How to prepare for competency-based interviews
Competency-based interviews are a popular choice among employers for assessing your skills. Reason on for preparation tips!
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- Posted 3 years ago
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Competency-based interviews are a popular choice among employers for assessing your skills. Reason on for preparation tips!
Not all interviews are born equal. Depending on the employer and job role, interviews can take different layouts. It’s not just a question of practising the answers to interview questions. You need to pay attention to the type of interview. For example, your interview could be:
– an informal interview
– a group interview
– an assessment day
– a trial shift
– a competency-based interview
In today’s blog, we’re covering all the tips you need to prepare for a competency interview.
Competency-based interviews are a structured style of interview. They assess a particular set of skills. This is decided before the interview. The interviewer will have decided exactly what skills the right candidate needs. This will be a set criteria that you’ll need to do the role.
In competency interviews, the questions are structured differently. Regular interviews might ask questions like, ‘Why do you want this job’ or ‘What do you know about our company?’. Instead, competency interviews are situational. They ask you to describe specific experiences where you applied specific skills.
The idea is that your past experiences are the best way of assessing if you’re suited to the role.
Below are a list of common skills assessed during competency-based interviews:
When it comes to preparing for your interview, the job description is going to be the biggest clue. The interviewers shouldn’t ask you about anything that’s not in the job description. So go through it with a fine tooth-comb and highlight all the skills mentioned in the description.
Once you’ve identified all the required skills, think of examples. These should be specific times when you’ve demonstrated each of these skills. Ideally, you’ll pick a couple of workplace examples for each skill. But if this isn’t possible, examples from your studies and personal life work too.
Once you’ve got your examples, it’s time to get used to talking about them out loud. But don’t just wing it. Make sure you use the STAR method. This will help you structure your answers properly so you can stand out in your interview.
If you’re still reading, you should now be more confident in your ability to ace a competency interview. Just remember, this interview style is focused on examples. So the more examples you can prepare, the better!
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