Just wrapped my Verizon loop last month after a two-year career gap. I was nervous about the behavioral rounds specifically because I'd been out of the workforce and had to figure out how to frame older stories. Sharing what I learned.
Verizon runs behavioral questions in basically every round: the hiring manager screen, one dedicated behavioral panel round at the onsite, and even woven into what's nominally a technical discussion. Plan for it.
The themes that came up repeatedly:
Customer obsession (their word, not mine). They asked some version of "tell me about a time you solved a problem that directly impacted a customer" in at least two rounds. They mean external customer or end user, not internal stakeholder. Have a crisp story ready.
Collaboration under disagreement. "Tell me about a time you had a strong technical opinion that others disagreed with, and how it resolved." They want to see you can advocate without blowing up the team. This one felt important to them.
Ownership / bias for action. Classic "tell me about a time something broke and you stepped up" type prompt. Given that Verizon is operationally intensive (network reliability is the product, basically), they care a lot about engineers who don't wait for a ticket to be assigned before acting.
Adaptability. I got "tell me about a project that changed direction significantly mid-way" in one round. They seemed to be screening for people who get frustrated vs. people who recalibrate.
What I noticed about format: They're firmly in the STAR camp but they don't call it that. Two of my interviewers explicitly asked for "the situation, what you did, and the outcome" so structuring that way signals competence.
They don't seem to have a published leadership principles list the way Amazon does, but the values above are consistent enough that I'd call them de facto principles.
For context: I was interviewing for a Senior Program Manager role, not SWE, so the behavioral weight was higher than for a pure coding loop.