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COMPETENCY VS. FUNCTIONAL INTERVIEWING: Volvo Eicher Commercial Vehicles is Betting on Eight Competencies to Build its Talent


Eight Competencies - Volvo Eicher Commercial Vehicles India
Competency-based hiring is not new. Several companies have a list of competencies – both position-specific and organisational – that they look for when they hire. For some companies integrity may be the top competency. For others it may be interpersonal skills, and so on.

But Volvo Eicher Commercial Vehicles (VECV), the joint venture between the Volvo group and Eicher Motors, decided to overhaul its approach to competencies.

“All organisations have competencies in some form or other. We wanted to be different. Instead of doing the usual leadership, communication, relationship management type of competencies, we thought of coming up with a list that would stick in the minds of our people,” says Kinjal Choudhary, senior vice-president & CHRO, VECV.

In competency-based interviews, questions are specific, with the intention of drawing out anecdotes. “The functional interviews tells you what the candidate has done. In a competency interview, you get a view of how the task was done,” explains Choudhary.

For instance, you might ask “How did you take a strategic view of GST implementation in your company?”

These are specific instance-based questions where the candidate cannot fudge. Second, it tells us the behaviour of the person at work, and you can match it with the desired behaviours, he says.

Also, the questions are designed in a way to bring out the individual contribution vs team effort.

VECV plans to use the competencies to decide on promotions. “We are preparing the ground for that.” It will also be used for career growth and development within the organisation, he says.

So what’s the ROI of a competency-based approach? Is the pay-off worth it?

“The ROI is you get a better culture fit. During hiring, a functional interview will only tell you whether the person has domain knowledge. But in a competency-based interview, you can gauge the behaviours that will fit within the organisation,” answers Choudary.

“Competency becomes critical when you focus on culture,” defends Choudhary. And today culture is very important when we are facing tectonic changes, he says.

And today culture is very important when we are facing tectonic changes, he says. For instance, commercial vehicles industry will soon be hit hard when electric vehicles replace diesel or when self-driving vehicles come into play.

“We will not be able to survive unless our people demonstrate certain behaviours,” argues Choudhary.





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