Competency is a word used in everyday life to refer to the person’s ability or capacity to undertake a particular task. Competency approach focuses on what the person can do rather than what the person knows.

Competency is observable behavior not espoused behavior.

The Behavioral Event Interview is structured as follows:

A. The purposes:



1.To develop satisfactory initial rapport with the interviewee

2.To set clear expectations about the process and scope of the interviewing

3.To reduce the anxiety of the interviewee so that he can provide the details sought in the interview.

1) Introduce yourself and the panel

2) Make small talk to set a relaxed tone

3) Explain the purpose of the interview

4) Outline the format of the interview

5) Clarify roles of the additional panelist



B. Trigger: The purpose



1.To make the candidate recollect the critical event among the events that comes to his mind

2.To judge whether the event has the characteristics of the event solicited by the trigger

3.To give an opportunity to the candidate to change the event, if in the opinion of the interviewer/panelists, the event does not meet the characteristics sought by the trigger.

1) Give the candidate time to think of the event

2) Deliver the trigger and wait for the candidate’s response.

3) Repeat the trigger in case the candidate has not understood the trigger or if the interviewers/panelist feel that the event does not satisfy the characteristics sought by the trigger.

C. Structure of the Event: The purposes:

1.To get a clear outline of the event the interviewee is going to speak about

2.To get from the interviewee the start of the event for him or her involvement in the event and the end of the event or the end of her involvement

3.To divide the event into logical/critical and chronological sub stages between the start and the end of the event.

4.To create the skeleton for probing

--- Ask the candidate for the start, the end of the event and the important stages in between the start and the end. Note down the structure on the assessment sheet. Please note ongoing events are to be broken and the end stage of the event could be even the time of the interview.

--- Repeat the structure for the understanding and confirmation by the

interviewee and the co panelists.

--- Before beginning to probe confirm that the co panelists have the same structure as the interviewer.

D. Probing and details of the event:

The purposes:

1.To get the details of the event

2.To understand the nature of the interviewee’s involvement in the event

3.To probe the thoughts, feeling and actions of the interviewee during the course of the event

4.To ‘live’ the event with the interviewee.

--- Take the interviewee back to the start stage of the event and begin to probe

--- Follow the structure of the event probe one sub stage at a time and proceed chronologically

--- Return to a previous sub stage in case the interviewer feels that some codable data is likely to emerge.

--- Ask no ‘leading questions’. Leading question is a question that is likely to lead the interviewee to a particular answer about her involvement in the event. Example: You must have consulted your boss at this stage, is it not?

--- Each sub stage in the structure of the event is a possible source of codable data. Probe each stage to your satisfaction.

Legitimate Questions:

1. What were you trying to accomplish?

2. What was the first key thing you did?

3. How exactly did you do it?

4. Who else was involved at this stage?

5. Do you recall any conversation you had at this stage?

6. What exactly did you say?

7. What were you thinking at this stage?

8. What were you feeling at this stage?

9. Do you recall anything significant that happened at this stage?

10. How did it turn out?

11. Is there anything at this stage that you would wish to add that we have missed out?

12. What was your role?

D. Closure of the Interview:

The purposes:

1.To give an opportunity to the interviewee to add an ything related to the event that has been missed out

2.To thank the interviewee and to close the interview.

--- Ask the interviewee if he/she wishes to add anything related to the event that has been missed out.

--- Thank the interviewee on behalf of the panel.

The Process of Logging, Coding and Scoring of a BEI

Interview Reported Behavior / Observed behavior

Logging Thought, Feeling or Action of the Interviewee

Logging Logging of Interviewee’s statements

Coding Establishing actions in case of reported feelings or thoughts

Coding Establishing the motive / intent of the behavior

Coding Comparing the motive with the essence statement of the competency

Coding

Relating to specific indicator & categorizing into the competency inventory.

Scoring

Establishing the strength on the basis of frequency and / or complexity of the behavior by comparing with the Behavioral Indicators.

Scoring Add the total score.

Logging and Coding

The diagram above shows the logical process of arriving at a score for an interviewee.

The candidate narrates his behavior in response to the probing by interviewer. This is called ‘reported behavior’. Behavior has three elements - thoughts, feelings & actions.

The behavior has to be specific and attributable to the interviewee for it to be logged. The probing process of the interview establishes the specificity and Attributability of the behavior.

Such reported statements are logged (recorded) by the interviewer / panelist(s).

At the end of the interview the panelist(s) establish, specific ‘behavioral units’ which would have specific thoughts, feelings and actions.

The motive is established from the context or in response to the probe ‘What were you trying to achieve?’ The motive of the interviewee is compared with the essence statement from the competency inventory.

Scoring

The candidate reports his behavior in the course of the interview. The context of the behavior is the event he has narrated. This is the ‘in context behavior’

Scoring is a step in which we move form ‘in context behavior’ to ‘context free behavior’ or in grammatical terms from an ‘adverb to andadjective’. In other words, we move from saying ‘ the candidate showed efficiency orientation during the event’ to ‘efficiency orientation’ is an inherent trait of the interviewee.

In order to judge the strength of the behavior we need to adopt a scale. More complex the behavior within a competency the higher score it deserves.

Frequency of behavior is also important. Frequency is the indicator of the behavior being consistent and hence a trait.

This process involves the judgment of the panelists and could lead to inter rater variability. Thus, there is a need to have a congruent understanding of the scale.

From India, Pune
Dear Atanu,
Thank you for sharing this article with us it has actually bought to light the dynamics of a competency and the frame work. Iam sure it will be of great use to all of us.
I appreciate your efforts.
Thank you.
Regards,
Bhushan

From India, Mumbai
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