Competency-based interview reapplication: same questions?

sammyjammy

TELLIT01 said:

Jude57 makes a very good point about competencies.  They don't need to be work related, simply relevant to the competency being referred to.  An example from my own experience - although I managed teams of people most of my working life, they were small teams.  I was asked about managing large projects and could reference a period where I used to organise large events for a social organisation I was a member of.

Agreed, in some ways if its a good example that covers the relevant points it can be a bonus as it shows a more well rounded person rather than a round peg long term civil servant!

Sandtree

sammyjammy said:

Sandtree said:

How interviews are run is very much dependent on a combination of the volume nature of the role, the company and the interviewer. 

For jobs I currently interview for I will have some Qs prepped based on a combination of the nature of the role and things on the person's CV however the questions asked may ultimately be different to the ones I've noted because the candidate happens to answer them without me asking or when giving a synopsis of their most recent engagements they bring up something that is of more interest than how it was presented on the CV. 

If I am readvertising a role it means something has gone wrong and therefore this alone will alter the questions slightly... eg the last analyst had said they had great SQL skills but in practice didnt and so more technical questions are introduced to test their SQL knowledge.

At the other end of the spectrum are high volume roles with an organisation thats implemented something like "recruit for attitude" where the interviewer is required to ask questions "from the sheet" and there is a fixed scorecard for answers... this is designed to deskill the interview process and ensure that the corporate view of what good looks like fills its rank and file levels. The classic example was in call centres with 5,000+ staff and the "where do you want to be in 5 years time?"... people were traditionally looked on in a good light if they said "shift manager" but if you fill all your positions with people like that you are going to find 99% of your staff are quickly going to be disillusioned when they find most the team leaders have over 10 years service before becoming a manager.

In these types of roles it is more likely you may get repeat questions but thats just because they're being pulled from a finite source rather than any legal requirement or duty for them to repeat them

The OP is specifically asking about competency based recruitment, very different than the type of interviews you are talking about.

Competency based interviews, to my knowledge at least, are the "give an example when" or "what would you do if" type questions which were covered in both the types of interviews I was talking about, though I accept my example questions were not competency based.

So for a better example I may think before the interview that a person doesnt show much experience of working with non-local team members on their CV and so I may plan to ask a Q on that but in their initial preamble they do give several examples but mention a project that went wrong and so my Q may change to focus on how they deal with issues or failure rather than teams.

Recruit for attitude is even more focused on competency as for example in a regulated industry you dont want people who'll try and work it out themselves but someone who'll apologise and go to their manager for the right answer if you are hiring a customer service advisor in your call centre (again a hiring manager may prefer the idea of a problem solver than another person queuing at the desk hence the decision is taken away from them)

Savvy_Sue

I believe at one point some organisations would ask all applicants exactly the same questions (not unreasonable), and were not allowed to ask for clarification or expansion, even if they wanted to. That might be what the OP's misinformant is thinking of?

strawb_shortcake

Where I work in the CS interview questions are all the same and aren't deviated from, however the questions asked in April aren't necessarily the same as the questions asked in October. 

I think the questions may be the same for the internal campaign and the slightly later external campaign as those unsuccessful in the former are often successful in the latter as they can improve their answers

concerneduk2020

They would probably ask all candidates in this round of interviews the same competency questions to be fair and to allow comparison, but if they are re-advertising the same role because they didn’t find a suitable candidate the last time then they can change the questions if they want to. It depends on the interviewer, I’ve reused questions when re-advertising a role, but then I wouldn’t have reinterviewed a candidate who was unsuccessful the first time round (unless a lot of time had passed). 

It is probably fair to assume though that the competencies for the role will have remained largely the same, unless the job description has changed significantly. They may have realised some competencies are more important so may ask more difficult/extra questions but if they asked you questions around communication/problem solving/time management last time they probably will this time. Prepare a few good, varied examples around each competency so depending on the exact question you have some examples to choose from. If it’s a virtual interview you can have a list of examples available to refer to if you get stuck.

Ogriv

Hello again everyone, OP here. 
Thanks so much for your thoughtful comments. I will have to use a few examples from outside work as this is a new type of role for me. And it is very helpful to prepare two or more examples for each competency I think, so I will be doing that. 

Jude57

Ogriv said:

Hello again everyone, OP here. 
Thanks so much for your thoughtful comments. I will have to use a few examples from outside work as this is a new type of role for me. And it is very helpful to prepare two or more examples for each competency I think, so I will be doing that. 

Good for you. Being well prepared means that if one example of demonstrating a specific competence means your answer is quite brief, you can link two examples by saying something like 'and that experience helped me when I later needed to....' then give your second example. Or whatever wording is natural to you.

Good luck!