How would you uncover the core competencies of a candidate?

How to Answer
Answer Example
Experienced
Community Answers

As an HR Consultant, you may be responsible for hiring new talent, which means interviewing a ton of candidates. The interviewer wants to gauge how skilled you are in uncovering a candidates' skills and talents for a particular job. The better you are at discovering a candidate's core competencies, the faster you can select new hires, moving the interview process along. Discuss what you look for when meeting new candidates and what tools you use for discovering their potential.

"I believe that attracting candidates with the right core competencies begins with a well-crafted job posting. A job posting should address both the organizational competencies required and the role-specific competencies. I want to make sure that a candidate can meet the needs of the company and its culture while also excelling in their job. I achieve this through personality and skills testing by the second interview. This practice weeds out the candidates who are not a fit and alerts me to candidates that best align with our company's needs."

"From what I have seen, structured interviews are a much more effective way of interviewing versus unstructured interviews. When I have a structured question list for each candidate that focuses on the position-specific competencies and the organizational competencies required for success, I can better identify my top candidates. On top of these prepared questions, I will also ask specific interview questions based on the candidate's experience and past behaviors. Utilizing questions that get to the core of the actual job description works the best for any position that I am interviewing candidates for."

Anonymous Answer

"Ensure the job posting is well articulated and reflects the current work environment.
I ask the candidate to tell me about a specific time they have demonstrated that competency (i.e., leadership, dealing with conflict). I am looking for a particular situation, obstacle, action they took, and a result."

Rachelle's Feedback

This type of interviewing is the best way to draw out competencies and determine a match. Good answer!

Show More Answers

Anonymous Answer

"I would first look at the resume and see what tasks they have done in the past and their education. In the interview, where you would get most of the information, I would ask both situational and behavioral questions to gauge their experience handling certain tasks and how they conduct themselves in certain situations."

Rachelle's Feedback

Your answer is structured well, and it seems that you have a solid understanding of the types of questions to ask to assess experience levels. If your organization uses any software-based measuring tools/formal hiring assessments, this could be a good addition to your answer.