Competency based interviews provide a professional, structured process for carrying out an interview. They are used both during the recruitment of new personnel and the selection of individuals for promotion. It is also possible to use the system to identify training and development needs.

This site is aimed at providing advice to both interviewers and interviewees. The more people are aware of the requirements of competency based interviews the more useful the approach will become.

The process of interviewing is time consuming and stressful for all involved and, despite its popularity, does not have a high success rate. The main contributor to the underperformance is lack of preparation on both sides.

There are a significant proportion of people carrying out interviews who have never had formal training and are often given the task because other people are too busy. The result is the wrong people are recruited or promoted and the interviewee receives an impression of lack of professionalism within the organisation.

Similarly interviewees attend interviews without carrying out even basic preparation in the hope that they can muddle through and use their charm and charisma to succeed.

Competency based, situational or behavioural interviews seeks to apply a structure, including a scoring or evaluation system to interviews to ensure sensible decisions are made following the interviews.