Also referred to as behavioural or structured interviews, competency based interviews are designed to demonstrate your experience in a specific area relevant to the job. A job specific interview template will have been designed pulling out the top three or four competencies for the role, with key criteria and a scoring framework so that all candidates can be consistently assessed.
If unprepared, competency based interviews can throw candidates off guard. We find the majority of candidates can talk at length, generically about what they might do on a daily basis but find it very hard to provide one specific, relevant example that demonstrates competence in the area being questioned. Here are some simple tips to help you prepare for a competency based interview.
1. Think about the competencies that are going to be critical in the job you’re interviewing for. Common competencies include teamwork, problem solving, leadership, customer service, relationship building, organisation, resilience.
2. Examples examples examples! Prepare a few different scenarios to talk through. You’ll find that depending on how you frame it, some scenarios will work across multiple competencies. Just make sure you use a different example for each competency based question.
3. Make sure for each scenario you can talk through what the situation was, who was involved, what the objective was, your approach / who did what and most importantly what the outcome was. Make sure the outcome is positive and demonstrates success!
4. Don’t worry about taking a few moments to consider your answer.
5. Keep your answer as succinct as possible i.e. don’t waffle on and try and stick to the point. Good interviewers will likely ask you questions to help you stay on track and ensure you answer the question.
The key as with most things is preparation.
We hope these tips help you prepare and wish you the best of luck in your next interview!
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