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What Is Competency-Based Behavioral Interviewing?
Before we define competency-based behavioral interviewing (CBBI), it's important that we define a competency. Simply put, a competency is a behavior (a skill and/or ability) or set of behaviors that describes the expected performance in a particular work context. The context could be for an organization, a functional job group (e.g., accounting, human resources, operations), a job category (e.g., senior managers, middle managers, professionals), or a specific job. When they are appropriately developed, competencies are the standards of success for the position and the behaviors that are needed to support the strategic plan, vision, mission, and goals of the organization.
Competencies are different from the other requirements one might find for a given position, such as technical skills, functional skills and knowledge, education, and experience. For example, it is one thing to recruit for a position and require five years of management experience. It is another thing to recruit for a position that requires five years of management experience leading a diverse group of people. In the second situation, you would be looking for a candidate with five years of management experience coupled with a demonstrated competency of valuing diversity.
Competency-based behavioral interviewing is a structured interview process that combines competencies with the premise that, with few exceptions:
The best predictor of future performance/behavior is past performance/behavior.
The more recent the performance/behavior, the more likely it is to be repeated.
The questions asked during CBBI are based on real situations that relate to the competencies for the position.Candidates, then, are evaluated based on actual behaviors/performance rather than on possible or potential behaviors/performance. As a result, the information gathered from candidates is significantly more predictive of what their behavior and performance are likely to be in the position for which they are interviewing than what one finds with other interviewing styles.
In CBBI, rather than asking candidates directly if they have a particular competency—to which you will almost always hear a resounding "yes!"—the interviewer asks the candidate to provide an example of a time when he demonstrated the competency. The focus is on the candidate giving you an indication of her proficiency in a particular competency by relating a real-world experience.
Excerpted from HIGH-IMPACT INTERVIEW QUESTIONS, Second Edition: 701 Behavior-Based Questions to Find the Right Person for Every Job by Victoria A. Hoevemeyer. Copyright © 2018 Victoria A. Hoevemeyer. Published by AMACOM Books, a division of American Management Association, New York, NY. Used with permission.
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