Week 3 - Competency-Based Interviews
Competency-based interviews are the bane of many candidates' interview processes. They can be extremely challenging since they require that you think of examples from your life when you have demonstrated a wide range of skills that are relevant to the work of a solicitor.
This not only requires that you have demonstrated these skills to a high level throughout work, education, extra-curricular activities or life more generally, but it requires that you are able to recall relevant examples at the spur of the moment when asked in an interview!
Of course, it is possible to prepare for such questions so that you are not racking your brain to search through all your life experiences on the spot, and this post seeks to help you prepare in what I found to be the most effective way possible from my own anecdotal experiences.
Core Competency Questions
First of all, I discovered that in my opinion, there were essentially five types of core competency questions that I think you can almost be guaranteed to be asked about in one form or another throughout an interview process. These are questions that ask you for a time you demonstrated one of the following qualities:
- Teamwork
- Initiative
- Resilience
- Adaptability
- Organisation
Questions about leadership also came up a lot but I found that they somewhat combine teamwork and initiative, so it is good to have an example that crosses over these two core competencies. I always used an example where I had a leadership role in the situation, but also had to contribute to the efforts of the wider team as well. This meant that I could draw upon one of my teamwork examples and did not have to recall a completely separate set of facts for a question about leadership.
People often advised me that I should have two to three examples prepared for every competency, but there are dozens of potential competencies and it would be infeasible to prepare 50 different examples. Instead, I would recommend having two to three examples for each core competency and then considering how you can take different aspects of each example and apply it to the wording of a range of more nuanced questions.
Broader Competency Questions
TCLA has a list of interview questions, which includes a subsection devoted to competency questions. I also kept a note of competency questions I was asked after each interview and I will discuss my approach to what is seemingly a massive range of questions.
I found that all of the questions below can be broken down into one of the core competency questions I outlined above. I have listed the core competency (as I see it) in bold next to the question. Sometimes I think that the question could deal with multiple possible core competencies, so I would spend thirty seconds or so in the interview thinking about which of my examples best fit the relevant question. It is great if some of the examples you come up with cross over several competencies!
Here is the list of competency questions I have personally been asked, in no particular order, followed by what in my opinion is the core competency being looked for:
- What is a time you have demonstrated leadership skills? - Initiative/Teamwork
- What is a time you had to change your approach at short notice? - Adaptability
- What is a time where you succeeded by being attentive to detail? - Organisation
- What is a time that you had to resolve a dispute with a co-worker? - Teamwork
- What is a time you have successfully innovated? - Initiative
- What is a time when you have recovered from a setback? - Resilience
- What is a time you have demonstrated integrity? - Resilience
- What is a time you have spearheaded a project? - Initiative/Organisation
- What is a time you have had to manage multiple tight deadlines? - Organisation
- What is a time you have had to persevere in the face of adversity? - Resilience
- What is a time you have had to deal with failure? - Resilience
- What is a time you have taken on constructive feedback? - Resilience/Teamwork/Adaptability
- What is a time you have improved a process? - Initiative/Organisation
- What is a time you worked together in a team that proved really rewarding? - Teamwork
- What is a time you had to change your method of communication for the audience? - Adaptability
- What is a time that by listening, you managed to do better on something? - Adaptability/Teamwork
Working out which core competency is being asked for and then applying your examples on the spot is not easy, but it is much better than hearing a tricky competency question and having absolutely no idea what you should talk about!
I found that when I was able to think to myself, 'Which core competency/competencies do I think is/are being asked for here?' followed by 'What is my list of examples of this/these competency/competencies?' then I was able to remain calm and come up with a reasonably good answer on the spot.
Finally, can you use the same example more than once?
Yes, if you are unable to avoid doing so and if you have a unique point to make about the example!
If you are asked a particularly nuanced competency question that you think relates exceptionally well to an example you have already drawn upon in response to a different competency question and have no other relevant examples, then I would feel comfortable using it. This is provided that the competency addressed is entirely different and you are using a different element from your example to show this subsequent competency.
If you are asked two similar competency questions, however, then I would try to use different examples. For example I was once asked in an interview the question, 'What is a time when you have recovered from a setback?' and, later in the interview, 'What is a time you have had to deal with failure?' The questions are slightly different but seeing as I would have had nothing new to add to my first example in answering the second question, I assumed that the interviewers were looking for a different example of my resilience by asking such a similar question.
On the above point, I once had interviewers ask me for an example of a time when I had demonstrated teamwork, and when I was done they asked, 'How about another example?' and, having prepared another example, I was a little over-confident and so that after telling them about the second example I was totally not expecting them to ask again, 'How about another example?'...
This was the only time I had to make something up on the spot and it was clear that the interviewers were trying to get me away from what I had prepared, so I guess they won 🤣
And finally, I would try not to use the same example more than twice, if you can avoid doing so!
I hope that this week's interview insights post was helpful and please reach out if you have any questions as always 
