Common Questions Asked At
Competence Based Interviews

We introduced competency interviews on an earlier page, gave you ideas on how to answer them and promised you some example competency interview questions.

Here we look at how interviewers assess your Creativity and Innovation at work.

If creativity and innovation aren't requirements of the job you're applying for, return to the list of competences and find ones relevant for you. There are many.

What Do Interviews Look For?

When assessing your creativity and innovation in competence based interviews, employers look for past evidence that you:

• Develop new insights into situations
• Challenge traditional approaches
• Encourage new ideas and innovations in others
• Invent, design and implement new or leading edge programs/processes
• Turn ideas in useable solutions

Example Competence Based Interview Questions for Creativity and Innovation

Here are some example questions assessing creativity and innovation.

• What ideas have you come up with in the last 6 months that would benefit your company?

- What are the benefits?
- Were your ideas implemented?

• Tell us about a project, task or situation where you believed a conventional approach wasn't suitable

- What was your preferred approach?
- Why was it better?
- What objections did you face?
- Was your approach implemented?
- What was the outcome?

• Describe a situation in which you asked your team to come up with a new approach to an old problem

- What was the problem?
- What approach did they suggest?
- Did you agree with the approach?
- How was it implemented?
- What was the result?

• Explain how you encourage ideas in others

- What methods do you use?
- Who implements the ideas?
- What feedback do you give?

• Describe a time when you questioned established processes

- Tell me about a specific example
- What did you say?

• Talk me through your greatest idea or innovation

- What was the idea or innovation?
- What benefits did it have?
- How was it implemented?
- What recognition did you receive?

• Tell us about a time when you implemented someone else's idea

- What was the idea
- How did you assess it?
- What was the result?

Other Competence Based Interview Questions

We have other sample competency interview questions which cover Communication, Customer Focus, Flexibility etc.... Just go back to the list of competences and find those relevant to the job you're applying for. There are many to choose from.

You'll also find tips on how to prepare for competence based interviews, just above the list of competences.

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