competency based interviews

sweetilemon

Just had one. Didn't get the job. ..Apparently I was so bad they are re - advertising. Gutted. Nerves got to me. So disheartening.

badskindollheart

pinpin wrote: »

Would seem impossible to answer questions in an organic, spontanious fashion...at least for me!

Are you saying that never, in all your life, have you made a mistake or faced a challenge (questions 2 & 3 above)? All you need to do is tell the interviewer about things you have done; I always tell nervous candidates 'you are only talking about yourself and who knows more about you, than you!'

Yes, it might seem daunting at first but the interviewers will likely prompt you to continue eg 'And then what happened?' 'what was the end result?' Etc.

I agree with Kiki, phoenix254s suggestion is not what a competency interviewer is looking for - that's a sure fire way to failing the interview. We are not looking for hypothetical reactions to hypothetical situations; there's no guarantee you'd behave in the hypothetical way you're suggesting. The idea of competency based selection is that past behavior is a good indicator of future behavior, so if you dealt with customers well in the past, you'll likely do the same in the future.

You need to think of some examples, rehearse talking through them and then try to anticipate any questions they might ask. If a competency is about, say decision making, google 'how do I make a good decision?' for ideas/prompts.

ACG

Anything where your company was behind trying to get a rush job on or you spotted some boxes were missing/wrong? A new starter who you had to show the ropes?

Im useless in interviews - partially why I went self employed - but usually you think of a situation, the problem, what you did, the outcome.

Even if the issue never happened to you, think of a situation and what the potential issue would be, what you would have done and what the expected result was... they will never check if its true or not.

pinpin

sweetilemon wrote: »

Just had one. Didn't get the job. ..Apparently I was so bad they are re - advertising. Gutted. Nerves got to me. So disheartening.

Bad luck.
If it makes you feel any better, i've had some of the worst interviews in human history, and i'm quite confident of that!
My mind goes BLANK in interviews and when i'm nervous in general.

I sometimes sit and laugh out loud when I think about some of my interviews as they were so tragic that it actually becomes funny!
I was asked to list my skills and strenghts etc, and I just had nothing. NOTHING!! LOL
The interviewer had this shocked, kind of confused look on her face as I struggled to think of something!:rotfl:
I forget what I eventually came up with, but it was a ridiculous answer. It was teh sort of thing that 'brick' from Anchorman would have said. I don't think it really made sense, and she just looked at me for a few seconds, blinked a few times, and said ''OK, lets move on''! (didn't bother pushing me on the other 5 skills/strengths required)

I must have 20 or so cringeworthy, yet amusing little stories from my various interviews!

I've got some friends who despite being as thick as me are brilliant at 'talking' - extreme unshakable confidence to the point of arrogance and love to sell themselves. They always get hired and almost look forward to job interviews whereas i'm being sick in the car on the way there! It just comes naturally to them, and they are all doing fairly well. It's a great attribute to be born with

sweetilemon

pinpin wrote: »

Bad luck.
If it makes you feel any better, i've had some of the worst interviews in human history, and i'm quite confident of that!
My mind goes BLANK in interviews and when i'm nervous in general.

I sometimes sit and laugh out loud when I think about some of my interviews as they were so tragic that it actually becomes funny!
I was asked to list my skills and strenghts etc, and I just had nothing. NOTHING!! LOL
The interviewer had this shocked, kind of confused look on her face as I struggled to think of something!:rotfl:
I forget what I eventually came up with, but it was a ridiculous answer. It was teh sort of thing that 'brick' from Anchorman would have said. I don't think it really made sense, and she just looked at me for a few seconds, blinked a few times, and said ''OK, lets move on''! (didn't bother pushing me on the other 5 skills/strengths required)

I must have 20 or so cringeworthy, yet amusing little stories from my various interviews!

I've got some friends who despite being as thick as me are brilliant at 'talking' - extreme unshakable confidence to the point of arrogance and love to sell themselves. They always get hired and almost look forward to job interviews whereas i'm being sick in the car on the way there! It just comes naturally to them, and they are all doing fairly well. It's a great attribute to be born with

As I literally am struggling to breath between uncontrollable tears, that has made me feel slightly better I am not the only one.

asajj

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!

Iunderstand what you are saying and I don't like myself that sort of interviews either but we have to get on with it

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.

Degrees and careers are not necessarily related to intelligence, don't demoralise yourself

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.

So basically if you have limited time to complete a job, what would you do? Would you make a task list to see which one is more urgent/important? Let's say you have 500 boxes and 2 hours. Do you panic and complain or just check which of them need to go first, if they are equally important perhaps you can ask your supervisor to prioritise.

