Competency based questions are those which ask you to demonstrate, through your own experience, your skills or attributes which match those defined for the new role.
Some, although few, companies use formal structured competency based interviews in which you are asked a question and given time to consider your answer. There may even be two interviewers; one conducting the questions and one making notes. Most commonly though, competency based questions will be introduced as part of a conventional biographical interview.
Examples of competency-based questions
Can you give us an example of when you have had to work to tight deadlines in your current role and how you dealt with it?
Give an example of a project you have undertaken and how you managed it.
Surveying roles always include some routine and mundane elements that require attention to detail. Can you demonstrate, through experience in your working career, your ability to cope with these important elements of the job?
Like most busy departments, we sometimes face stressful situations. Can you give an example of when you have had to cope with stress, in a working or social context, and how you dealt with it?
In most businesses the only thing that does not change is the need to change. Please give an example of where you have had to deal with change in your working career and how you dealt with it.
One of the key aspects of this role is managing people. Please give us an example of where you have had to deal with a problem with a member of your team and how you solved it.
Everybody has to deal with disappointment, or even failure, occasionally in his or her career. Can you give an example and tell us how you dealt with and what you learnt from it?
Source - Macdonald & Company
