The art of the competency interview

The competency interview has moved in and out of fashion in its purist form for over twenty years , with HR professionals often preferring to follow the purer competency interview approach and latterly internal recruitment teams.

In our experience senior managers won’t often ask a specific competency style question, but they WILL be looking for a factual scenario based answer.

So what is a competency interview question?

Quite simply it is where you’re asked to provide a specific example of where you have gained a certain experience or used a skill and will start with “Give me an example when…”

A main reason competency questions are asked is because the interviewer can assess many of the candidates attributes in one question in addition to the answer they give. Your communication skills, your way of thinking, your logic, approach to problem solving, temperament, personality even just your memory can be assessed.

Regardless of seniority we recommend every candidate to prepare for even the most informal of interviews as if it was a competency interview to ensure the highest level of preparation and to think in a competency style format and to give a competency answer following the STAR method.