Charterhouse employs some of the industry's leading recruitment consultants and as such each is experienced in conducting formal interviews and in particular is well versed in the skill of Competency Based Interviewing.

This style of interviewing is used so that a candidate can best show how they would demonstrate certain behaviours/skills in the work place by answering questions about how they have reacted to and dealt with previous work place situations.

By using past experience our consultants are able to predict future behaviour by:

  • Eliminating misunderstandings

  • Preventing purely personal impressions

  • Reducing the candidate's ability to exaggerate previous professional experience and achievements

In order to identify candidates with the closest fit to a specific role, our consultants highlight a number of key competencies with their clients at the beginning of an assignment. Probing questions will then be used to gain examples of situations or tasks which led the candidates to take a certain course of action, based upon these key competencies. Further exploration will be taken upon the course of action the candidate took and what changes were created by those actions and the effects of those actions on others.

Traditional job descriptions are often quite out-dated. Most organisations will analyse a role by breaking it down into key competencies. If an organisation uses this type of interviewing, it is likely that the job will be defined on this basis and the candidate's performance in it will be managed through competencies.

Candidates should prepare for the interview in the normal way by researching the company and making sure they are able to talk through the work and skills that they have described in their CV. Candidates will be given the opportunity to market themselves for the role in the normal way. However, most candidates will find this type of interviewing much more interactive and enjoyable and it is likely that the interviewer will be able to encourage them to be much more open than in a traditional interview.

Usually the interviewer will have a number of pre-planned questions to ask candidates. For each of these questions they will ask for real-life evidence where the candidate has demonstrated the behaviour or skills. They will know what the desired behaviours are and will look for positive and negative indicators.

Examples of competencies that can be tested include:

  • Organisational Awareness

  • Organisational Commitment

  • Strategic Thinking

  • Communication

  • Client Focus

  • Relationship Building

  • Teamwork

  • Service Facilitation

  • Leadership

  • Innovation

  • Self-Management

  • Impact and Influence

  • Resource Management

Working with affiliates we can offer full human capital management services combining the most effective screening processes in the market, as a result we are able to reduce the risk attached to making an expensive wrong hire.