Competency-based interviews: a guide for line managers

In meetings with companies, we often hear the same story from line managers: they interviewed several candidates, all of them seemed suitable, they chose on gut feeling and, over time, discovered the person wasn't what the role required. It isn't a lack of judgement. It's a lack of method. People who run a team know a great deal about their work, but they have almost never been taught how to interview. This guide is designed for exactly that: so your next interview gives you evidence, not just impressions.

What is a competency-based interview?

It's a structured interview based on a simple idea: the best clue to how someone will act is how they have acted before in similar situations. Instead of asking “how would you react if…?”, you ask “tell me about a time when…”. The first question invites people to say what sounds good. The second forces them to describe something that actually happened.

A competency is a set of observable behaviours that make the difference in a role: organising work, negotiating, leading a team, solving technical problems, delivering bad news. They can be described, asked about and assessed.

Before the interview: define what you're looking for

The most common mistake happens before you sit down with the candidate. If you don't know what competencies the role needs, no interview technique will save you. Spend some time on this:

1. Write down the role's results. Not the tasks, but what that person has to achieve in their first year.
2. Work out the competencies. For each result, ask yourself which behaviours make it possible. Separate personal competencies (how they relate to others, how they make decisions, how they handle pressure) from technical ones (the knowledge and skills of the job).
3. Prioritise. Keep a few key competencies. If everything is essential, nothing is.
4. Describe what doing it well looks like. For each competency, write one or two sentences on what strong behaviour looks like and what weak behaviour looks like. It will help you score.

Prepare the questions too, and divide them up if several people are going to interview. That way every competency is covered and nobody repeats what someone else has already asked.

Three techniques we use every day

The STAR method

STAR stands for Situation, Task, Action and Result. It's the structure a good answer should have:

• Situation: the context. Where were they and what was happening?
• Task: what that person was responsible for doing.
• Action: what exactly they did. This is where the value of the answer lies.
• Result: what happened next and what they learned.

Your job as the interviewer is to fill in the missing pieces. If the candidate stays on the situation, ask about the action. If they speak in the plural, ask what they personally did.

The CAR method

CAR (Context, Action, Result) is a leaner version. It works well when time is limited or when the competency you're assessing is very specific. It loses some detail about the candidate's own responsibility, so make up for it with follow-up questions.

Critical incidents

Critical incident analysis focuses on decisive moments: situations where something could go very well or very badly and the person's behaviour made the difference. Ask the candidate to choose one and walk through it with them step by step: what they saw, what they thought, what they decided, what they did and what happened. These are the accounts that reveal most about how someone makes decisions under pressure.

Sample questions by competency

Adapt them to your role. What matters is that they all ask for a real event.

• Results orientation: “Tell me about a target you struggled to reach. What did you do when you saw you weren't going to make it?”
• Teamwork: “Tell me about a time you disagreed with a colleague. How did you resolve it?”
• Leadership: “Describe a situation where you had to address the performance of someone in your team. What did you say to them and what happened next?”
• Problem-solving: “Tell me about the most complex technical problem you solved in your last role. How did you approach it?”
• Adapting to change: “Tell me about a change at your company that you didn't like. What did you do?”
• Customer focus: “Describe a time you dealt with a very dissatisfied customer. What did you do, specifically?”
• Planning: “Tell me about a week when you had more work than you could get through. How did you decide what to do first?”

And the follow-up questions that draw out the most information: “What exactly did you do?”, “What did you say?”, “How did you know it was working?”, “What would you do differently today?”

How to assess the answers

Score each competency straight after the interview, with the strong and weak behaviour descriptions you prepared in front of you. A simple scale with a few levels is enough. Note the evidence behind each score: the specific phrase or fact that told you.

Signs of a good answer: concrete details, first person singular, acknowledgement of mistakes and of what was learned. Warning signs: generalisations (“I always…”), answers in the plural from start to finish, stories without a result or accounts where the blame always lies with someone else.

If several of you are interviewing, score individually before discussing. That way you avoid the opinion of whoever speaks first swaying everyone else.

During the interview, take verbatim notes of what the candidate says, not of what you think of it. “They called the client that same afternoon and offered two alternatives” is evidence. “Very decisive” is an opinion, and opinions get forgotten or distorted when it's time to decide.

Common interviewer mistakes

• Talking more than the candidate. If you spend half the interview explaining the company, you have no time left to listen.
• Hypothetical questions. “What would you do if…?” measures imagination, not behaviour.
• Leading questions. “You're an organised person, aren't you?” only allows one answer.
• Sticking with your first impression. The first few minutes carry too much weight if you don't have a structure that makes you look for evidence.
• Looking for someone like you. Affinity isn't a competency.
• Asking what you shouldn't. Avoid any questions about private life, family plans, health, religion or other personal matters unrelated to the role. If in doubt, consult your employment adviser or a lawyer.

When to ask for support

A well-run competency-based interview takes preparation and practice. For most roles, this guide gives you a solid foundation. For key positions, or when the cost of getting it wrong is high (we help you calculate it in what a bad hire costs), a second pair of eyes is worth it.

At Crearte, STAR and CAR interviews and critical incident analysis are the foundation of the CREARTE Method. Every candidate we present comes with a fit summary against the role's responsibilities and the personal and technical competencies we have defined with you. You can ask us to handle just the candidate assessment of your finalists or the full recruitmentprocess. Either way, you work with senior points of contact and with full transparency: you know what we assess, how, and why we recommend each person.

Frequently asked questions