How to answer competency questions

Core competencies are the qualities that employers look for in a successful candidate. Interviewers want to know whether you’ve got these competencies to tell if you’ll be good at the job.

Most interviewers will ask some competency-based questions. To help, we’ve put together a guide on what these questions are and how to answer them. If you’ve got the skills, we’ve got the interview tips you need to show them off.

We’ll cover:

• What is a core competency?
• How is it assessed?
• What is a competency-based interview?
• Common competency questions
• Specific question types
• How to answer competency-based questions with the STAR technique
• Our top tips for answering competency questions
• How to prepare for them

Core, or key, competencies are the qualities that an employer believes are necessary to do a job well. Employers want to know your strengths and weaknesses, so they’ll assess you for important qualities during the hiring process. Competency questions come up in job application forms or job interviews.

Employers ask these questions to make sure the candidate will fit into the company. While competency-based questions will feature in interviews throughout your career, they’re particularly important for graduate roles. Competency questions help employers find the best person when many candidates all have top grades.

Examples of the core competencies that employers are looking for include:

• Teamwork
• Responsibility
• Career motivation
• Commercial awareness
• Decision making
• Communication
• Leadership
• Trustworthiness and ethics
• Results orientation
• Problem solving
• Organisation

In interviews and job application forms, employers assess core competencies with competency-based questions.

Core competency questions use past behaviour to show how you’ll work in future. Employers also use this type of general questioning to judge the potential of candidates who don’t have relevant experience. It digs deeper than the classic “Tell me about yourself” question while keeping things personal. Your answers will be unique to you.

Show your personality, skills and competencies using examples from your life. Think about situations from school, university, or any other activity where you’ve shown any of the qualities you’re asked about.

A competency-based interview focuses on questioning your competencies. Sometimes an employer will tell you that this will be the interview style in advance. Sometimes you’ll only realise it’s this way once the questions begin.

While competency-based questions feature in all types of job interviews, a competency-based interview asks lots more of these questions. Competency-based interviews tend to have a rigid structure with an interviewer asking a question for each of the skills they’re looking for. In a regular job interview, you’ll only discuss a few skills.

The most frequently asked competency questions will cover the core skills that many employers are looking for, such as:

• The ability to work under pressure
• Resilience when faced with problems
• Confidence in own decisions and skills
• Effective communication with colleagues, clients or customers

Example questions include:

• “Please give me an example of a time when you had to work to a tight deadline.”
• “Can you talk to me about a scenario where something went wrong, and you came up with a solution?”
• “Tell me about a time you’ve had to persuade people to your point of view.”
• “Can you share an example of when you’ve stopped conflict?”

As you’ll see, there’s a pattern in how interviewers form these questions. Competency questions often contain phrases such as “Tell me about a time” or “Give me an example”. Competency questions aren’t designed to trick you like brainteasers. Employers will be clear here. If an interviewer asks you to talk about a scenario, it’s a competency question. Now you know how they’re formatted, you’ll spot them everywhere. Answering them follows a set pattern too. More on that later!

The competencies that an employer considers as ‘core’ will depend on the role they’re hiring for.

When preparing for an interview, practice some of the questions you think will come up. To predict what the interviewer will ask you, divide possible questions into groups and think about what will matter most to the interviewer.

Some of the types of competencies employers assess include:

Employers want to know your attributes and behaviours. What knowledge do you have? Are you a risk-taker? Do you like to work independently? Interviewers ask about individual competencies to get to know you and how you like to work. There are no right or wrong answers, but employers will use these questions to see if you’re the right fit for the role.

Examples of questions include:

• “Tell me about a time you made a courageous decision.”
• “How did you approach a task that you were responsible for?”
• “Describe a scenario when somebody criticised your work and how you responded.”

Employers want to know what drives you. And that’s why they’ll ask you motivational questions.

Potential employers want to know if you’re an ambitious career climber or happy to stay at a certain level. Again, what’s the ‘right’ answer here depends on the kind of person the business has in mind for the role.

