During the conversation with you, the HR expert, the project manager and even the company manager himself do not sit idly by. Of course, your interviewer can hold his hands however he wants, but behind his courteous smile is a complicated and complex process of assessing his professional competence. In this article, we’ll tell you what these competencies are and how they differ from skills, knowledge and values, why they get so much attention, and which competencies will impress an employer.
What are the competencies?
While skills, knowledge, and even values can be reflected on a resume, competencies are only tested during an interview. You could say that’s what it’s all about, otherwise companies would simply select candidates through CV checks. It would be interesting to know if my essay writing services would make money writing a personal resume.
Competences are the behavior that the company needs from the candidate and that he must demonstrate during the interview. There are two key factors that managers mainly pay attention to: focus on results and teamwork.
Types of skills
It is long and quite exhausting to list all the competencies, so we have selected the main professional competencies that recruiters usually check during the interview:
- Leadership: Your ability to lead, manage and motivate a team.
- Communication – the ability to find a common language with different types of people and in different situations.
- Teamwork: The ability to join a team, work together, and help other participants.
- Customer Orientation: The ability to side with the customer 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 for the sake of the result.
Orientation to results
The examiner must be sure that the candidate can consciously and resolutely achieve results within the scope of his or her tasks. Nobody wants an amorphous colleague who pushes their chair from exactly 10 am to 6 pm, dragging out tasks for weeks. The future employee must not only meet the set goals, but also maintain a high drive for results.
This is what the examiner wants to make sure of when asking you questions:
- The candidate clearly understands the objectives.
- He is actively working on its realization.
- Constantly work to achieve results.
- Do not back down from difficulties, looking for solutions.
- Communicates quickly about difficulties.
Teamwork
The second most important thing that will be tested 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 must demonstrate that:
- Accept the norms and rules of behavior of the team.
- Actively contributes to the achievement of team goals.
Everything is serious: assessment
Assessments and business games, as well as group case discussions, are usually conducted to assess your level of competency. Several people always participate in them at once. To avoid confusion between candidates and their competencies, some companies create a behavior profile for each candidate, a kind of table with the following graphs: name of the competency, description of the competency, behavioral indicators, and rating. It feels like you are doing my homework for me and forming a certain view of the candidate.
Suppose we are considering an indicator called “results oriented”. The indicators are the same (clear understanding of the tasks, active work in their achievement, reporting of difficulties, etc.), that is, we will evaluate 5 more or less accentuated indicators in the candidate. For each of the points, you can get points from 1 to 3. You will get the maximum score if:
- Show that you clearly understand what your tasks are and what your priorities are.
- Ask questions to clarify unclear points.
- And most importantly, you check your performance without reminders and do everything that is expected of you on time. This is what every employer needs.
How to demonstrate your competence in an interview?
If the selection format does not involve active action (solving a case or group work), this does not mean that you will not be able to demonstrate your competence. During one-on-one conversations, you will definitely be asked to give examples from your life that tell the story better than any general words.
Examples of how efficiently and easily you work in a team, how well you set your goals and how confidently you achieve them should be prepared in advance. When asked a direct question, you risk getting confused and not being able to think of anything expressive. Before the serious interview, organize a ‘night to remember’: recall various events in your life, choose the one that best describes you, and structure your story as follows:
- Situation: What situation are you in and why?
- Task: What were your goals? Who installed them? How do you set your priorities?
- Action: What actions did you take?
- Result: What did it lead to? Summarize your sketch with a small conclusion.
Last words
As you deepen your preparations, don’t forget about the other stakeholder, the company. Study everything you can find: read open sources, ask friends, if possible, find out about relations within the company and the organization of the work process, and most importantly, carefully read the profile of the position you are applying for . Try to understand exactly how much this company needs you to be a team player, focused on results.
Also read: What to ask during an interview with a nurse?
Zayn Tindall
Zayn currently works as an English teacher at one of the reputed universities in New York. He even worked as a career counselor for the last 5 years. Zayn likes to spend his spare time reading educational books, novels, and writing educational blogs and articles. Professionalism
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Categories: How to
Source: HIS Education