Strength based interviews
Discussion
Hi
I've got an interview in a couple of weeks for an insurance firm, and they've mentioned it'll be a strength based interview. Not heard of this before and after some googling it seems like a different style of interview.
So has anyone had any experiecne of these, from either side of the desk?
Any help appreciated
Ed
I've got an interview in a couple of weeks for an insurance firm, and they've mentioned it'll be a strength based interview. Not heard of this before and after some googling it seems like a different style of interview.
So has anyone had any experiecne of these, from either side of the desk?
Any help appreciated
Ed
Is it a form of competency based interviewing technique?
In my experience it's quite a good way of delving into a candidate's experience, finding out what sort of level they can operate at, and then scoring it against other candidates. Questioning is focussed not on "talk us through your CV" or even "draw me a bicycle", which might be another interview you carry out, but this is on a more structured manner with questions like "tell us about a time when you dealt with conflict" or "describe a time when you had to give bad news to stakeholders". Once you start responding you are then probed to provide more detail around how your approaches to this and that. Your actions are then assessed against the required capabilities and behaviours needed in the role.
I'd ask the people who you are going to see what they mean by this as you need to prepare in the right way.
I've always come out of these in quite a sweat because they do make you work hard. You can only prepare by having rock solid, as real as possible experiences, so you need to be clear what you are going into in the job - and what level they are expecting you to come in at. CEOs will need to demonstrate different behaviours - to problem solving for instance, than to an engineer or a junior project manager.
All in all, good luck! I once had one of these interviews for a job which left me confused and somewhat downheartened, as it was a really tough sesion, and I suspected the HR person was not that experienced in this technique and didn't really know the subject matter (which even though shouldn't matter, did for the role I was after). I still got the job though!
In my experience it's quite a good way of delving into a candidate's experience, finding out what sort of level they can operate at, and then scoring it against other candidates. Questioning is focussed not on "talk us through your CV" or even "draw me a bicycle", which might be another interview you carry out, but this is on a more structured manner with questions like "tell us about a time when you dealt with conflict" or "describe a time when you had to give bad news to stakeholders". Once you start responding you are then probed to provide more detail around how your approaches to this and that. Your actions are then assessed against the required capabilities and behaviours needed in the role.
I'd ask the people who you are going to see what they mean by this as you need to prepare in the right way.
I've always come out of these in quite a sweat because they do make you work hard. You can only prepare by having rock solid, as real as possible experiences, so you need to be clear what you are going into in the job - and what level they are expecting you to come in at. CEOs will need to demonstrate different behaviours - to problem solving for instance, than to an engineer or a junior project manager.
All in all, good luck! I once had one of these interviews for a job which left me confused and somewhat downheartened, as it was a really tough sesion, and I suspected the HR person was not that experienced in this technique and didn't really know the subject matter (which even though shouldn't matter, did for the role I was after). I still got the job though!
911motorsport, where are you?prand said:
Questioning is focussed not on "talk us through your CV" or even "draw me a bicycle"
Sadly such techniques still exist!.... along with graphology 
Fortunately however, the more enlightened employers are now starting to use more sophisticated methods.
Competency based interviews:
prand said:
more structured with questions like "tell us about a time when you dealt with conflict" or "describe a time when you had to give bad news to stakeholders".
Combined with psychometrics is about as good as you can get it for most roles and those for which it is not commercially viable to set up 'full blown' assessment centres. .... but I would say that!
OP.. I would suggest you look at the job description and work out what the core competencies are.(in the example above, the JD might include "responsible for maintaining stakeholder relations")
Then prepare some examples of how you can demonstrate your competence in response to questions that are phrased like prand's examples
H6CJF said:
Combined with psychometrics is about as good as you can get it for most roles and those for which it is not commercially viable to set up 'full blown' assessment centres.
.... but I would say that!
OP.. I would suggest you look at the job description and work out what the core competencies are.(in the example above, the JD might include "responsible for maintaining stakeholder relations")
Then prepare some examples of how you can demonstrate your competence in response to questions that are phrased like prand's examples
Thanks for the input you lot..... but I would say that!
OP.. I would suggest you look at the job description and work out what the core competencies are.(in the example above, the JD might include "responsible for maintaining stakeholder relations")
Then prepare some examples of how you can demonstrate your competence in response to questions that are phrased like prand's examples
I've since spoken to someone from HR to give some more info and apparently it's not a traditional 'competency' based interview, it's a relatively new-fangled thing where they ask a series of short/quick questions such as 'how are you at buying presents?'!! hmm i'm screwed then!
All know is I'm S*** at buying presents for the wife so might as well give in now!
mojjo1 said:
it's a relatively new-fangled thing where they ask a series of short/quick questions such as 'how are you at buying presents?'!!
Oh FFS... Will somebody save us from these people! Good luck OP.. (may be worth getting ready to talk about your star sign as well...)
ETA... they need saving from themselves as well!
Edited by H6CJF on Monday 4th July 16:10
H6CJF said:
Oh FFS... Will somebody save us from these people!
Good luck OP.. (may be worth getting ready to talk about your star sign as well...)
ETA... they need saving from themselves as well!
Cheers and i'll post up in a couple of weeks once done and tell all.Good luck OP.. (may be worth getting ready to talk about your star sign as well...)
ETA... they need saving from themselves as well!
Edited by H6CJF on Monday 4th July 16:10
Ed
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