Nearly all interviews will involve competency based questions which is a fair and equal way to score all candidates’ answers. Example questions will be “give an example when you’ve worked towards a deadline”, “when have you had to lead a team?”, “when have you had to change the way you completed a task?”. Our competency based interview guide should help you prepare.

One technique to prepare an answer that will score well is the STAR interview technique:

• Situation
• Task
• Action
• Result

Situation – this is where you set the scene, describe a time when a piece of work had to be submitted by a set date.

Task – Maybe you had a plan with colleagues, prioritise workload and identify a task that was less urgent to ensure the deadline was met.

Action – this segment describes what you actually did.

Result – after your planning you were able to complete the work in time and hand in early.

The competency based segment of your interview is not a natural, free flowing conversation so don’t feel the need to answer as soon as the question is finished. Take a few seconds to get your example ready and the order in which to “tell the story”. It’s also worth having a few stock answers ready to go which you can tweak accordingly for each interview.

For more general interview preparation insight, see here.

Bowen Eldridge Recruitment specialises in Accountancy Practice, Finance and Marketing Recruitment