competency based interviews

pinpin

Anyone find these impossible?
I was supposed to have one soon but upon reading about them, and reading about the 'typical questions' I realised that the interview would be even worse than my typical/normal interviews!

I couldn't find any examples for any of the questions that I read (and I read a lot!)

My work-life to date has been about ''punching in'', getting my work done loading lorries/moving boxes etc, and then ''punching out''

My social life is about trying to have fun to forget about the misery of the working week.

I simply don't have any examples of the sorts of things and experiences that they want me to demonstrate and prove.

It's only for a picking/packing role - but the email they sent me regarding the interview process sounds brutal.

RMS2

Welcome to the club, I got most of my jobs through starting as a temp and being good at what I did and then taken on permanently.


In one or two, I still had to have an interview (even though I'd been offered the job).


I remember going back to the boss on both occasions and saying I felt like I'd failed the interview. Both times they said, don't worry, if I've said you've got the job, you've got the job, leave HR to me.


Unfortunately, the most useless people (at actually doing the job) ever, seem to be incredibly good at interviewing. It would seem that their skillset is designed for interviews and nothing else.

asajj

I hear what you are saying and I found them incredibly daunting when I first faced them.

However I also found that people who were getting jobs were really good that interviews rather than at their jobs as above. Don't forget though no self-respecting employer would employ someone on the base of interview result only.

You said you worked with deliveries, boxes etc. Think about any time you have had difficulty with a colleague or customer. Think than how you did resolve it.

Let's say - you were loading boxes. You have noticed that there was a box damaged. You a)Ignored it and loaded it and continue to the next box
b) Informed your supervisor/company and they had a look at it - perhaps by doing so you saved them some money or avoided to ruin a customer's delivery etc. (taking ownership)

Or let's say you have 100 boxes to load however you did realise, if you worked in a certain way, you would load 110 boxes instead in the same time (increased efficiency).

Another example - you have had a colleague that would leave heavy boxes to you and do the light ones himself/herself. What did yo do ? Did you just complain but still do the job? Did you talk to him/her and try to find a way? Did you immediately talk to your supervisor and complained to him/her? A good answer would be that you first talked to your colleague and explain why it is unfair. If this doesn't work, you take it with your supervisor. (solving problems)

Another example - your colleague isn't well - you noticed when carrying boxes around, s/he struggles. Your supervisor seems unaware.
What did you do? Did you help the colleague? Did you inform your supervisor? (Team working)

I'm just making these examples up to give you some ideas.

Competency based interview questions seems complex but you can give simple examples.

You need to use something called STAR : Situation, Task, Actions and Results.

1. Define the situation
2. What was your involvement with it?
3. Which actions did you take
4. What was the result. Did anything change?

You could use examples from school, voluntary work, hobbies or even your personal life. As long the example highlights your competence in an area, it’s still valid.

If something didn't work or returned a negative result - don't fear to mention it but say you have learnt from the mistake. Look at it and see why it went wrong and how you make it differently next time.

Hope this helps to you and anyone finding them daunting.

Just to give you a quick example - years ago at one of my first interviews, I didn't have a lot of examples myself.

I mentioned a situation that where printer was broken in the office and that we had to prepare a report for the following morning and get it signed by managers.

I then had to stay late and wait for printer to be sorted. I said to them I offered to stay however as office junior I don't think I had much option :rotfl: Interviewer didn't have to know this.

All he had to know was that :

S : Printer was broken, a report had to be ready by morning
T : My task was to get it ready
A : I have offered to work overtime
R : Report was on time.

CCFC_80

Absolutely hate these type of interviews as I feel they favour all those candidates who have got the gift of the gab who can b*****t their way out of any type of questions asked to them.


If I go to an interview I prefer to be judged on my previous work history, references and sick days off etc in the last few years.

Seamless

asajj has got it bang on the nose - people are often thrown by these type of interviews or applications. But it's all about your experiences and how you dealt with situations - they don't necessarily have to be work based (not everyone has been employed before), so draw from personal experience too. It's all about demonstrating your ability to deal with issues and eventualities and the STAR acronym is a perfect way to remember what to include.

elsien

Don't forget the universal health and safety and team working questions as well.

So have you ever noticed/reported an unsafe system, shown a colleague how to do something correctly, followed reporting procedures/risk assessments erc.
team working - unless you've been working in splendid isolation you will have done this. How do you make sure you're not dropping stuff on each others feet, how do you get on with colleagues when there's a problem, step in if colleagues or drivers are getting their hair off, when someone's been really helpful?
If it's a packing role and they have time targets to meet, what have you done that's similar to make sure your lorries were loaded in time? What did you do when you were behind time to put things right?
It's not that you haven't done the stuff because you probably have, it's getting your head round what examples to give. And sometimes when you think "that can't be all they're looking for, it's too obvious" it really is that simple.

puppey

pinpin do you play any sport? always a good example, ie working together in a team, or having to re motivate yourselves after losing a game etc

pheonix254

Do you have any idea what competancies they're looking for? If I was an employer all I'd want to see from a picker is "good health and fitness," "adherence to procedures" "punctuality" and "honesty."