Examples of questions include:

• “What’s your proudest achievement and how did you do this?”
• “Can you talk about a time when you had an ambitious target?”
• “Tell me about a time when you felt successful.”

If you’re applying for a role where you’ll oversee people, your potential employer will assess your managerial competencies. You don’t need to have been in a leadership role before to show that you’ve got potential here. You’ll have transferable skills from uni (and life).

Example questions include:

• “Share an example of when you used power or authority to achieve a goal.”
• “Tell me about a time you’ve used delegation.”
• “Describe when you’ve motivated other people.”

Are you interviewing for a job where you’ll need to be decisive? If so, expect questions on your analytical ability – a core skill for making informed business decisions.

Example questions include:

• “Tell me how you identified a more efficient way to do a task.”
• “Describe a time when you had to make a difficult decision.”
• “Can you describe a problem and how you overcame it?”

When answering competency-based interview questions, give clear and well-structured answers. Avoid waffle and irrelevant details.

One of the safest methods to use is the STAR technique.

STAR stands for:

Situation – Present the situation you found yourself in.

Task – Explain what you were trying to achieve.

Action – Present what action you took to achieve this result and explain why.

Result – What was the result of your action? What did you achieve and what did you learn? Make sure you relate it back to the original competency the question was looking for.

If an interviewer says, “Tell me about a time when you handled pressure well”, a good STAR response would be:

Situation – “One of the busiest days of the year at the café I used to work at is during the city’s marathon, with lots of thirsty runners wanting drinks. Frustratingly, one of our blenders had broken meaning we couldn’t make iced drinks as quickly as usual.”

Task – “I was a barista so I had to serve customers their drinks as quickly as possible, despite the reduced equipment.“

Action – “I stayed calm and communicated clearly with my colleagues and customers. I made sure seating and tables were clear so that customers could sit down comfortably while they waited, which made the wait more pleasant. I advised customers in a rush about alternative options, such as a pre-made drink from the fridge with ice.“

Results – “Even though I couldn’t sell as many blended drinks as normal, I kept the queue moving quickly. The customers were happy and praised me for doing a great job at dealing with the situation. Afterwards, my manager thanked me for handling the pressure and using my initiative to sell pre-made drinks rather than turn customers away.“

With the STAR technique, you’ve got the outline. But do you know what to say?

Some of our top tips for getting your skills across to the interviewer are:

The interviewer wants to know about you, not your team. While it’s tempting to big up your colleagues or coursemates, they’re not the ones your interviewer wants to hear about. Focus on what you did and your contributions. If you say ‘we’, the interviewer won’t know if you were leading the group or were a silent contributor. Make it clear that the actions belong to you.

Sometimes an interviewer will ask you to discuss problems. Don’t fall into the trap of complaining too much. If asked, “Tell me about how you dealt with a difficult colleague”, talk about how you addressed the situation – not how awful your old boss was. Always talk respectfully about your past jobs and people you’ve worked with. It’s not a good look to be overly negative. Plus, you never know who knows each other!

Use your answers to tell the interviewer what kind of person you are. For instance, if you’re asked to show an example of organisation, begin with something like “I like structured ways of working so I proactively came up with a way for my society to organise events using digital project management tools.” By mentioning that you like structured ways of working, you tell the interviewer that you’re an organised person – not a disorganised person with an example of good organisation.

If you want to impress, prepare before the interview. Going into your interview with examples will boost your confidence – and performance.

One way to predict the questions that’ll come up is to look through the advertised job description and pick out the important details. If the word “collaboration” appears multiple times, prepare an example about how you work in a team.

Real examples are much more effective than made-up ones, especially when it comes to further questioning. So, stick to the truth.

Remember that you don’t need to have had a previous job or work experience to answer these questions. If you don’t have a relevant work-related answer to a question, draw on other real life situations. If the interviewer asks you about managing conflict, talk about diffusing a situation at a sports club or a society. Or if they ask you to discuss collaboration, mention a successful group project. You’ve got this.