|
Selecting competencies
& questions
Be choosy about retaining competencies and interview questions when
you create your guides. New users have a tendency to retain too many
competencies & questions resulting in very long interviews. A rough rule
of thumb: Using 1/2 of the available content results in interviews of around
an hour, on average. Generally speaking, you will have as few as 2-3 or as
many as 8- 10 interview questions for each competency. The more important
competencies will usually have the highest number of questions.
Setting Weights
Weighting is used when some of your competencies are more important to
the job than others. Weights can be set for each competency you are using. In
the following example, you can see that the Supervision/Leadership
competency is most important and the Career Goals competency is least
important.
An easy way to set weights is
to take a sheet of scratch paper and rank order your competencies from most
to least important. Start by listing the most important one at the top. Then,
list the least important at the bottom. Alternate through until you complete
the rank order of all. Use the same procedure to assign appropriate weights
for each competency (assign the most and least important weights first).
These weights are then entered into the "Weight:______" item on the
cover sheet of your guide.
You will end up with something similar to the
following:
· 25% Supervision/Leadership
· 20% Decision Making
· 15% Verbal Communications
· 15% Problem Solving
· 10% Interpersonal Relations
· 10% Written Communications
· 05% Career Goals
· Total = 100%
Experience based
questions
Be sure all questions are strictly related only to the job. Try to
design your questions so that you get as much practical information as
possible from the applicant. A long-established approach is to design
interview questions that elicit answers based on the applicant's actual
experiences. The theory behind this approach is that "past behavior is
the best predictor of future behavior". These kinds of interview
questions are called "behavior oriented."
Behaviorally Oriented Question
- "Give me an example of a time when you
dealt with a customer who is irate over his bill. How did you deal with the
customer and what was the outcome?"
This question is hard to "fake." It is based on an
actual experience you have asked the applicant to explain. If you are dealing
with an inexperienced applicant you will have to modify the question in order
to relate it to a similar experience the applicant has had. You will want to
use behavioral types of questions frequently.
Avoid "Yes,
No" answers
Avoid "closed end" questions. Questions that can be answered
with a simple "yes" or "no" elicit only rudimentary
information for your evaluation. Don't ask, "Are you willing to work
overtime?" A better approach would be, "We often work overtime on
Wednesdays. Tell me what problems this might create for you."
Probe for information
Develop a few "probing questions" which you can use as
follow-up questions whenever you feel the applicant's response is inadequate
or possibly evasive. Here are a few examples:
"I'm not sure I understand completely. Would you elaborate on that
for me?"
"Could you give me an example of that, please?"
"Would you clarify that for me, please?"
"Tell me more about that."
These probing questions do not have to be written into your interview
guide. Just keep a few of them in mind for use when necessary.
|