Competence or Behavioural Interviews
Competence, Behavioural or Situational Interviews are where the interviewer is looking for specific evidence of a particular set of abilities or competences. It may sound complicated or even daunting but these are actually the easiest interviews to prepare for.
As with the standard interview the competence-based interview will often start with a "background review" to get things moving but after that the interviewers will move into a set of questions which will be the same for every candidate to determine whether you've got the level of competence or ability in the area they want. The situational aspect of the interview is to establish how you behave in certain situations.
The STAR Routine
Many companies call this the 'STAR' routine and STAR stands for: Situation; Task; Action; Result.
All they want is for you to outline a Situation where you used the particular ability or the Task that you had to do; describe the Action that you took and summarise the Results of your actions.
This may sound complex, but it's actually a very straightforward interview to master, mainly because they always tell you beforehand what competences or abilities they intend to cover!!
A typical set of abilities they might want to explore could be:
- Planning and Organising
- Motivational Fit
- Customer Service Orientation
- Teamwork & Collaboration
- Problem Solving
- Work Standards
- Communication
- Delegation Skill
- Initiative
- Developing Organisational Talent
Where Do Competences Come From?
Your competences come from your skills and your abilty to do something. How competent you are depends on the level at which you perform the task. So before you set off, think about a definition of each of the competences above, as it relates to your job.
Then you must work out how you can relate a short story describing how you do each thing with an example to illustrate it.
You see how easy this becomes?
1. Define the competence or ability (which they’ll tell you about) then
2. Build up a little story to illustrate your competence.
3. Use the Key Actions to form the basis of your competence story
Take this approach and your competence at dealing with Competence, Behavioural or Situational Interviews will lift off!!
Peter Fisher is a Career Coach, expert Author and Webmaster for My Interview Guide where you will also find everything else you need to know about Interview Questions
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