Do You Know Your Competencies? You Should to Interview Your Best

High Performance

Employers hire people based on their ability to perform a job. The ability to perform a job is based on the “competencies” a person brings to the position. What the heck are competencies and what do they have to do with interviewing?

Lets start defining competencies by  doing some differentiation. Job descriptions typically list the tasks or functions and responsibilities for a role, whereas competencies list the abilities needed to conduct those tasks or functions. Thus, competencies are the basic skills you offer an employer and are independent of the specific job for which you are interviewing. Employers are primarily interested in your competencies and during the interview you should make sure the interviewer hears all about your outstanding competencies.

Here are the competencies you should be communicating:

Managing Resources: Identifies, organizes, plans, and allocates resources

• Time – selects goal-relevant activities, ranks them, allocates time, and prepares and follows schedules
• Money – Prepare budgets, makes forecasts, keeps records
• Material and facilities – acquires, stores, allocates, and uses materials or space
• Human resources – assesses skills and distributes work accordingly, evaluates performance and provides feedback

Managing Information: Acquires and evaluates information

• Acquires and evaluates information
• Organizes and maintains information
• Interprets and communicates information
• Uses computers to process information

Using Systems: Manages complex relationships

• Understands systems – knows how social, organizational, and technological systems work
• Monitors and corrects performance – distinguishes trends, predicts impacts on system operations, diagnoses deviations in systems performance and corrects malfunctions
• Improves or designs systems – suggests modifications to existing systems and develops new or alternative systems to improve performance

Understanding Technology: Works with a variety of technologies

• Selects technology – chooses procedures, tools, or equipment including computers and related technologies
• Applies technology to task – understands intent and proper procedures for setup and operation of equipment
• Maintains and troubleshoots equipment – prevents, identifies, or solves problems with equipment, including computers and other technologies

Basic Skills: Reads, writes, performs arithmetic and mathematical operations, listens, and speaks

• Reading – locates, understands, and interprets written information in prose and in documents such as manuals, graphs, and schedules
• Writing – communicates thoughts, ideas, information, and messages in writing; and creates documents such as letters, directions, manuals, reports, graphs, and flow charts
• Arithmetic/mathematics – performs basic computations and approaches practical problems by choosing appropriately from a variety of mathematical techniques
• Listening – receives, attends to, interprets, and responds to verbal messages and other cues
• Speaking – organizes ideas and communicates orally

Thinking Skills: Thinks creatively, makes decisions, solves problems, visualizes, knows how to learn, and reasons

• Creative thinking – generates new ideas
• Decision making – specifies goals and constraints, generates alternatives, considers risks, and  evaluates and chooses best alternatives
• Problem solving – recognizes problems and devises and implements plan of action
• Visualizing – organizes and processes symbols
• Knowing how to learn – uses efficient learning techniques to acquire and apply new knowledge and skills
• Reasoning – discovers a rule or principle underlying the relationship between two or more objects and applies it when solving a problem

Personal Qualities: Responsibility, self-esteem, sociability, self-management, integrity, and honesty

• Responsibility – exerting a high level of effort and perseveres towards goal attainment
• Self-esteem – believes in own self-worth and maintains a positive self view
• Sociability – demonstrates understanding, friendliness, adaptability, empathy, and politeness in group settings
• Self-management – assesses self accurately, setting personal goals, monitoring progress, and exhibiting self-control
• Integrity/honesty – chooses ethical courses of action

Here is the way to use this list-

1. Think of those competencies which are most critical to the position for which you are applying. Be prepared to answer questions related to those competencies.
2. Ask the  question, “What are the basic competencies a person has to have to be successful in this job?”
3. Think of situations, on and off the job, where you used one of these competencies.  Write a brief description of the situation. During the interview, if you are asked a question where you can use an example of one  your competency do so.

Good interviews are based on a common understanding of the job and the skills a successful employee has to have. Thus, knowing about the competencies required to perform the job is critical for both the candidate and the hiring manager. Focusing on competencies assures a best “fit hiring” decision for both candidate and company.

InterviewBest helps organize and communicate competencies