Any competency based interviewers able to help?

[Albadross]

Couldn't find a suitable place to put this - I've got an interview for a role a grade above mine in the same company and I need some help with planning my answers.

I have ASD and by some horrible fluke I did the world's worst interview about 2 years ago and it's the same two people interviewing me again one of them actually went to my line manager beforehand and asked if I was up to working in stressful conditions, and he came and told me she was basically doubting me because I have mental health problems, which obviously totally knocked my confidence. I bit the bullet and sat down with her to ask what she meant but she said she would've done the same for any candidate.

I've been told what the competencies are I'm going to be assessed on but I cannot figure out what the 'tell me about a time when...' questions might be based on the bullets under these, so I was hoping someone with experience in this area can help me guess, then I can use STAR (I also don't understand the difference between task and action for this!)

[pileoflaundry]

Are you sure you want to work for the people who will be interviewing you...?

What are the competencies you need examples for? If it wouldn't out you, can you tell us the job title you have applied for?

Another way to approach this is to think of examples of when you have done something really well and/or are proud of. You can then use the examples for a variety of different questions.

[Albadross]

No I'm not sure I do want to work for them, but I know I want to progress and it's looking like I may need to move to do this because in role promotion no longer happens at my firm. I wanted the practice with interviews though, I thought I should try and resolve my negative feelings from last time.

The competencies are control environment and interpersonal skills, and obviously that's the worst possible one for ASD!

I'll google that, thanks both

[MumsOnCrack]

Task would be what you were required to do whereas action would be what actions you actually took to achieve that task. i.e. I had to find out what had gone wrong so I spoke to blah and looked at the system. Does that make sense?

[DuvetCaterpillar]

Ah, by happy coincidence, I was conducting competency based interviews yesterday!

If it helps, Situation is for context - keep this to the bare minimum, the panel only need a line or so to get the gist so don't go on for ages.

Task is for what was the problem or difficulty you had to solve, and Action is what you did to solve it - spend longest on action, this is the good bit. So, if your task was e.g. improve the performance of a poor supplier, your actions might have been to:

1. review records to see how many errors were made in the past three months and how much it was costing your business then
   
2. to call and chair a meeting where you set out firmly but fairly what the problems were, and
   
3. agreed a plan for improvement and key targets for them to hit next quarter, and checked in regularly to make sure they were on track.
   
   Finish off with a clear statement of the outcome, and focus on why your personal intervention made and impact and improved things. So, in this example, you could finish with something like "Thanks to the support and challenge I'd given them, supplier X stopped underperforming and hit all the new targets agreed, saving the costs that their mistakes had generated previously"
   
   Best of luck!

[NotTheCoolMum]

What you need are the buzzwords to really nail it. I found Google is my friend when it comes to lifting killer phrases.

Let's face it, an interview is about playing the game, not about your actual
compotence. You could be totally skilled but struggle to articulate it. Or totally incompetent but a great bullshitter. This is why interviews as a selection mechanism are laughable. (Sorry to any HR people)

So think of the interview as testing you on a specific skill, the ability to interview well.

If you search "high level interview questions" or "senior executive interview examples " etc. you will find the killer lines and how to structure your answer. The more you rehearse out loud beforehand the calmer you will be during the interview. Do you have a tame bullshitter on hand who could help you frame your answers?

I'd advise you to take an example answer, use the frame, and swap out the detail for your own example. That will stop you going into too much detail or talking for too long.

Best of luck.

[NotTheCoolMum]

Also make sure you have prepared and rehearsed an answer to "tell me about yourself" and "what do you see as the key challenges in this role and how would you address them" - even if you don't get asked those specific questions, it's a very good idea to shoe horn that material into the interview.

[Albadross]

Thank you all - I did ok in the interview I thought, had pages of notes and didn't blank even though they asked completely different questions to the ones I had been told to expect!

I benchmarked for the grade above my current one but someone else got a little higher so they said they wished they'd had two roles, they were impressed with how I answered and my achievements and want to offer me the next role that comes up in this area. So very good news really, considering I think I want to stay where I am and wait for my current team to expand.

[blankface]

Congratulations Alba, very well done

[Albadross]

Ah thanks Blankface - you're too kind