outcomes, you'll be fine. where people probably trip up is not connecting the work to the mission of the company. pharma is different from consumer tech and they know it, but they want to see that you've thought about why it matters.
for me as a returner, i was transparent about the gap and nobody made it weird. one interviewer said something like "caregiving experience is real leadership experience" which i didn't expect from a pharma company, but there it is.