How to Answer Competency-Based Interview Questions on Change Management

Competency-based interviews are geared towards judging your skills against rigorous marking levels, which are set prior to an interview. If you’re invited to a competency interview with change management questions, you can expect to have your views and experiences of change probed and any issues exposed.

Some common competency-based interview questions on change management include:

• How would you assess your ability to initiate changes in the workplace?
• What’s the most challenging change you have managed?
• Tell us about the biggest change you have had to deal with, and how you coped with it.

Answering Competency-Based Interview Questions on Change Management

You should not be afraid to ask for time to think before answering your questions, even the most well-prepared job candidates can be stumped by some unexpected questions. However, if you have prepared yourself for the interview in advance you will probably have already prepared an answer that will be more than suited.

Adapting to the changing workplace can be difficult for many employees, so you need to emphasise your abilities to change and adapt to the alterations that occur in the workplace, as well as highlight the positive benefits that have ensued when you have worked within change management and adapted environments to change.

Use the STAR technique to structure your answers to each interview question, you’ll find details of this valuable communications method on the free guidelines for competency-based interviews at Interview Skills Consulting. Remember your communication skills are just the tip of the iceberg within this competency-based interview which is mainly to assess your knowledge, skills and attitude.

Be prepared to use real life examples of change management within organisations with which you have already worked or are working. You can give as much information as needed to evidence your answers, but keep the information targeted to the specific examples you are highlighting.

For instance, if you are asked to illustrate the most challenging change you have ever managed, it’s perfectly in order to discuss the means in which the change was implemented, how people reacted and adapted to changes in the workplace and the methodology you used to enact the change within the environment.

If the enacted changes were not implemented as originally planned, what reasons did you have for this and what did you do instead? Your responses will illustrate your experiences working with others, adapting change to meet the real working world within your environment and show how you managed to successfully implement changes and how you measure the success of these changes to working attitudes and conditions.

Using the STAR technique to explain and validate each action taken gives your interviewer all the essential information needed to assess your knowledge, skills and experience within the change management field.

Contact Interview Skills Consulting to learn more about interview techniques and competency-based interviews for change management questions and other areas.