Competency based Interviews (Just hate them)

A question about : Competency based Interviews (Just hate them)

Just hate these. They have been my downfall for last 3 interviews.Everyone appears to be using this method when interviewing.

I am generally no good at interviews anyway and just can't come up with any answers to the questions. My mind goes blank as I can't even remember what I watched on TV last night let alone remember when I had to deal with a situation with a difficult colleague or missed an important deadline. I'm okay at normal questions like strengths and weaknesses and What I can contribute to the company etc but just come unstuck with these competency ones. Lots of points about using STAR technique and even got a book on competency based questions but still no help.

Anybody else feel the same way about competency based interview questions. I can never come up With any scenarios to situations I have been in so I am thinking it is best just to make something up in future and rehearse the answers.

Also I am considering in future when interviews end just to close out with a statement saying that I am not very good at these competency based interview questions and hope that you take my 25 years experience into account when choosing the successful candidate.

Best answers:

• The reality is they will never know if your example is real or fictitious and so the STAR principle can easily apply to a theoretical situation. They arent going to go off an call your boss from 3 years ago to see if there really was an issue between you and one of your colleagues etc.
• I have had a couple of these and find prepping beforehand works wonders. Come up with 2 scenarios relating to each of the pqa's. They usually tell you what they are or it's easy enough to do a google search for the most popular ones.
  I tend to use true examples as I am rubbish at waffling but if you are good at bending the truth as insideinsurance says, it won't matter.
  I had a 2 hour interview for myt job, felt like I was talking for ages but I did get through :-)
  Good luck for the next one x
• Depending on the type of job you are applying for and the type of situations you may encounter, make a list of a few fictitious scenarios relating to eg. conflict resolution, management styles, marketing strategies, etc and then using STAR or similar, write down how you would deal with these. Familiarise yourself with them, and be prepared to change them around if the questions are asked in a different way from what you are used to. As InsideInsurance mentions, no one will know if it is true or not, as long as you sound confident when you are discussing it.
  We had an interview candidate that I was impressed with her answer. We asked about a time she had a dispute with a colleague. She told us that initially she went about it in completely the wrong manner and made the situation worse. She said she had to step back from the situation and let her manager deal with it, but then knew how to deal with it. The next time it happened, she was able to follow the steps her manager had previously and resolved the situation. It showed first of all a weakness, but also learning from the situation, and being able to apply the learning.
  PS I hate answering these types of questions myself!
• Be very careful about making the answers up. The whole point of CBIs is that interviewers then probe what you're saying, and ask for detail that you might not have thought of. So you may end up having to talk yourself into more and more lies as you go through.
  I will often then refer back, and ask the person later in the interview to expand on that example for something else I'm assessing - and if you've lied, that can easily unravel.
  I think many people just overthink competency based interviews. I personally find that too much prep means that people give you an answer which isn't relevant to the question. I just want to hear real examples of how you've worked. So perhaps you could have some notes with you with things like "Teamwork - the time I helped Barbara to complete all the orders for her client" etc. Just as a prompt for you.
  Even if all you said is "I used to work with a lot of colleagues" then my job is to get your example from that, so I'll ask more questions to help you think through an example. You don't have to remember everything, but I need to hear how you've worked in the past as it's a better indicator of how you're likely to work in the future than asking hypothetical questions.
  On another point, the reason many companies use CBIs is because having worked somewhere for 23 years is no indication of performance or behaviour. You could do your job well, but really p*ss people off in the way you do it. You could be an average performer, but not really prepared to go the extra mile for clients etc. So you may well have held a job down and not done anything to deserve being sacked, but it doesn't mean you perform well or treat people well, so I want to ask you about those things.
  There's nothing wrong telling the interviewer(s) at the beginning that you're nervous and sometimes find it hard to come up with examples.
  Hope your next interview goes better for you!
  KiKi
• Yes its always better to use a real answer than a fake one but you dont always have a real one you can think of. Yes, if you give a fake one you need to remember what you said for the later questions.
  On the flip side though the majority of hiring managers and HR are not experts at enhanced cognitive interviews and are not going to be that good at tripping up fakers beyond if you forget your own answer
• Thanks for replies. I obviously will have to work on it. Thing is as I say I don't interview well and I have got this book on 100 competency interview questions but the examples of answers are not compatable to the experience I have.
  I get the impression that this type of interview is more suited to people with managerial experience who have come across the many scenarios.
  AT each of the 3 interviews, I have been asked different questions on all occasions. The problem is I struggle to come up with any examples and Next time I am going to stress to them at the end of interview that I don't perform well at this sort of interview and hope they take that into account when selecting the successful candidate. It appears as this type of questioning is preferred but to me it is employers using a tick box system instead of judging you on your real experience.
• we could use this thread and formulate a huge database of common questions, and then a good, short, pretend answer for each question that we can all use in interviews!??
• The thing is that you have to go through the job description and competency requirements. It should then be obvious what sort of questions are going to come up and how to prepare for them.
  If the job requires team working - then plan ahead for examples of team working. Doesn't have to be about work it could be something out of your personal life, like being in a choir. Customer service? You must have been a customer somewhere, sometime, so you know what types of service you deem to be good and what are bad. Performance management, just think about why someone performs poorly and what steps could be taken to improve things.
• Don't worry its just another HR fad, they love to make people jump though hoops and the STAR technique is in a long line of fads.
  Give it a couple of years and no doubt there will be the latest fad which you will have to learn how to jump through.
• Couple of topics with helpful advise
  https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/...mpetency+based
  https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/....php?t=5151765
• Tip i got from one interviewer.
  make up cards with examples for generic questions as Stylehutz has posted.
  Take these into interview with you and choose the best one for your answer that fits closest.
• I have three competencies based interviews coming up this week.
  One with Civil Service and two with a private company.
  I follow the STAR method to answer each question.