Competency-based interviews

Well, readers, it’s been a while.  I’ve been busy, well if you consider drinking vodka and laying in bed, contemplating my naval busy.  I’ve had two visitors to the site this month, which makes me think they must have been very bored at the time.

Still working away at the novel; writing about people getting dismembered really puts me in a good place psychologically; it cheers me up no end when I’m feeling a bit down.  38,600 words done so far so about 70% of the way; still plenty of pages left for more sex and violence.  Life really is all about the little things.

So, as you may have gathered from the title I did some training on competency-based interviews during the week and I decided I’d share my day and any insights I gleaned.  Mostly, because I’m sick today and have feck all else to do.

So, I went to the training with a female work colleague we’ll call “N” because I’m pretty sure she’ll want to remain anonymous, okay she’s been pretty adamant that she’s not to appear in my writing.  So glad that the problem is solved.

For those who haven’t come across this new form of an interview, lucky you.  Apparently, it’s all in vogue these days.  So, for instance, you’re asked to discuss something like “Your Effectiveness through People”.  Unfortunately, if you want to do well you can’t just say that you don’t like people and for them to ask you a sensible question; and they expect you to be honest too!

The trainer started the class by saying Irish people can be shy and don’t like talking themselves.  This was never a problem for me, but I guess not everyone is so great like me either.

A few minutes in, she mentioned there are lots of good examples on the internet, but we’d be better using our own unique ones.  Eh, I have something called a life, a few minutes on google would have been grand.

So, then we had to do our own answers and fair dues N came up with a really good one.  I was quite impressed and told her I might use it myself.  Well, she looked at me like a lost puppy that I’d given a really hard kick.  Just as well I have a very undeveloped conscience.  Like, what did she think I was doing there?

Anyways I told her I wouldn’t use it but she didn’t believe me, this is a real problem I face when people know me well.  This must be some sort of competency in itself.  She pointed out that I had something similar before, I didn’t realize we kept a tab on such things.

So, after a few hours, it finally all came to an end.  Fortunately, the appraisal form only required a few ticks – tick here, tick there, tick everywhere.

Till next time..