OPINION: What are competency-based/ behaviour-based interview questions?
Scenario-based interviews have gained popularity and are now the focus in many interviews you will face as a candidate.
“Past behaviour predicts future behaviour.” This is the basis of using behaviour-based questions in interviews.
What are competency-based and behaviour-based questions? How do we answer them?
Competency-based questions are just that, questions that test a candidate’s competency through a real life example. The questions are likely to start with, “Tell me about a time when…” Your role as a candidate is to then give your answer using an actual experience previously encountered in your working life. The point is to stay away from using hypothetical or generalised answers but rather indicating through your past experience how you demonstrated the particular competency being assessed.
When answering these questions, you need to listen carefully to what’s being asked and ensure your answer demonstrates how this competency was implemented. The trick in answering these questions is to use the STAR technique. Explain what the Situation was, describe the Task that was required of you, what Actions you took and what the Results were.
Helpful Tips:
• Don’t waffle. Ensure you stick to the structure of STAR when answering the question.
• When describing the actions taken, always answer on the role and responsibility you played in solving the problem.
• Don’t make up your examples, recruiters will pick this up very easily. If you haven’t experienced the situation in your working life or at all, rather give the example in a different set up, perhaps social. If nothing comes to mind, rather give the closest example to the competency that you experienced. It’s always better to give an answer than to let the question pass.
• If you can’t think of an answer right away, ask the interviewer for a moment to park the question for later, but always make sure you go back to answering it.
• If the result of your situation had a bad ending, don’t lie about it. Rather give your learning’s from the experience and discuss what you would do differently in retrospect, or if faced with a similar situation in future.
Gone are the days when you could prepare a list of your generic strengths and weaknesses as answers to interviews. Instead, when preparing, know the competencies/skills required for the job you’re applying for. Draw up a list of possible scenario-based questions and think of answers based on your past experiences.
Thato Tinte is a HR consultant at Aspen Pharmacare.
