Job interviews are the drawing lines between candidates. As many applicants introduce their skills and experiences in CVs/ resumes, recruiters test these competencies through competency-based interviews. Let’s set the best answers for this challenging meeting.
Competency-Based Interview:
Skills are part of every application process. A competency-based interview assesses the candidates’ skills according to a series of behavioral and situational questions. Recruiters employ this type of interview question to verify the qualities demonstrated in the applicant’s answers. These tricky interview questions are employed to filter and minimize a massive number of applicants. To break all possible expectations, it is essential to prepare for the common Interview Questions.
Competency-Based Interview Tips:
As an applicant, you need to follow the recent guidelines to increase your chances of being hired. That’s why you have to sign up to uk.Fraters.net to get notified of the newest updates. This interview aims to show a set of skills, abilities, knowledge, and motivation. Before structuring your answers, you should consider the following:
● How would you employ your skills in various situations?
● How would you employ your knowledge and experiences in defining your potential goals?
● How can you apply your acquired knowledge and competencies in sorting out various professional settings?
A competency-based interview allows employers to detect the candidate’s skills and abilities, who is the best indicator of its future career. It can be a skills assessment, test of knowledge and abilities, and the best way to predict a person’s future performance. Here are some questions to identify the key skills:
Competency-Based Interview Questions:
For many years of recruiting experience, employers know the value of competency-based interviews. That’s why; they prepare a list of questions to identify critical competencies. To help you structure perfect interview answers, you need to understand what is going on in a recruiter’s head and what type of questions they will ask. Competency-based interview questions are usually targeting the following skills:
1. Individual Skills
All applicants have their own skills and unique abilities in dealing with a situation. These skills are linked to personal efforts such as decision-making skills, perseverance, knowledge, independence, risk-taking, and personal integrity. Individual skills can be acquired through this type of question: Tell me about a situation where your work was challenged?
To answer this question, you need to employ the STAR approach. This approach is reasoning, helping applicants to break the answer into:
-Situation: define your work situation, whether it was one of your job experiences, internships, or volunteering experiences, and the challenges you have met on that level.
-Task: define the tasks related to your work; you can identify your previous job’s roles and responsibilities.
-Action: define the type of actions taken to overcome the challenges. You can describe your individual skills in managing the situation
- Result: close your answer with the final result, which should be a positive outcome.
A Sample Answer:
During my internship, I assisted customers as a help-center assistant and convinced those to put positive reviews for the new mobile application. When I was introducing this request through various emails, a customer refused to give positive reviews about the mobile application and expressed dissatisfaction with some functions. I insisted on knowing the reasons for disapproval. I gathered all the customer’s complaints and verified with every criticism to understand the application limits. But, through employing effective communication, I managed to turn the client’s complaints into customer satisfaction. The same customer gave full five stars positive reviews the next day by sharing his story of misemploying the application. This situation helped the company give more solutions in case of meeting similar complaints and contributed to the application’s effectiveness.
2. Management Skills
Some applicants have various management abilities such as supporting other people, leadership, delegation. They can also be connected to time and attitude such as time management, meeting the deadline, or personality such as stress management.
Here is an example: Tell me about a situation where you led a group and enabled them to achieve a goal.
A Sample Answer:
In my previous job, I was assigned to manage a group of journalists. I was supposed to supervise their work, their Interviewing Techniques in gathering information, and their way to write the investigation. After planning their tasks, I receive a bunch of written material that needs editing and reshaping. So, I manage my schedule to make the final touches before the release. It was challenging work, as it is based on research and transmitting news on time.
3. Analytical Skills
These skills relate to a candidate’s decision-making ability, innovation and problem-solving skills, hands-on learning and development. In this respect, recruiters can ask the following question: “Tell me about a situation where you identified a new approach to a problem. “
A Sample Answer:
When I was working as a software tester, my company was giving a brief time in testing the software, which affected the process of using and marketing the software. As a technical specialist, I found the testing procedures exhaustive and not handled during the deadline. So, I came up with another quick alternative, which involves sharing the software testing with intelligent tools to directly detect the software problem and prompt engineers to fix it.
4. Interpersonal Skills
This category includes the applicant’s soft skills such as teamwork, communicative skills, negotiation. For example, employers might ask:
During the lockdown, work policies have changed and become less collective. As a project manager, I was looking for remote management software that keeps the team spirit active. Through these tools, I managed to schedule zoom meetings. I also managed to bring specialists from various backgrounds to join our community and attend webinars. Despite the distance, it was an enriching experience to keep the bridges open between various specialists.
5. Motivational Skills
This question is to test the applicant’s ability to stay motivated at work. They want answers referring to will, energy, motivation, and ability to update the work techniques. Here is a possible question; how can you stay motivated at work?
A Sample Answer:
Everyone has his own motivational techniques. As a person who went through various professional situations, motivation was my key to success. I constantly challenge myself with deadlines and put a date for each role. I am also enjoying every achieved task by pampering myself with rewards. As a person with an emotional commitment to my job, I treat my work as a family member. I don’t procrastinate or postpone my work for trivial reasons.
These were the possible competencies-based Interview Questions and sample answers. Try to consider these guidelines to structure genuine answers. Remember to put the necessary changes related to the job you have applied for. Be yourself and provide real-life examples, both personal and professional.