So you have applied to a prestigious firm for your dream job. If you get the job, you know you will get a definite head start to your career. And then, after days of waiting your patience is finally rewarded. You feel on top of the world on receiving the coveted interview call.

You start preparing for the interview in right earnest. Right from brushing up your domain knowledge, leafing through class project reports, reading up on current affairs, and generally working towards making a favorable impression, you don’t leave any stone unturned.

But I am a Fresher! What kind of questions will I have to face in the interview?

As a fresher though, you don’t have too many references to draw from, or past experiences to guide you as to how your interview will turn out. You also realize unlike experienced persons who have past career records to fall back on, you have precious little in terms of actual work experience on which interview questions can be formulated. So, how will you prepare for, and what can you expect in the job interview?

While interviewing candidates with job experience, interviewers use their past experiences and records to verify merit, but such an approach is not possible for fresh out-of-college candidates. In traditional unstructured interviews, the format is more like a one-to-one discussion where you are asked certain questions and your suitability is judged on the basis of your answers. This format has been found to be faulty as there is no scientific basis on judgment being applied here. Most questions are hypothetical and so are the answers.
For example, “How will you handle an upset customer?” or “What strategy will you use in such and such case?”

A more rational approach can be applied in the form of competency based interview. In such competency based interviews, the interviewer tries to find out how candidates have actually performed in various situations in the past, which help in revealing individual competencies (see definition below).

To cut a long story short, it means they use past behavior to predict future performance.

What are Competencies?

Let us first understand what competency based interview actually means.

Competency = Skills + Ability + Motivation

To give an example, Company A requires a person for handling the job of a Sales Officer in a branch office. In addition to the requisite skills and qualifications needed for the job profile, the company has identified certain performance-related behaviors that are critical to performing the job effectively. These behaviors or “competencies” are traits that have elevated job performance in the past, and are likely to be the basis of successful job performance in the future as well. Company A lists such behaviors as a key job competencies and formats their selection processes on these.

Some key competencies that form the basis of competency based interview may be:

Effective Communication
Listening skills
Teamwork
Negotiation skills
Risk Taking
Empathy
Leadership
Problem solving
Results orientation
Conflict handling
Handling cross-cultural diversity
Integrity
The above list is just indicative, and may be a part of an exhaustive competency manual prepared by company HR for individual jobs.