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"Dealt with Sam, top bloke. Managed to get me placed within a week! Really friendly and easy to deal with. Always available for a call, and my biggest challenge was I was in work at the time I was looking for my next opportunity (which is stressful) but Sam made that easy. Highly recommend."

Philip Fitzsimon

Competency Interview Template

To help you devise your own Competency interviewing template and scoring mechanism, we have linked to an example template.

How to Use

This example template is for a Head of Sales role, so it emphasises required competencies such as:

    • Performance against Targets
    • Strategic Sales Development
    • Delivering Training and Upskilling Team Members
    • Team Development, Coaching and Mentoring
    • Conflict Management
    • Change Management
    • Leading from the Front
    • Measuring and Controlling Progress
    • Resilience and Tenacity
    • Download the Competency Interview Template

You will see that it details a scoring and weighting mechanism.  For this Head of Sales role, it was deemed that ‘Performance against Targets’ was more important than ‘Delivering Training and Upskilling Team Members’.  Therefore, the candidate would ‘score’ double for this particular Competency.  Using ‘weighting’ when scoring helps ensure that the best candidate scores highly against an average applicant.

We suggest ‘keeping it simple’ by having a weighting system of 1 (or zero weighting), 1.5, or 2. 

Using the Competency Interview Template

Use our Competency Interview Guide to create your own competencies. 

It may also be useful to use our suggested Competency Interview Questions Guide to help create your own questions. 

Remember though that creating competency interview questions is relatively easy by following the STAR Interviewing method.  Just think of a reasonably good question that will tease out evidence of the required Competency. 

For instance, if the Competency is  ‘Building and Managing a Pipeline’ the question could be:

“Talk me through how you built your pipeline in your last role?” 

Then use laddering questions to probe and extract the detail such as:

    • What was your annual target?
    • What was your average order value?
    • What was your pipeline to close ratio?
    • How did you measure your pipeline?
    • How did you ensure that your pipeline was at the required level to ensure you met your sales target?
    • What did you do if your measurement method was saying that you weren’t on target?
    • Was there ever a time that you weren’t on target?
    • What happened?
    • What action did you take?
    • What was the outcome of this intervention?
    • What did you learn from this?

Scoring a Competency Interview

Scoring should be objective and based upon the evidence provided by the candidate against each Competency.  Strictly speaking, you should design a scoresheet so that all of the interviewing panel is following the same scoring mechanism.

Using the Competency of ‘Building and Managing a Pipeline’ the scoring mechanism could be:

Did not meet min. requirement (1 point)

    • Did not demonstrate any practical ability to build or manage a pipeline. Was unstructured in their approach to meeting targets and did not follow a process.

Met Required Level of Competency (3 points)

    • Demonstrated the ability to build and maintain pipeline. Uses systems and processes to measure pipeline to ensure that they have the required levels of business to meet the target.

Above Required Competency (4 points)

    • Demonstrated above-average ability to build and develop a pipeline. Gave examples of interventions that they put into place to ensure that targets were exceeded.  Built dates into tasks and had an effective process and system to track their pipeline.  Their system prioritised business and had a mechanism to effectively forecast.

Mastery at Competency (5 points)

    • Was extremely capable of managing a pipeline to meet every expectation and target.  Effectively communicated their systems and process to break down their target into milestones and priorities.  Provided evidence of effective forecasting and several methods they use to rebuild a pipeline.

NB Having a scoring mechanism of 1,3,4, and 5 means that the better candidates will score significantly higher and lessens the risk of all candidates having comparable scores.  

Golden Rules of Designing a Competency Interview

    • Take the time out to effectively plan your competency interview structure. 
    • Invite direct input from the hiring managers.
    • Choose the weighting and scoring mechanism carefully.
    • Try to keep the competencies to no more than eight, as each Competency will be circa ten minutes of interview time
    • Make notes, lots of them, and keep them.
    • Always be able to clearly articulate why candidates were unsuccessful based on the interview's evidence and not on ‘gut feeling’ or ‘opinion’.

We hope that you find this guide and competency interview template useful and that it helps you to take the best possible hiring decisions.

Download the Competency Interview Template

Date published: 2nd March 2024

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Rob Scott - Aaron Wallis

by Rob Scott

Managing Director

Rob Scott, Aaron Wallis Sales Recruitment, Author Photo

About the author

Rob Scott

Rob is the Managing Director of Aaron Wallis Sales Recruitment, a national recruitment agency specialising in sourcing sales and marketing staff for businesses across a broad range of commercial sectors. Before setting up Aaron Wallis, Rob spent ten years at a specialist Sales and Marketing recruitment division of a £0.5BN recruitment group, leaving in 2007 as Marketing & Sales Director to establish Aaron Wallis.
 
With over 24 years of experience in sales recruitment, Rob is a History graduate with an MBA (Merit) and a PgCert in Management Practice.  In 2007, 2009 and 2013 Rob conducted the most extensive surveys of sales professionals in the UK and is a trusted authority in the sales industry. From guiding employers through the recruitment process to helping candidates find their dream job, Rob's advice has been quoted in leading publications such as Business Insider and The Independent, as well as OnRec, which host The Online Recruitment Awards every year.

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George came recommended by a colleague and has been a pleasure to work with. He was great at updating us on his progress and ensured a great experience for both client and candidate.

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Giles Phillips is a rare find in the minefield of sales recruitment; an honest and thoughtful recruiter who considers the needs of both the client AND the candidate to create perfect role matches. I look forward to working with him again in the future.

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Managed to get me placed within a week! Really friendly and easy to deal with. Always available for a call and my biggest challenge was I was in work at the time I was looking for my next opportunity (which is stressful) but Sam made that easy.

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Aaron Wallis (and in particular Rob Scott) have been fantastic throughout the recruitment process, and even a few months down the line, still continues to care. Rob clearly cares about each individual and has a wealth of knowledge and expertise, which shows in the work he does. Each candidate is not just a number, and the support received from Aaron Wallis has helped me get a career which I truly enjoy.

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