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Grow Your Wealth Management Team with Competency Based Interviewing

By Ray Sclafani | January 31, 2015

group_interview-336x206One of the greatest challenges leaders experience is finding talented team members who truly complement their teams and work hard to achieve their goals. We encourage our financial advisor clients who are building teams to use competency-based interview questions, which require your potential team members to provide examples of specific circumstances in which they’ve demonstrated particular skills or aptitudes. These questions generally ask the person being interviewed to describe a problem or situation, explain the actions they took to handle the problem, and relate the results of their solution.  

 

These types of questions are crucial because they allow you to assess an interviewee’s skills on concrete and specific examples of past behaviors, in real work situations.

 

Consider the following competency-based interview questions for your next interview with a potential team member:

 

  • Can you describe an occasion in which you achieved a goal and the steps you took to get there?

  • What is your most significant achievement?
     
  • When did you serve a client and improve financial targets simultaneously?
     
  • What are some examples of times you’ve had to deal with change in a professional situation and how did you manage it?
     
  • When have two “priorities” competed for your time and how did you handle it?

  • How did you handle your most difficult client experience and, in retrospect, how do you think you could have done better?

  • When has miscommunication caused a problem in your professional experience and how did you deal with it?

  • What are some techniques you’ve used to be an effective listener?

  • When was the last time you found yourself in a new group or community, and how did you go about building relationships with the people in it?

  • Give me an example of a time you relied on a contact in your network to help you and how this panned out.

  • Describe how you have maintained your motivation and commitment to a job or profession without help or encouragement from others?

  • Describe a time in which you demonstrated confidence in your viewpoint, despite opposition.

  • When have you gone against company procedures or policy in past work experiences? Why did you do it and what was the outcome?

 

Remember, when you ask these questions, you are not only learning about your interviewees. You’re also giving your potential team members the opportunity to see their past experiences in a different way and make improvements moving forward, which, in an ideal situation, will benefit you as well! 

 

Coaching Questions from This Article:

  1. Consider the current members of your team and think about the questions you wish you had asked in their first interviews with you.
  2. Invite your team members to provide insight into the interviews they had with you, and how those impressed upon their opinion of your team before they started working with you.
  3. Reflect on the weak spots you see in your team and consider the questions you might ask in future interviews to avoid hiring team members that might perpetuate these problems.

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Topics: Business Development Team Development

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