Mastering competency-based interviewing

As mentioned earlier, employers are increasingly using behavioral-based questions to assess a candidate’s suitability for a role. These questions can be difficult to answer on the spot and can cause you to ramble with seemingly unintelligent responses if you haven’t prepared beforehand. An example of a behavioral-based questions is, ‘Tell me about a time in which you had to use your written communications skills in order to get an important point across’.

A proven and effective way of responding to behavioral-based interviews is to use the STAR (Situation, Task, Action, Result) structure.

Situation or Task

Set the context. Describe the situation that you were dealing with or the task that needed to be accomplished. Be concise and informative, concentrating solely on what is useful to the story.

Action

Now that you have set the context of your story, you need to explain what you did, why you did it and what were the alternatives. In doing so:

be personal, i.e. talk about you, not the rest of the team
go into some detail to make sure the interviewer understands the situation and what you did
avoid using technical terms unless it is crucial to your story

The interviewers will want to know how you reacted to the situation. This is where you can start selling some important skills.

Result

Explain what happened eventually and how it all ended. Use the opportunity to describe what you accomplished and what you learnt in that situation. This helps you make the answer personal and enables you to highlight further skills.

This part of your response will confirm for the interviewer whether you are taking specific actions because you are trying to achieve a specific objective and not simply getting a result by chance.

Answering behavioral questions

Answers to behavioral questions should be specific and as succinct as possible. Be prepared to quantify your results, particularly sales-focused or revenue-generating positions. Tell the interviewer about a particular situation that relates to the question, not a general one. This is where your preparation becomes critical. Before the interview process, identify two or three of your top selling points and determine how you will convey these points (with demonstrated STAR stories) during the interview – without sounding too rehearsed.

During a behavioral interview, always listen carefully to the question, ask for clarification if necessary, and make sure you answer the question completely.

When the question relates to a problem or difficult situation, you need to ensure that the interviewer understands the problem that you were facing. Describe the situation objectively without laying blame on others.

Make sure that you inform the interviewer about the steps that you took as an individual and as a team to ensure the problem was dealt with, what worked well and what you learned from the experience. Is there anything you would do differently when presented with the same scenario again?

While some behavioral questions are designed to see how you respond to negative situations, it’s best to choose negative experiences that you learnt from or if possible, ended positively. The way you have responded to situations that didn’t go as planned may be as informative to the interviewer as those where a positive outcome was achieved. What did you do then? What did you learn?

Remember you can also show evidence of the desired behaviors and capabilities for a position through extracurricular activities and hobbies, or volunteer/community work, depending on the seniority of the position.

Examples of behavioral-based questions

It is worth thinking about possible behavioral type questions beforehand, otherwise, they can be quite difficult and put you on the spot.

Obviously, the questions will depend on the nature of the role and the competencies the interviewer is looking to identify, but the examples below should give you some idea of typical questions.

In preparing your response, think about what the interviewer is trying to find out about you and what competency they are assessing, by asking that particular question and remember that competencies cover the set of abilities/ skills required to do a job but as importantly, the knowledge and attitude needed for the job.

Leadership

How open-minded are you to other members’ ideas? Do you consult members? How do you make decisions in general?
Have you ever acted as a mentor to a co-worker?
Provide an example of a situation where you had to create an agreement between parties who originally differed in opinion, approach, and objectives.
What are the key values of a leader? How do you demonstrate these values?
How do you keep yourself and your teammates motivated?
Did you have faults as a leader? Describe the situation.
What is the difference between a manager and a leader?

Customer service

Tell me about a time when you went the extra mile for a client.
How do maintain/initiate a good relationship with clients? How do you keep him or her satisfied?
How do you balance the company’s interest and the interest of customers?
Have you turned down a request from a client? What was the reason?

Sales

Tell us how you go about bringing in new clients and developing business.
What motivates you about sales?
How do you promote a product or service? What are the initial steps that you take?
How do you keep up with new trends?

Communication

Tell me about a time in which you had to use your written communications skills in order to get an important point across.
Give an example of when you had to present complex information in a simplified manner in order to explain it to others.
Give me an example of a time when you were able to successfully communicate with another person even when that individual may not have personally liked you (or vice versa).
How do you establish good communication and information flow with others?
How do you maintain a positive discussion?

Interpersonal skills

What are the steps that you take to maintain good co-worker relationships?
How do you network? What is the importance of networking?
How do you maintain relations with a person in cases where you cannot agree upon certain issues?
How frequently do you support others and get support from others?
What is the importance of building relationships with colleagues to your professional life?

Problem solving

Give me a specific example of a time when you used good judgement and logic in solving a problem.
What kind of problems have people recently called on you to solve? Tell me about your contribution to solving that problem.
Describe a situation where you may have missed an obvious solution to a problem.
Tell me about a time when you anticipated potential problems and developed preventative measures.

Conflict resolution

What is your typical way of dealing with conflict? Give me an example
Tell me about a time you were able to successfully deal with another person even when that individual may not have personally liked you (or vice versa).
Tell me about a time you had to deal with a very difficult client or colleague at work.

Managing change / Adaptability

Describe a situation in which you were able to use persuasion to successfully convince someone to see things your way
Tell me about a time where you had to adjust quickly to changes in organisational priorities. What did you do? How did you adapt the way you work to incorporate the change?
Please tell me about a time when you had to deal with an uncertain situation.

Priority setting/Time management

Tell me about a time when you had to balance competing priorities and did so successfully.
Tell me about a time when you had to pick out the most important things in some activity and make sure those got done.
Tell me about a time when you got bogged down in the details of a project.

Congratulations on getting to the end of this information. This means you’ve taken the time to research how best to prepare for your interview. This information, combined with your additional research and preparation, should help you present for your interview with confidence.