Often books on job interviews and career coaches give you a list of common interview questions and prepared answers to memorize. If you follow their advice you may be confused by any non-standardized conversation’s course. As a result you’ll loss not having even taken a real part in the game.
However an interview is a conversation, it isn’t an interrogation. Leave your nerves at the door and be yourself. Being yourself means asking your own questions and citing your own experience.

The competence-based interview requires exactly such behavior. This type of interview is used increasingly nowadays. In a traditional interview, you are asked questions focused on whether you have the skills and knowledge needed to do the job. In a competency-based interview an interviewer asks you additional questions about your character and personal attributes that can better determine whether you fit their corporate culture. In other words they evaluate your behavioral competencies.

Be ready to spend about half the competency-based interview on your job skills, and another part on your behavioral competencies. An interviewer wants to know how you have acted in real situations in the past.

Most of a prospective employer is interested whether you:
- are an asset or liability (will you make money or save money for the company);
- are a team player;
- fit into the company culture.

You need to do your best and demonstrate required traits. You can take the initiative and tell several personal stories, keeping within 30 to 90 seconds each.

There are seven areas you may develop:
1. How you made or saved money for your previous employer.
2. A critical situation in your life or job and your response to it.
3. Your functioning as part of a team and your contribution to common achievements.
4. Stressful situations in your career or job and how you overcame them.
5. A time in your job where you provided successful leadership or a sense of direction.
6. A failure that occurred in your job and how you overcame it.
7. Any constructive cases in your career that caused you to change direction and how that worked out for you.

Remember that an interview should not be a conversation between two equals. It's the conversation that wins the job.