jdconsulting

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Often people find the thought of a competency based interview a daunting prospect so I thought I’d write a post to dispel some of the concerns that you might have.

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What’s a Competency?

A competency is a knowledge, ability or expertise in a specific subject area or skill set. A company will identify the competencies that you need in order to be effective at the job for which you are applying. The competencies will vary depending on the role you are going for but may include; Communication, Teamwork, Influencing and Leadership.

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The Theory

The reason that competency based interviews were introduced was because some companies were finding that candidates were promising the world at interview but the reality was that once they were doing the job, they weren’t quite as good as they’d said that they would be! The theory of competency based interviews is that “past behaviour is the best predictor of future performance.” In other words, if you can provide sound evidence that you have effectively demonstrated a competency in the past then your future employer believes that means that you will be able to use that skill effectively when you are working for them.

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The Questions

You will be asked to provide evidence of when you have demonstrated a particular competency in the past. The questions are often worded in the following ways:

• Give me an example of a situation when…
• Tell me about a time when…
• Describe a situation when…

E.g. if the competency that you’re being asked about is Teamwork, the question might be; Tell me about a time when you worked as part of a team to complete a task.

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The Answers

It’s really important that you give a specific example, I can’t emphasise that word specific enough… they don’t want a generic example, they want to find out about a particular situation that you have been in when you effectively demonstrated the competency. Try to come up with examples in the last 3 years to show that you have these skills now. Have a look at this blog post to remind yourself of what you’ve done. There is a very useful technique called the STAR technique which can be adopted to ensure that you give a full and thorough answer – much more about the STAR technique in my next blog post.

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This entry was written by Judith Drysdale, Director at jdconsulting, www.jdconsulting.uk.com