Competency based interviews

What makes it different from an ordinary interview?

The scoring. In an unstructured interview a panel forms a judgement and discusses it afterwards. In a competency based interview each answer is marked against named criteria on a fixed scale, and the marks decide the outcome.

Three practical consequences follow, and they change how you should prepare.

1. Everyone gets the same core questions. The panel is not building a conversation around you, they are collecting comparable evidence, so the questions will feel formal and will not follow your lead.
2. Marks come from evidence, not from rapport. Being likeable does not move a score that has to be justified in writing against a criterion.
3. An unanswered criterion scores zero. If a question is about handling conflict and your example is about hitting a deadline, you can give a good answer and still score nothing.

Who uses them in the UK?

Most of the UK public sector: the Civil Service, the NHS, local government, police forces, universities and large charities. Competency based interviewing is far more common here than in the United States, which is why most advice written for an American audience misses it entirely.

The Civil Service framework is the most fully documented, and it is worth reading even if you are applying elsewhere, because other employers borrowed from it.

How is a Civil Service interview actually scored?

The Civil Service replaced its old competency framework with Success Profiles, which assesses five elements: behaviours, experience, ability, technical skills and strengths. A job advert names which of the five apply and which behaviours are being tested.

Answers are scored on a merit based scale from 1 to 7, and a score of 4 or more is normally needed on each assessed element to progress. That is the specific thing worth knowing: you are not competing to be the most impressive person in the room, you are clearing a bar on each named criterion, and falling below it on one can end the application regardless of how the rest went.

Interviews normally run 30 to 60 minutes. All candidates get the same core questions, and follow-ups vary because they depend on what you said.

What are the nine behaviours?

The Civil Service behaviours are published in full, with what each one looks like at every grade from administrative assistant to director general. A role will be assessed against a handful of them, named in the advert.

• Seeing the Big Picture
• Changing and Improving
• Making Effective Decisions
• Leadership
• Communicating and Influencing
• Working Together
• Developing Self and Others
• Managing a Quality Service
• Delivering at Pace

Read the grade specific description of each behaviour the advert names, not the behaviour title. The titles are broad enough to mean almost anything; the grade descriptions are what the scorer has in front of them, and they are specific.

How should you prepare differently?

Prepare examples against criteria rather than answers against questions. The advert tells you which behaviours are being assessed, which means you know the shape of the interview before you walk in, and that is unusual enough to be worth exploiting.

An example that half covers three behaviours scores worse than an example that fully covers one, because each criterion is marked separately and a partial answer sits below the bar on all three.

What does a scorer actually write down?

Evidence, in your words, attached to a criterion. That is why specific actions matter more than context: a marker cannot record "seemed capable", they have to record what you did that demonstrates the behaviour.

This is the mechanical reason the STAR structure is recommended. It is not a magic formula, it just happens to produce the sequence a scorer needs to fill in a form, with the actions in the middle where most of the marks are.

What if you do not have an example?

Use one from outside paid work rather than inventing one. Volunteering, study, a committee, a family situation that required organising other people: all of it counts, and panels say so explicitly more often than candidates expect.

What does not work is answering hypothetically when a real example was asked for. "I would approach it by" answers a different question and, on a strict framework, scores as no evidence provided.

What does the NHS do differently?

NHS recruitment layers values based questions on top of competency ones, because the NHS Constitution sets out values every post is expected to hold to. So an NHS panel is often assessing two things at once: whether you can do the work, and whether how you would do it fits.

Practically that means an NHS answer needs the patient, service user or colleague visible in it. A competency answer about improving a process scores better when it says who the improvement was for and how you knew it helped them, and worse when it stays at the level of the process.

The structure is unchanged. A values question is still answered with a real example, it just needs the human consequence in the result rather than only the operational one.

What are the most common ways people lose marks?

Four, in roughly this order of frequency, and all four are avoidable before you walk in.

1. Answering with "we" throughout, which leaves the scorer unable to attribute anything to you. This costs more marks in competency interviews than any other single habit.
2. Spending most of the answer on context. The situation is scenery; the actions are the evidence, and a long scene leaves no time for them.
3. Choosing an example that does not match the criterion. A strong story about hitting a deadline scores nothing against a question on handling conflict, however well told.
4. Answering hypothetically when a real example was requested. On a strict framework that records as no evidence provided rather than as a weaker answer.

How do strength based questions differ?

Strength based questions ask what you enjoy and what comes naturally, rather than for evidence of what you have already done. Success Profiles includes strengths as a separate element, so they are scored on aptitude and motivation: what do you enjoy, what would you rather be doing.

Answers should be quicker and less structured. A strengths question does not want a STAR answer, and delivering one signals that you are working from a script rather than answering what was asked.