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Making Effective Decisions Competency Based Question, I can't think of anything?

I have an interview in a weeks time and it will be a competency based interview in which they will ask two questions, delivering at pace and making effective decision. For delivering at pace, I've chosen to explain about how I managed my workload to achieve deadlines for uni coursework. Now for making effective decisions, I can't seem to think of anything else other than explain the same thing again but expanded? Could someone give me suggestions please.
Original post by h4mza
I have an interview in a weeks time and it will be a competency based interview in which they will ask two questions, delivering at pace and making effective decision. For delivering at pace, I've chosen to explain about how I managed my workload to achieve deadlines for uni coursework. Now for making effective decisions, I can't seem to think of anything else other than explain the same thing again but expanded? Could someone give me suggestions please.


Do you have any work experience or a part time job you can use an example from? Or a specific project you worked on like dissertation or presentation. Ideally each answer should reference a different example.
Reply 2
Avatar for h4mza
h4mza
OP
19
I have however worked at my uncles shop for a bit which was a food store. I was alone most of the time and had no idea how to run the shop. I just used common sense such as stocking shelves, moving products with sooner expiry date forward, how to use the till properly and lock it, I also learnt about the products in the store such as cigarette brands as I don't smoke myself. It's quite risky running a shop on your own but I guess learning everything on how to run it was a challenge but I don't know how I would put this as effective decision as the decision I made was that I would run the shop at certain time of the day whilst my uncle is at his other job and then he will run the shop when I'm at my lecture.
Reply 3
Avatar for Liv1204
Liv1204
19
I was going to say I assume this is a Civil Service interview. :biggrin:

The above with the competency framework is really useful - have a look at the positive (and negative) indicators and they should help you to come up with a specific example or two. Try to use the STAR framework for explaining your answers (Situation, Task, Action, Result).

Your example of managing workload for Delivering at Pace sounds good. For Making Effective Decisions, I would aim if you can to think of an example where you had to make a decision that somebody else didn't necessarily agree with (although if you can't think of one, it's not the only type of example!) Think about how to came to that decision: What information did you use to make that choice? Did you use more than one source of information to make that choice, or just listen to one source and instantly decide? Did you need to find out anything else to decide what the best course of action was? What were the costs and benefits of each potential choice? How did you weigh up those options and come to an overall decision? Was there anything that you needed to consult anybody else on, or did you decide it and do it alone without considering the views or impact on anyone else?

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