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Interview Response Strategy

Competency-based interviewing, also known as behavioral interviewing, requires you to draw on past experience and describe specific examples of incidents that demonstrate your competence in a particular area. The most effective way of answering these questions is to use the "STAR" technique:

Situation -- briefly describe the background to the situation
Task -- specifically describe your responsibility
Action -- describe what you did
Result -- describe the outcome of your actions.

Here is an excellent answer to a competency-based question that is testing teamwork as a competence:

Question: "Team work is very important in our organization. What evidence do you have to prove that you are a good team player?"

Answer: "I have a number of examples I could share with you. In one instance, when I was working as a financial analyst at ABC Company, the sales team was pulling together a bid for a large piece of work and the analyst that normally helps them was on leave. I offered to help them and worked late every night for two weeks to ensure they had all the information they needed. They took on my suggestions regarding pricing and also some creative ideas I had on formatting the proposal. As it turned out we won the bid and I was promoted as a result."

You may be required to provide between one and three real-life examples to validate one particular competence.

Be prepared with answers and supporting examples to standard HR questions such as:
  • What are your career aspirations?
  • Why do you want to work for our company?
  • What interests you about our product/service?
  • Of your previous jobs, which did you enjoy most and why?
  • How have you managed conflict in the past?
  • Describe what you have done in your career that shows your initiative.
  • What are your weaknesses? Your strengths?
  • What does teamwork mean to you?
  • What style of management gets the best results from you?
  • What have been your major achievements to date?

Remember that you are being interviewed because the interviewer wants to hire somebody -- not because he wants to trip you up or embarrass you.  He will be searching out your strong and weak points, evaluating you on your qualifications, skills and intellectual qualities and he/she will probably probe deeply to determine your attitudes, aptitudes, stability, motivation and maturity.

Here are examples of probing questions you might ask:
  • What would a normal day in this role look like?
  • Why is the position available?
  • How would you describe your organizational culture?
  • What induction and training programs does the organization offer?
  • What sort of people have done well in this team/organization?
  • How is the company positioned against its competitors?
  • What is your vision for the future? What are the plans, if any, for growth or expansion?
  • What are the three things that would make someone an outstanding success in this role?
  • How well do you think I match the requirements of the role?
  • What is the next step in the process?

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