How to answer competency-based interview questions

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Today’s edition continues our ‘Interview Prep’ series. We will discuss competency-based interview questions, what they are, and how to nail them! If you have an upcoming interview, bring a notepad and your favourite snack, and make sure to take notes.

1) Competency-based interview questions

Most competency questions test teamwork, leadership, problem-solving, and customer service skills. Competency-based interview questions tend to start with ‘Tell me about a time….’. While it is easy to fall into the trap of using ‘we’ when answering this question, it is crucial to remember that recruiters are interested in what YOU did as they are trying to assess your ability to excel in the role.

The most common competency interview questions are:

• Tell me about a time you worked in a team.

• Tell me about a time you solved a problem.

• Tell me about a time you went above and beyond in your role/for a customer.

• Tell me about a time you successfully convinced someone to agree with you.

• Tell me about a time you dealt with a difficult colleague/customer.

2) The STAR format

If you have ever been in an interview, you might be familiar with the STAR method. If you have never heard of it before, get ready to learn all about it. The STAR method stands for Situation, Task, Action and Result and is highly favoured by recruiters for answering interview questions effectively. The STAR format gives structure and helps the interviewer understand the information the interviewee is trying to convey. Moreover, the STAR format is mainly used when answering competency-based interview questions. Before we dive into how to use the STAR format to answer competency-based questions, let us explore what each letter stands for.

• Situation: Describe the context within which you performed a task or faced a challenge at work.

• Task: Explain the actual task you had to complete or the problem you needed to solve.

• Action: Detail the specific actions YOU took to complete the task or solve the problem.

• Result: Share the outcomes or results of your actions, emphasising what you accomplished and learned.

3) Sample answers to competency-based questions

a) Tell me about a time you worked in a team

Situation: At the beginning of the semester, I had group coursework and was randomly assigned to a team of three people by the module leader. We were tasked with producing the projected three financial statements for a company of our choice, and we had two months to work on the coursework. I suggested to my teammates that we have an initial meeting to discuss our plan of action.

Task: During the meeting, I suggested we split the workload based on our strengths. Since I enjoy researching and reading financial papers, I took the responsibility of producing the company overview. As I am quite good with numbers, I was also in charge of checking the financial statements produced by my teammates to ensure accuracy.

Action: As I had never produced a company overview before, I spent a couple of hours watching tutorials on YouTube and completing some courses on Forage to get some practice. To ensure thoroughness, I regularly read the Financial Times and The Economist and diligently reviewed reports from the company. This helped me stay updated on both the company's industry and the company's specific developments. My team and I met once a week, and we regularly updated each other on our progress. I also took the lead in taking minutes during our meetings and relaying points of action after each meeting. My team and I finished the assignment a week earlier and spent the remainder of our time checking our work and ensuring that we had met all the points in the marking criteria.

Result: Two weeks after submitting our assignment, grades were released, and we got a 75/100. We were very happy our hard work paid off and went out for lunch to celebrate.

b) Tell me about a time you solved a problem

Situation: I completed a six-month placement with my university’s department. When I joined the team, my manager informed me that the team was struggling to get students to complete the placement quizzes. Once a student secures a placement, they have to complete two mandatory quizzes to brief them about their responsibility, the responsibility of the university and the responsibility of their future employer.

Task: My manager tasked me with finding a more effective way to get students to complete the quizzes. Having completed the quizzes, I had a basic idea of what the problem might be. However, I reached out to my friends and some students who had completed the quizzes to get their insight. After meeting with them, the most recurring issues were that the quizzes were time-consuming and took around one hour to complete, and there was also a lot of information to digest.

Action: After meeting with my manager, we agreed that the best course of action would be to redesign the quizzes and make them student-friendly. I wanted to make the whole experience as enjoyable as possible and decided to create short videos for students to watch rather than reading pages of information. I am very big on team spirit and got the whole team involved with the short videos. We took two afternoons off work to film the skirts, and it was such a team bonding-experience. I created the scripts and took the director role during the filming. I used the editing app Canva to compile the videos and use Microsoft Forms to create the questionnaire. The idea was for students to watch the videos and simultaneously answer the questions as they progressed. I regularly met with my manager and the broader team to gather feedback, and I implemented that feedback when and where possible.

Result: Once my manager approved the new quizzes, I emailed them to a couple of students to get initial feedback, which was very positive. The new quizzes only take about ten to fifteen minutes to complete, and the information in the quizzes was concise and to the point. All outdated information, especially regarding COVID-19, was removed. As a result, the completion rate increased to 57%, compared to just 10% at the same time the previous year.

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Looking for more sample answers to competency-based interview questions? TJSH is working hard behind the scenes to create a booklet with the most common interview questions. Make sure to follow The Job Seeker Hub LinkedIn page to be the first to know when it drops!

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