Competencies are defined by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development as "...the behaviours (and where appropriate the technical skills) that individuals must have, or must acquire, to perform effectively at work".
Employers (or more likely their HR departments) develop a competency framework for specific types of jobs within their organisation. They use questionnaires, interviews and observation to draw up a list of key competencies that would be essential for someone to perform well in a particular role.
You will often find that the competencies required for a particular role are actually listed in the job advertisement or job specification. Typical management competences might include: leading, innovating, decision making, organising, problem solving, motivating, networking etc.
Remember that competency questions focus on examples of your past behaviour.
Recognising competency questions
If you haven’t experienced a competency-based interview before then it would be helpful to be able to recognise a competency question when it comes. Competency questions very typically begin with open questions: "Can you tell me about a time...", "Give an example...", "Can we discuss..." or "Can you illustrate..." and so on.
Answering competency questions using STAR
There is a very useful technique that will help you to answer competency questions in a form that will work well for the interviewer – the STAR technique where S = Situation, T = Task, A = Action, R = Result.
When answering a typical competency question use STAR to briefly describe the situation and outline the task then detail the specific actions that you took to complete the task. Most importantly summarise the (hopefully positive!) results of your actions. Using the STAR technique will help you to keep you on track and provide a good example of your past behaviour in a certain situation is a very structured format.
If there are no competencies listed in the job advertisement or job specification you may still be able to establish which competencies will be tested during the interview by calling the employer. If you are applying through a recruitment agency or headhunter then they should also be able to give you an indication of the likely competencies and in some cases the actual questions that will be asked.
Once you have an idea of what to expect then practice your answers using the STAR model. Try to build up “library” of situations that you can describe which will fit most of the likely questions, so think carefully about a time when you came up with a very innovative solution to a problem or where you motivated your team.
As always practice makes perfect so do take the time to think about and rehearse your answers to likely questions and use STAR to help you provide an answer in a format that will significantly improve your performance at interviews.
Jeremy I’Anson is a professional careers coach and the author of You’re Hired! Total Job Search 2013 published by Trotman Publishing. For further details visit www.totaljobsearchonline.com
You can also follow Jeremy on Twitter @totaljobsearch
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