During an interview with you, the HR specialist, project manager, or even the director of the company himself do not sit idly by. Of course, your interviewer can hold his hands any way he wants, but behind his polite smile, there is a complicated and complex process of assessing your professional competencies. In this article, we will tell what the competencies are and how they differ from skills, knowledge, and values, why they are paid so much attention, and what competencies will impress the employer.

What are Competencies?

Whereas skills, knowledge, and even values can be reflected on a resume, competencies are only tested during an interview. You could say that this is what it’s all about, otherwise, companies would just select candidates through CV screening. It would be interesting to know if write my essay services would earn by writing a personal CV.

Competences are the behavior that the company needs from the applicant and which the latter should demonstrate during the interview. There are two key factors that managers pay attention to in the first place: results orientation and teamwork.


Types of Competencies

It is long and rather tedious to list all competencies, so we have selected the main professional competencies that are usually checked by recruiters at the interview:

  • Leadership – your ability to lead, manage and motivate a team.
  • Communication – the ability to find common ground with different types of people and in different situations.
  • Teamwork – the ability to join a team, work together, and help other participants.
  • Client-oriented – the ability to take the side of the client and maintain a high emotional score with him or her in any situation.
  • Problem-solving – the ability to solve problems and find a way out of difficult situations.
  • Result orientation – the ability to work not for the sake of the process, but the sake of the result.

Result Orientation

The interviewer needs to make sure that the candidate can consciously and purposefully achieve results within the framework of his/her tasks. No one wants an amorphous colleague who will push his chair precisely from 10 to 18 o’clock while stretching the tasks for weeks. The future employee must not only meet the goals set but also maintain a high momentum for results.

This is what the interviewer wants to make sure of when he or she asks you questions:

  1. The candidate clearly understands the objectives.
  2. Actively works to achieve them.
  3. Consistently acts to get results.
  4. Do not retreat in the face of difficulties, looking for solutions.
  5. Communicates difficulties promptly.

Teamwork

The second most important thing that will be evaluated in a face-to-face meeting is the ability to consciously interact in a team and use that interaction to achieve results. Here the candidate needs to demonstrate that he:

  • Accepts the norms and rules of team behavior.
  • Actively contributes to the achievement of team objectives.

It’s All Serious: The Assessment 

To assess the level of your competencies, assessments and business games are usually conducted, as well as group case interviews. Several people always take part in them at once. In order not to confuse candidates and their competencies, some companies prepare for each applicant a behavioral profile, a kind of table with the following graphs: competence name, competence description, behavioral indicators, and assessment. It feels like you do my homework for me and forming a certain vision of the candidate.

Let us suppose we are considering an indicator called “Result-oriented”. Indicators are the same (clearly understanding the tasks, actively working to achieve them, reports difficulties, etc.), i.e. we are going to evaluate 5 indicators that are more or less manifest in the candidate. For each of the points, you can get a score from 1 to 3. The maximum score you will be given if you:

  • Show that you clearly understand what your tasks are and what their priorities are.
  • Ask questions to clarify unclear points.
  • And most importantly, you, without a reminder, check your performance and on time to perform all that is expected of you. This is what any employer needs.

How to Show Your Competence at the Interview?

If the format of the selection does not imply active actions (case-solving or group work), it does not mean that you will not be able to demonstrate your competence. During the one-on-one interview, you will definitely be asked to give examples from your life that will tell a better story than any general words.

Examples of how effectively and easily you work in a team, how well you set goals for yourself, and how confident you are in pursuing them should be prepared in advance. When you’re asked a direct question, you run the risk of being confused and not remembering anything expressive. Before a serious interview, organize a ‘memory night’: remember several incidents from your life, choose the one that best describes you, and structure your story along these lines:

  1. Situation: What situation are you in and why?
  2. Task: What were your objectives? Who set them? How were your priorities set?
  3. Action: What actions did you take?
  4. Result: What did it lead to? Summarize your sketch with a small conclusion.

Final Words

As you dive deep into your preparations, don’t forget the other stakeholder, the company. Study everything you can find: read open sources, ask your friends, if possible learn about the relationships within the company and the organization of the work process, and most importantly, carefully read the profile of the position for which you are applying. Try to understand exactly how much this company needs you to be a team player, focused on results.

Also Read- What to Ask During Nursing Interview?