Competency interviews when you don’t have experience

[Jas1985]

Hoping someone can offer some advice

I’m interviewing for a job (within the same organisation) next week. I have been employed on a graduate scheme for just over a year. I know I have the skills to do the job and I’m desperate to move on and take on a new challenge.

Problem is, I’m really struggling to come up with STAR examples based on my experience with the company so far. It’s a competency interview and I have a copy of the competencies they are looking for, so this should be easy. Because I’ve been on a graduate scheme I’ve not had a specific job description, a lot of what I’ve done has been odd jobs and things no one else wants to do. Not sure how to make a STAR example out of being constantly asked to do everyone’s printing or log dates on a spreadsheet. I am busy in my role and have tasks to complete, but they are all quite basic and repetitive and don’t really lend themselves well to the “tell us about a time when” questions.

How do you go about thinking of STAR examples when your experience is limited?

You dont have to use work experience. If you got good examples in your personal life eg volunteering they can be useful too.

It doesn't have to be related to the job. They want to know how you think and how you deal with difficult situations. Think about examples not just from your time on the grad scheme but also your time at uni (group presentations, conflicting deadlines etc) or maybe even hobbies/clubs you've been involved with. I feel your pain as it's really hard sometimes to come up with examples!

Make sure that you think through your example for each one too - so don't just think of something but think what you'll say about how you (you personally, not a group of people, so 'I' did this not 'we') dealt with it, what happened next, and what the resolution was. Try to think of things with a positive outcome but if that's impossible, have ideas for why the outcome wasn't positive and what you could have done differently.

Think laterally. You dont need to have been a people manager in order to have leadership skills, for example.

I assume you have googled the competencies and have looked for example answers? Is there anything you can apply to your experiences?

If you really don't have an example, then talk about what you would do rather than what you have done

What everyone else has said - you can use examples from outside of the work environment.

I had interviews after several years as a SAHM so used examples from running a playgroup.