As someone leading communication teams in Government, like other managers in the Civil Service, local government, the NHS, universities and large private sector employers, I recruited people based on how well they met the competencies (the skills, knowledge and behaviours) that were needed for a specific role.
Large organisations use competency-based recruitment so that, as far as possible, they’re hiring people based on evidence and because they should be as fair as possible in deciding who’s most suited for a role.
To be successful, the bottom line is that you need to make it as easy as possible for the people interviewing you to give you strong ratings for each of the competencies they’re marking you on.
That means providing, clear, succinct examples which it’s best to think of as short stories. And STAR gives you a framework to tell your best stories. It consists of:
- Situation – What scenario were you dealing with?
- Task – What was your role or the challenge you needed to tackle?
- Action – What exactly did you do?
- Result – What was the outcome?
To break it down a little:
Start with the situation
Give a quick snapshot of the scenario. Keep this brief though. The mistake most people make is in spending too long on this and losing the interviewers before they’ve even got to describing what they did.
“Earlier this year, while I was leading on a marketing campaign to raise awareness about X among 16 to 24 year-olds, our budget was cut by 25% a week before we were due to launch.”
Move to the task
Explain the goal or problem, making sure to highlight your role. It might usually come naturally to talk about “we” but if you use it in an interview, the panel won’t know what you specifically did.
“As the campaign lead, I needed to re-assess the objectives, and ensure the campaign could still launch on time.”
Action
Clearly describe what you did.
“I re-visited the objectives with my key stakeholders, and we agreed we would drop one of the regions we originally wanted to go into. I then asked our agency to create new media plans for our other target regions”.
End with the Result
If you have quantifiable outcomes, be sure to use them.
“Our post campaign research showed awareness rose on average from 24% to 38% with our audience in the regions we targeted. X, Y, Z were particularly effective and I’ve shared our learning with other teams.”
It’s obvious, but providing good quality evidence on the day, means prepping ahead of time. Here are some pointers:
- Start as early as possible with thinking about previous experiences that match the competencies in the job description. Ask others to help remind you of examples too.
- Prep an example of something that hasn’t gone so well – you’ll most likely be asked about this. Be positive about what you learned and how you’ve applied it.
- Practice out loud: You’ll sound smoother and more confident.
- Record your practice runs: Notice how your energy sounds as you speak. Aim to sound energised and enthusiastic. Interviewers
It might take time to do your prep but once you have some examples, if you don’t get the first role you go for, with some tweaking you can use them again.
