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Interview Tips Behavioural Competency Questions

Behavioural competency interviews ask candidates to provide examples of past experiences to demonstrate how they would fit the company's culture. Interviewers ask candidates to describe specific situations and their actions using the STAR method. Fit and motivation questions focus on the candidate's interests, strengths, and reasons for wanting the position. Brainteaser questions have no right answer but assess how candidates structure problems. Candidates should research the company, prepare examples and strengths, and practice common question types.

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49 views2 pages

Interview Tips Behavioural Competency Questions

Behavioural competency interviews ask candidates to provide examples of past experiences to demonstrate how they would fit the company's culture. Interviewers ask candidates to describe specific situations and their actions using the STAR method. Fit and motivation questions focus on the candidate's interests, strengths, and reasons for wanting the position. Brainteaser questions have no right answer but assess how candidates structure problems. Candidates should research the company, prepare examples and strengths, and practice common question types.

Uploaded by

Umar
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Interview Tips

Behavioural Competency questions


Behavioural competency interviews are based on the premise that past behaviour is the best indicator of future behaviour.
By asking you to describe specific examples from your past and by exploring those examples in detail, interviewers are
trying to establish how you behave in order to ascertain whether you would work effectively within the company’s culture.
Behavioural competency questions often start with, “please give me an example of a time when…” and may be focused on
all number of areas, for example, “you led a team”, “you made a difficult decision”, “you helped a team achieve success” etc.
Some approaches which can help you to navigate these questions:
Be prepared – have an idea of what examples you’d like to talk about before you go into the interview and give some
thought to what you personally did and contributed to these examples
Ensure you listen to the question and answer it (despite your preparation, don’t try to shoehorn a prepared but irrelevant
answer into a question!)
Speak about ‘I’ and not ‘we’ – the interviewer isn’t hiring your team, they’re potentially hiring you and they want to know
what you did
Keep to the point and don’t add superfluous information
Take your time to think about the question and your answer before you respond
Use some form of structure to help you and the interviewer navigate the example. A useful structure to use is STAR –
Situation, Task, Action and Result
Situation – two sentences on the context e.g. where the example took place, how it came about, what your role was
and who else was involved
Task – what was the objective / target? Be as specific as you can here with details and data but don’t spend too long
on this section – two to three sentences maximum
Action – this is where the body of the interview should really take place since this is where you describe what you did
and how you behaved in order to achieve the task
Result – relate this back to the task and also think about feedback received, what you learnt and the wider
implications of the example and your role in it
Think about why the question has been asked and take opportunities to talk about the associated behaviours, for
example, if you’re being asked about a decision you’ve made, you may want to talk about how you gathered information,
analysed the data, identified options and associated risks to the different options, made a decision and were accountable
for that decision

Fit and Motivation questions


These types of questions really focus on who you are, what motivates you and why you want to do the job / join the
company. Examples of these types of question include:
Why did you decide to study your chosen subject at university?
Tell me about yourself
What are your key strength and development areas?
How would your friends describe you?
What interests you about this role?
What do you think you would be able to add to the company?
What other careers are you considering?
Prepare for these types of questions by thinking about your unique selling points, or USPs, so that you can bring these into
the discussion. USPs could be anything: your skill set, your past experiences, your motivation or a combination of these.
Candidates who tend to perform well at interview have often thought through what it is that they offer a company and are
able to articulate that clearly by using questions such as ‘tell me about yourself’ to their advantage.
It is very important that you do your research and understand the type of role that you’d be doing, were you to join the
company. Speak to your university careers service, read the company website, try to speak to employees at the
organisation if you can (perhaps there are alumni from your university working there?). Whilst companies don’t necessarily
expect you to know their strategy and the subtleties of the working environment, they expect to see that you have a clear
understanding of what they do, how they are differentiated from their competitors and who their competitors are.
Another way to demonstrate your motivation is to ask questions of your interviewers when you are given an opportunity to
do so. However, don’t ask a question to which the answer can be clearly found on the company’s website.

Brainteaser Questions
Often used in consulting, these questions are there to see how you approach an unknown topic, the assumptions you make
and structure and logic that you use to find a solution.
An example of a brainteaser question: how many cans of Red Bull are used in bars in Mayfair during the month of
December?
The interviewer is looking for you to come up with a final number but, more importantly, is interested to hear how you came
up with the number.
Don’t panic. Take your time to think about a structured approach and break the problem down into manageable pieces. With
this example, you may choose to look at the following (though there are other approaches you could take):
Size of Mayfair
Likely number of bars in Mayfair
Likely ‘footfall’ in an average bar in Mayfair on Sunday to Wednesday and then Thursday to Saturday
Percentage of people drinking Red Bull
How many drinks one person consumes in an evening?
How many cans of Red Bull are used to make one drink?
The influence of competition and other energy drinks in the market
The impact of December
Most of the time you will be given some paper and a pen for an exercise like this. Coming to an answer should take 5-10
minutes – no longer. The chances are you won’t be given a calculator – don’t dig around for one or start looking data up on
your phone. However, do make sure that you tread carefully with regards to numbers – it might help to round things up or
down along the way to make your arithmetic a little more straight forward.

Final tips
Make sure you arrive at your interview on time
Dress appropriately for the interview (for roles in consulting, this generally means smart business attire)
Bring a copy of your CV with you – it can be a good reference tool for you in an interview if you have a blank
Provide specific evidence to support your statements – avoid generalisations
Bring out the ‘best you’ but do be honest
Prepare by reading up on the company, the industry, by preparing some specific examples and by practicing brain teaser
type questions
Consider your USP – why should the company hire you?
Enjoy the experience
Remember that companies have different cultures and working styles and you are unlikely to fit in to all, even if they are within the
same industry. Accept that you will get some rejections and move on. Don’t be disheartened but do reflect on your performance at
interview and take what learnings you can.

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