Many interviews these days will include some
competency-type questions, if not be solely based upon a full blown competency
framework with few, if any, ‘normal’ questions included.
So what are ‘competency questions’? They are based upon a framework that
described the ‘competencies’, or behaviours, knowledge and skills, that need to
be displayed in order to carry out the responsibilities of the job effectively. Competency questions are calling for evidence
that the candidate has exhibited these behaviours, in situations similar to those
likely to arise in the role, in previous jobs or other activities.
A competency framework usually has several levels for
each competency, for example corresponding to behaviours that indicate a novice,
practitioner or expert level of competence at a particular activity. An interviewer may therefore have several
example answers they are looking for, which correspond to these levels.
What do competency questions look like? Since they are asking you for evidence of
certain behaviour in the past, they are generally calling for you to give examples
of having done things before. Some
examples might be:
- Tell me about a time when you dealt with a difficult
customer
- Describe a situation where you had to win consensus
for a course of action
- Give me an example of how you researched a question
from a user
- Tell me about a time when you worked in a team to
achieve something
The interviewer is hoping that you will tell them
about how you did things in the
situation they’ve described, since that will give them an indication of how you
could behave in similar situations in their organisation.
In order to answer these questions successfully, you
need to have prepared quite a few examples of different tasks you’ve done or
situations you’ve been in, so you don’t have to rely on one example to answer
several different questions, as well as thinking through how you dealt with
those tasks and situations. When you
prepare your answers to these questions, a useful framework to use is the STAR
framework.
This acronym stands for Situation, Task, Action,
Result. Since the interviewer wants to
hear about how you did things, and whether it was a success, you need to focus
on the Action and Result parts in your answer.
Talk briefly about the situation, describe the task you had (ie, your
goal in that situation), and then go into a bit more detail about the action(s)
that you took to try and achieve this goal, and about the actual outcome or
result of those actions.
Taking the first example question above, here is one potential
answer to it, using the STAR formula:
“I once had a user who was very upset that we didn’t
have a particular book on the shelves the day they came in. They said they didn’t have time to come back
and it was a disgrace that we couldn’t keep popular books in stock.” (situation)
“I had to calm the person down, explain to them why
the book wasn’t available, and try and find a solution to their problem of
getting access to it.” (task)
“First of all I showed that I appreciated it was an
upsetting situation for them by saying ‘I agree it’s frustrating the book isn’t
here immediately’, then I got their permission to start explaining by saying ‘would
you like me to explain how this has happened’.
Next I told them how many copies of that book we had in total, and when
each copy had been signed out, and so when the earliest of those was due to be returned. I said that we can only stock so many copies
of each book, so that we can have a full range of books available. Lastly I explained that they could reserve
the book, and we’d contact them to let them know when it was available, so they
wouldn’t have to come in again on the off-chance but only safe in the knowledge
it would be here waiting.” (actions)
“They gradually calmed down as we were talking, and
agreed that we couldn’t stock unlimited copies of each book. They were surprised to hear about the
reservations procedure and asked if they could reserve a book without coming in
face-to-face, so I told them about phone and online reservations. They were pleased about this and said they’d
do that next time.” (result)
When you go into your
interview, it’s a good idea to take a notepad, ask the interviewer ‘is it OK if
I take a few notes?’ and then have it sitting in front of you. So that you can remember your examples,
prepare your notebook in advance by writing keywords that will job your memory
in light pencil at the bottom of the page (ie the part nearest to you when the
notebook is on the table). You can then
just glance down and quickly remind yourself, if your mind goes blank from
nerves during the interview. You can use
the top part of the notepad to takes notes of the answer the interviewer gives
to all the questions you have prepared!
