Behavioural and competency based interviews are the most common interview styles used by companies today.
This acronym lays out the structure that interviewers are looking for you to follow when providing your specific examples to their questions. It stands for;
Situation — Describe a particular work related circumstance.
Task — Describe the particular task you were undertaking.
Action — Describe your actions.
Result — Describe the outcome of your actions and the overall result of the situation.
The biggest mistake candidates make is saying something along the lines of “Yes, I do this all the time, everyday I do things like this and this is how I generally do it etc.”. It is great you have lots of experience with this area but what the Interviewer and Recruiter want to know is 1 particular time you were in this situation, what it was, how you dealt with it and what the outcome was i.e. “Yes, I deal with this type of situation regularly. One such situation was last week when …..”.
When addressing the situation, keep it to a high level overview. The Interviewers do not need to necessarily know all the ins and outs of what happened, they just need a feel for it.
Detail the task you were working on and your particular actions; what did you specifically do (be careful of saying ‘we’) to help rectify the situation.
Most importantly highlight the result of the situation and what difference did your actions make to it.
It is always an extra value add if you can also provide a lesson learnt from the example i.e. something you would do differently if given the chance again or in the future. This helps to demonstrate your awareness of the importance of reflecting back and utilizing previous learning to help better future outcomes.
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Pro Resume Write wishes you all the best for your next interview!
Professional Resume Writer & International REC2REC Recruiter
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Originally published at https://www.linkedin.com on August 26, 2015.
Originally published at medium.com