Tips to pass a competency based interview please’

[kazza446]

Help!! I’ve put in for a work promotion, which I really want. I have all the skills and competencies, I am just rubbish at competency based questions. I seem to overthink the question and end up mixing myself up! Can anyone give me some tips! I’m aware of the star method but still get myself in a tangle!
Thank you!

Spend most of the answer talking about what you personally did, and don’t forget the R (results).

Don’t talk for too long about the situation/issue/team - lots of people do that.

I did some confidence building stuff to help with my last interview, lots of people find them hard so there’re loads of tips out there.

Look at the detailed descriptions of behaviours (positive and negative) for each competency at the grade you're going for and the one above. Address all the positive points.

Take the list of behaviours and notes in with you.

Agree people spend too long on the situation - get to whatever you did about whatever it was, and results, so they have time to follow up.

Great tips! Thank you! I think the questions will be standard ones around decision making, team work, communication, leadership.

STAR

situation
Task
Action
Result

So not just yes I have lots of customer experience and handling complaints. Instead it should be

I have significant experience of handling complaints and example is

I was working for NatWest and a customer called because a payment they were expecting was delayed, they were very angry and upset as it had caused the account to go overdrawn incurring fees.

I knew that I needed to establish what had happened, Find a solution and build rapport with the customer. I could empathise with why they were upset.

I took their details and confirmed DPA then looked at their account. I saw that the payment was pending due to a processing delay on our end. I explained this to the customer and explained what I could do to resolve the situation. I then cancelled the charges and arranged a temporary overdraft facility which would allow the customer to pay their bill while waiting for the payment to clear.

The customer was happy with the actions I took and left me positive feedback in the after call survey. My supervisor communicated the feedback to me in my 1:1 and it went towards a positive grading in my yearly appraisal.

Is this for interview or the written application? I try and come up with a few examples, and then narrow down to the one with the closest link to the framework and job description etc- for interview I just memorise a few words eg x project issue, and then that's all I need to actually remember as you then use STAR to explain and just recall what happened etc, and you know it's linked. If that makes sense. Basically I wouldn't try and prep whole answers, but do the background so you have an example that links well and you know if you recall using STAR it will tick a lot of boxes.

Thank you @TorysSuckRevokeArticle50. Very succinct. I ramble. That’s my problem.

@Floralbean it’s preparation for the interview.

If you think you ramble, plan out your STAR abswer to the 4 categories you listed .. then practice those the night before.. good luck

Agree with STAR approach above. Also interviews like to ask about when things didn’t go to plan and what you did. Conflict and difficult customer examples too. Overcoming obstacles by being solution oriented. Write down a list of examples and I’m sure you’ll be able to apply and easily recount during the interview.
Good luck!

There's lots of good advice here about preparing but I do competency interviews regularly for reasonably senior roles and even at that level most people don't do the STAR format all that well in interview. So don't worry too much if you say 'we did this' or if you get a bit mixed up telling the story or say 'I would do this'. As an interviewer it's pretty easy to tell the difference between those with lots of relevant experience and those with none and a lot of the time we use the competency interview to weed out the dodgy personalities, you'd be surprised what people admit to in an interview!

Yes, don’t ramble!