competencies again! "communication and influencing"

[fcekinghell]

Sorry, me again, thought it would be best if I just started a separate thread.

This time I'm struggling to think of examples for this competency. You'd think it would be easy considering I worked on a marketing campaign last year (my job isn't marketing though) and also I'm the leader of a cross department group that looks at improving internal and external communications (again my job isn't actually comms or marketing).

These would be obvious situations to draw examples from but I'm at a loss! Questions I've been asked before from memory were "tell us about a time when you failed to communicate", "tell us about a time when you had to adapt your communication style for the audience", "tell me about a time when you had to bring someone around to your way of thinking", "tell me about a time when a colleague disagreed"

Anyone have any examples they've used that they could share?

I bloody hate interviews. I tend to waffle on or forget all my achievements and use a really crap example.

A few suggestions to help you identify your own examples:

"tell us about a time when you had to adapt your communication style for the audience"

In your 'improving internal and external comms improvement" role, you discovered that important information wasn't getting through because the wording was inaccessible and the format wasn't relevant. So you created targeted comms packs for internal management (monthly dashboard summary), internal operations (graphics and text with a service and target focus) and external customers ("plain English", avoiding internal corporate jargon and acronyms; product /service improvements focus).

Your satisfaction survey showed a significant improvement in stakeholder engagement due to the relevant messages and format.

"tell me about a time when you had to bring someone around to your way of thinking"

Here, they are interested in evidence of your process

Use an example of an improvement project you've worked on (think of a diff end project to the previous one). Describe how you encountered strong resistance to change by xyz department, which you recognised was a fear of the unknown. You overcame the resistance by meeting them and investing time to understand their concerns, build rapport, debunk some unhelpful grapevine rumours and replace the misinformation with facts i.e. reassure them how the improvements would benefit them directly (the "what's in it for me" proposition).

The result was that one of their team became a strong ally in advocating the change and helped train their team in the new process.

Thanks Daisy, for the first one I have one I might be able to adapt to suit different competencies, for the second, you've given me a good idea of what I could use, so thanks :)

Great! Sometime throwing a few ideas around can help!
Good luck with the interview 🍀

I was just coming in to add my tuppence worth, but daisy has already nailed it :)

Not the same competency as yours but for the leading and communicating competency I was asked to describe a time when I had to deliver a presentation to influence an audience (or words to that effect).
Basing examples around giving a presentation would fit yours too though, and could be adapted to fit several scenarios.