2. How do you handle a challenge? Give an example.
A challenge to handle! Think about a situation where you faced something difficult, can be anything. You could say something along the lines "I have considered the position and tried to find out why it is difficult. Then devised myself a plan to tackle the issue etc."

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

Everyone makes mistakes - especially when working. Most important bit to take ownership , accept your mistake and work towards correcting it. You put the parcel on wrong shelf, then when asked a) you denied it and went ahead b) you said you will check again and then correct the mistake. Afterwards , inform your supervisor/manager about correction.

4. Give an example of a goal you reached and tell me how you achieved it.
Can be anything. Let me give an example from myself - I promised myself to save a bit more. It wasn't as easy though with outgoings but I have started saving £10 a month no matter what. At the end of the year, my savings account was £120 richer. My goal was to increase my savings and I did it no matter how small.


5. Describe a decision you made that wasn't popular and how you handled implementing it.
Anytime you decided to do something and it was frowned upon by your family or friends. You'd be expected to solve it through talking and explaining rather than having arguments This sort of question likely to be asked to someone in a position of decision making.

6. Give an example of how you set goals and achieve them.
Again personally, I set my goals short term and work towards them. Such as saving £10 a month or by the end of next month, selling 2 more items on Ebay. Some people though set their goals long-term. Planning to achieve goals always is the key though.


7. Give an example of how you worked on team.
Like on my above post, your team mate was sick and you offered to help or he/she made a mistake and you helped to correct it rather than complaining about it.


8. What do you do if you disagree with someone at work?
Similarly what do you do if you disagree with someone in life ? Probably try to reason them, talk through and see if there is any misunderstanding.

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

Again likely to be a supervising position but you'd easily say that you'd stay positive and praise your juniors when they do a good job.


10. Have you handled a difficult situation? How?

Think about a time where you handled a difficult customer or boss / co-worker.


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

Again a to-do list, being aware of timelines of project etc.

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

Anything in your life you wanted to do but couldn't - let's say buying a car. You'd expect to learn why it failed and then work towards this problem.

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!

If I was you, I'd try to think couple of situations such as mentioned above. Write them down and then improve the answer.

By the way if you are asked 3 questions, you can use the same situation to answer let's say 2 of them but of course from different perspectives.

I think you'd expect to get 2-3 questions for such an interview and sometimes companies will have clues as to what sort of competencies they are after. Look at company site and see what is their motto / slogan. If they keep talking about let's say happy workforce, it is likely that you will get a question about it.

Lastly, visit your local library and ask them whether they have any books about this subject to borrow

Hope this helps. I have found myself that interviews are also a matter of experience. You learn to get through them over time!

The_One_Who

I am terrible at competency-based interviews. After requesting feedback my downfall is apparently that my answers can cover more than the one competency, and this is seen as a bad thing. However, I'm currently preparing for an upcoming interview and the notion of 'taking ownership' appears in four separate competencies!

Obviously I need to be much more specific and try to tailor my answer to the exact competency being tested.

Aryndeneth

The_One_Who wrote: »

I am terrible at competency-based interviews. After requesting feedback my downfall is apparently that my answers can cover more than the one competency, and this is seen as a bad thing. However, I'm currently preparing for an upcoming interview and the notion of 'taking ownership' appears in four separate competencies!

Obviously I need to be much more specific and try to tailor my answer to the exact competency being tested.

As a recruiter I've seen this in people's interview answers. I only find it a problem when it seems like they've forced every possible competency in there just to have mentioned it rather than because it adds to the quality of their answer. For example, if I ask about a time you've solved a problem and you mention that your communication skills and/or teamworking skills helped solve the problem, I think that's acceptable as an answer as we rarely use just one skill in isolation.

It's when I ask the same question and the details of how they solved the problem gets lost as they also try to include communication, teamwork, planning, hitting deadlines, people skills, leadership skills etc etc. It's a list of great competencies to have but it hasn't answered the question I asked or given me the quality of info I need to make a decision on hiring that person. I often just put this down to nerves and to keenness to get across how much a candidate feels they have to offer and they worry they might not get an opportunity to mention a certain skill if they don't raise it now.

Rather than try and list everything you think I want, only mention those things that actually relate to the question/answer. Don't worry if there's other skills that don't get mentioned. If there's a competency I really need a candidate to have, I’ll have an interview question planned to cover it if it isn’t evidenced elsewhere.