Wednesday, Jan 17, 2002

Published Articles Leadership Competency Series

of Chandramowly
Competency Based/Behavior Based Interviewing

The Past as Guide to Future

Behavioral interviewing predicts 55% of future on-the-job behavior,

while traditional interviewing can predict 10%.

Behavior Ice-burg Observa-

ble
Behavior

KNOWLEDGE
- job related
SKILLS
Communicates w/ impact,
Demonstrates leadership

TRAITS
learns quickly, projects self confidence team
player, handles ambiguity well,
demonstrates initiative

MOTIVES
self development, focuses on client success,
preserves firm/personal integrity

Getting the right talent, more than ever, is critical today. In recent years,
employers have been using "behavior based" interviewing techniques, a
relatively new mode of job interviewing, to achieve more accurate, ‘position-
person-nearest-fit’.

Applicants generally try to put their best foot forward and make a good
impression on interviewers. They all hope to "win" the job by talking about what
they would do if selected, the problems they could solve, skills they would
develop and they might even describe the knowledge, skills, or abilities they
would put to use on the job. This positive-sounding information, may lead the
interviewer to believe that the applicant is more skilled than he or she actually is.
Behavioral Event Interview prevents macro personal impressions affecting
objective evaluation. Thus, applicant "faking" is greatly reduced. Applicants are
pinned down to explain exactly what they did, not what they know about, would
like to do, or would do in the future. BEI makes an applicant talk "facts".

BEI process is a structured series of questions designed to examine a person's

past behavior in situations similar to those on the job. It is based on the
assumption that the best predictor of future performance is knowing the
past performance in similar circumstances. It provides a more objective set of
facts to make employment decisions than other conventional interviewing
methods.

Competency-based approaches grew out of job-performance research from the

1970s. Harvard University psychologist David McClelland developed the
Behavioral Event Interview (BEI) technique. The basic step starts by studying the
high-performing staff to obtain detailed descriptions of professional successes
and failures. It is a comparison of people who are clearly successful in jobs,
roles, or life outcomes of interest with the persons who are less successful, in
order to identify those characteristics associated with success. Next step is to
identify operant thoughts and behaviors causally related to these successful
outcomes. The best predictor of what a person can and will do is what he/she
spontaneously thinks and does in an unstructured situation—or has done in
similar past situations.

“Tell me about a time when you were on a team, and one of the members wasn’t
carrying his or her weight.” If this is one of the leading questions in a job
interview, one could be in for a BEI. In BEI, the questions are selected based on
the essential and function competencies selected for the position, deriving from
the competency model adapted. For this question, a reasonable answer could be:
“I had been assigned to a team for an important project. One of our team
members wasn’t showing up for the sessions or doing his assignments. I finally
met with him in private, explained the frustration of the rest of the team, and
asked if there was anything I could do to help. He told me he was preoccupied
with another job that he wasn’t passing, so I found someone to help him with
the other course. He not only was able to spend more time on our project, but
he was also grateful to me for helping him out. We finished our project on time”.
The next step might then to probe: “How did you feel when you confronted this
person?” “Exactly what was the nature of the project?” “What was his
responsibility as a team member?” “What was your role?” “At what point did you
take it upon yourself to confront him?”

In the BEI there is little scope for make up or “shade” information, since it
unveils the element of why ‘you should have a clear memory of the entire
incident’, thus cascades on to applicant's past behavior patterns.

Behavioral Vs. Traditional Interviews

In the Behavioral Interview, the focus is on asking ‘how did you behave then’
rather than ‘how would you behave in a particular situation’. It is probing,
peeling the layers from an onion. Here the interviewer will ask candidate to
provide details than allowing the candidate to generalise about events. Interview
will be more structured to concentrate on areas that are important to the
 interviewer, rather than allowing candidate to concentrate on areas that he/she
may feel are important.

Conventional interview questions such, as “Tell me about your strengths and

weaknesses” will not have a place in BEI. Balancing/prioritizing several tasks
within a short period of time, dealing with an unproductive or uncooperative
colleague are some examples of situations that may provoke desired behaviors.

BEI typical questions for an entry-level candidate.

A candidate here has no previous related experience. The interviewer normally looks for
behaviors in situations similar to those of the target position:
“Describe a major problem you have faced and how you dealt with it.”
“Give an example of when you had to work with your own hands to
accomplish a task or project.”
“What kind of people did you like the most? What did you like about it?”
Follow-up questions will test for consistency and determine whether candidate exhibited
the desired behavior in that situation:

“Can you give me an example?” “What did you do?” “What did you say?” “What were
you thinking?” “How did you feel?” “What was your role?” “What was the result?”

In a traditional job-interview, one can usually get away by telling the interviewer
what he or she wants to hear, even if you are fudging a bit on the truth. In a
behavioral interview, however, it’s much more difficult to give responses that are
untrue to your character. When you start narrating a behavioral story, the
behavioral interviewer typically will pick it apart to try to get at the specific
behaviors. He will probe further deeply calling for details. If the story that’s
anything but totally honest, the response will not hold up through the barrage of
probing questions.
Behavioral interviewing is designed to minimize personal impressions that can
affect the hiring decision. By focusing on the applicant’s actions and behaviors,
rather than subjective impressions that can sometimes be misleading,
interviewers can make more accurate hiring decisions. Using the STAR Technique
the BE interviewer will ask questions using these following components. What
was the Situation involved? What was the Task needed to accomplish? What
Action(s) taken? What Results achieved?
Today, BEI technique is used by many of the world's leading companies
particularly those with a high reputation of an emphasis on excellence in
leadership development.

Factors evaluated in BEI

 Generally in BEI, managers evaluate a
candidate’s experiences and behaviors to
determine the applicant’s potential for success.
The interviewer identifies job-related
experience, behaviors, knowledge, skills and
abilities that the company has decided are
desirable in a particular position. Specifically
employers look for some of the characteristics
like, critical thinking, being a self-starter,
willingness to learn, willingness to travel, self-
confidence, teamwork, professionalism etc.

Sample BEI probes

Competencies Probes

Communication Narrate that time when you were able to

successfully communicate with another person,
even when that individual may not have
personally liked you.

Decision Making Describe a specific problem you solved for your

employer. How did you approach the problem?
What role did others play? What was the
outcome?

Time Management Tell me about a time when you failed to meet a

deadline. What things did you fail to do? What
were the repercussions? What did you learn?

Planning Describe a situation when you had many

projects due at the same time. What steps did
you take to get them all done?

Interpersonal SKills Describe a situation in which you were able to

effectively “read” another person and guide your
actions by your understanding of their needs
and values.

The author M. R. Chandramowly is the Vice President – Human Resouces of

PRAXAIR group in India.

[email protected]