Interview Help - competency questions.

Blingy

Just confirmed an interview for Friday but the job spec mentions competency's. I have googled to my hearts content but cannot find any examples of answers. It is for a job in financial services and if nothing else I want to do well.
The competency's are:
Results Focus
Planning & Organisation
Team work
Decision making/judgement

Has anyone any tips/hints/websites they used in the past...any help at all.
thank you..

sozbox

Is it a graduate position or are you experienced?
I went through a competency based interview for my first job after I graduated.

Similar enough to what you've listed, I just took examples of each from college projects/part time work/sports etc that I had done over the years.

If you can articulate examples and your reasoning behind your decisions then you should be ok.
Also, don't be afriad to talk about a time you messed up,more than likely it will be asked eg. college project that went tits up, just explain what you learned from it.
Don't say you have never failed at something cos it's an obvious lie and doesn't go down well.
At the time I recieved good feedback from my interview and I took the job, best of luck!

Blingy

Hi thanks for the reply. I am currently working and the job would be a promotion. Not a graduate position.

r3nu4l

I'm not really sure what you are looking for here but generally during an interview you will be asked to provide examples that demonstrate how competent you are in these areas. In other words, they will look for example-driven scenarios demonstrating your capabilities.

The following are examples only:

Talk me through a situation that demonstrates your ability to focus on results

Here you might talk about a situation where there were a lot of things going on with a project and there was a danger that people would lose sight of obtaining the end result. You need to show that you maintained your focus despite these other concerns.

Tell me about a time where you had a task to complete that required planning and organisation? How did you manage the task?

Basically the above requires you to talk about how methodical and efficient you are. Usually the answer should involve comments on a task you completed that made use of lists, timelines, spreadsheets etc.


Tell me about a time when you had to work as part of a team...

Here they are looking to see how you work in a team. What role did you play in the team, were you the leader, a decision-maker, a contributor or did you just leave that to others and do what you were told. Depending on the job sometimes being the one who assumes leadership is what they are looking for, other times they are looking for the person who just did what they were told.

Have you ever been responsible for making a tough decision? What was the outcome?

They want to know a few things here.
1. Was your decision rational and reasoned.
2. Did you use your initiative?
3. Did you have authority to make the decision that you made?
4. If you should have consulted someone before making the decision, did you do so or did you just go ahead and follow through on your decision anyway?

I've said it before and I'll say it again there's a great book called 'Great answers to tough interview questions' and I've found it invaluable over the years. In fact on a few occasions when I've interviewed people I've asked them towards the end of the interview if they've read the book because their answers were pretty much exactly as they should have been. All but one candidate I've asked admitted to having read or owned a copy

mikemac1

Yes, it's a super book
And lots of libraries have it if you want to look in your local one

Link here OP, you'll keep it for years and years
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Great-Answers-Tough-Interview-Questions/dp/0749435526

I can't add much to what has already been posted, just adding my vote for the book

Optimus Prime

Ive done these in the past, competency based interviews, as above are based on your experience. I believe the interview format is called star i think.

So basically you follow 3 sections in your example S.T.A.R.

The actual acronym may be wrong here but hopefully you get the idea

S = Situation, in your example describe the situation you where faced with overcoming

TorA = Task or Action. the tasks or actions you decided to take to solve the situation you are describing

R= Result, the result after your actions and tasks. did you resolve the situation etc.

Usually interviewers have a few pages in front of them with these 3 columns on them, they will fill in these as you are talking then score you on each competency after you have left. make sure your answers are relevant to the competency you are being asked about.

also if you are doing some prep work before hand, dont make the mistake of learning your "answers" for each competency in a certain order. ive seen this happen before where people know they are going to be asked about 5 competencys and learn their answers in the order they think they are going to be asked and are then thrown when the competencys are brought up out of order! good luck, hope that makes some sense!!

Make sure you throw in a lot about, planning, teamwork etc.

Blingy

Got the book. It is great, very helpful thanks for all the replies.