I mean, what else do they require?
I know it's difficult to talk about "a time when you showed <competancy>" and it sometimes requires you to think outside the box, but equally, if you can't think of anything on the spot- just throw the question back at the interviewer and ask them to explain how it relates it to the job so that they can explain a suitable example, which you can then get a better bearing on what sort of answer they want you to give.

so for instance - they want you to explain "a time when you dealt with conflict in the workplace." which is a typical question which is pretty hard to answer if you haven't had to answer these types of questions before.

One way of answering this would be to say

"well in my previous jobs, I can't think of a time when I was involved in conflicts - can you perhaps provide an example of a conflict you might expect me to encounter in this workplace? If I understand it better I'll be able to give you an explanation of what I would do in that situation"

What that does is throw the question back at them and make them take you through it in a manageable way.

the answer inevitably to most of these thinks is showing that you're not afraid to ask questions when you don't know what you're doing, rather than winging it, that anything innappropriate you come across (behaviour, unsafe conditions, equipment or practices) will be reported up the chain of command (i.e. I'd tell my supervisor"), and that you won't take any risks when it comes to anything health and safety related.

These competancy based questions are usually to gain an insight into what you would do in certain situations, how you think, and how you would deal with it. There are rarely correct answers, but there are most definitely incorrect answers. Interviewers will almost always push you to see if you will admit when you're out of your depth or don't know an answer - and admitting this is usually okay. It's when you don't admit or try to talk your way out of situations that you're going to get red flagged.

But let me know some specific examples of competancies they want to see evidence of, and I can try and see what I'd say in these situations and which experiences I'd draw on to give you examples. (I've done several difficult competancy based interviews as both interviewee and interviewer)

KiKi

pheonix254 wrote: »

so for instance - they want you to explain "a time when you dealt with conflict in the workplace." which is a typical question which is pretty hard to answer if you haven't had to answer these types of questions before.

One way of answering this would be to say

"well in my previous jobs, I can't think of a time when I was involved in conflicts - can you perhaps provide an example of a conflict you might expect me to encounter in this workplace? If I understand it better I'll be able to give you an explanation of what I would do in that situation"

What that does is throw the question back at them and make them take you through it in a manageable way.

I'm sorry, but I wouldn't answer like this. The whole point of competency based assessment is that you don't want hypothetical answers. I'd rather have a weak example than someone who says "I've never experienced conflict in the workplace, why don't you tell me what it's likely to be".

There's nothing wrong with saying "I really can't think of an example at the moment, perhaps I could come back to this at the end" or "could you give me a moment to think of an example" but if someone threw the question back at me and I had to explain it to them (when it's something relatively simple) I'd not look at that in a positive light.

I think asajj has put some excellent examples of the types of things the OP may have experienced and could think of examples along those lines.

hcb42

+1 for STAR approach. I have used this approach for over 20 years and find interviews a breeze. It also helps to have thought up some stock examples for the most common competences as relevant to post e.g in management, leadership, team management, conflict resolution, time management, pressure etc

It makes the process a whole lot easier for the interviewer if you can easily give specifics - so many people waffle or say what they think they want you to hear!

good luck

pinpin

I had a similar job at the royal mail which had no interview at all! bliss.
literally showed them that I had the right to work, signed some papers, and I was loading parcels a few days later!
I wish all unskilled roles like this followed a similar protocol!

I can understand such interviews for skilled intelligent people who have degrees and careers, but not for people like me who apply for the sort of jobs that I do.

I looked at competency based questions for a warehouse job online and found some examples.

1. Tell me about how you worked effectively under pressure.

2. How do you handle a challenge? Give an example.

3. Have you ever made a mistake? How did you handle it?

4. Give an example of a goal you reached and tell me how you achieved it.

5. Describe a decision you made that wasn't popular and how you handled implementing it.

6. Give an example of how you set goals and achieve them.

7. Give an example of how you worked on team.
8
. What do you do if you disagree with someone at work?

9. Share an example of how you were able to motivate employees or co-workers.

10. Have you handled a difficult situation? How?

11 When you worked on multiple projects how did you prioritize?

12 Give an example of a goal you didn’t meet and how you handled it.

Off the top of my head, I couldn't think of a good answer for pretty much all of these questions.
Would seem impossible to answer questions in an organic, spontanious fashion...at least for me! I could maybe do it if they sent me the questions in an email.
it's a shame it can't be done online infact, and then i'd let you guys answer for me!