Thursday 22 November 2012

What is A Behaviour Event Interview?


A Behaviour Event Interview or BEI is a backward looking interview process, through which candidates are short-listed based on the desired competencies required by an organisation. It is a revolutionary HR technique, which many leading companies have begun following while selecting candidates for filling various vacant positions.

The Behaviour Event Interview technique differs from the traditional biographical job based interview, which focuses more on job descriptions and technical knowledge. In contrast, BEI is more flexible, and helps select candidates with the desired potential as per their competencies. During such interviews, a candidate is asked questions to get them to recount a specific example or event, related to a particular competency the HR managers may be looking for. Such questions usually begin with the phrases “Tell me about a time when you...." or "Can you provide me with an example of when you....".

A Behaviour Event Interview helps you locate high performers, and it is always useful to know who the star performers in your company are. StarEdits.com is a Corporate Communications company and HR consultancy, which is experienced in defining competencies and developing structured questionnaire formats, to help companies conduct BEIs in their organisation.

What we do:

  • We assist you in conducting a job analysis of the various jobs and roles, within your organisation. Based on this job analysis, we determine the key competencies that an employee needs to have for him/her to be successful in a particular role. 
  • After an in-depth study of the various jobs, we will determine various threshold competencies based on the maximum job performance required from all employees in a particular competency. We will conduct interviews with senior managers to identify outstanding performers, who would be differentiated from average employees, based on exceptional characteristics and behaviours.
  • We will create questionnaires to help guide your HR managers during the Behaviour Event Interview process.

A Behaviour Event Interview results in reduced recruitment costs, as it focuses on competencies. This means that only those people would be recruited, who already posses the required competencies, beforehand. Such individuals would be better learners, as they would be easier to train even when job descriptions change, due to changing technological and competitive environments.

How Will A Behaviour Event Interview Benefit Your Company?

Behaviour Event Interviews or BEIs, would bring your organisation several benefits, some of which include:

  1. Better job-person match: While job descriptions might change over time, competencies don’t change. Hence, there would be better job-person matches. 
  2. Training employees for leadership positions: Since employees with the desired competencies have already been identified, they would require less training, once they are promoted. 
  3. Decrease in turnover costs: When a candidate joins, the candidate would be informed about tasks to be performed and options for career development. This would result in fewer employees leaving your company in a given year. 
  4. Assists in developing a competency-based performance system: We study your organisation’s performance systems, and help develop new strategies for competency-based performance management. 
  5. It is reusable as it is modifiable: When employees are recruited on the basis of their competencies, HR executives can re-define competencies, whenever job descriptions change.

Get Professionally Written Behaviour Event Interview Questionnaires

Drafting a Behaviour Event Interview questionnaire can be a time consuming process, and is often outsourced to consultants who develop competency based models for companies. Outsourcing this task to a highly experienced corporate communications consultancy like StarEdits.com ensures an objective view of your organisational processes, and helps avoid discrimination. This expert validation and better analysis, is sure to improve the functioning of your organisation.

Whether you are a big company or a small firm, if you require professionally drafted Behaviour Event Interview Questionnaires, just email us at info@staredits.com or fill in our Contact Us form now!

Wednesday 21 November 2012

Seven Tips For Writing A Great Speech


A speech is similar to an essay, except that a speech is meant to be spoken, while an essay is meant to be read. In fact, most speeches are usually essays that are read aloud, with a few changes made to keep the audience listening on.

Seven Useful Speech-Writing Tips

If you wish to write a good speech that will keep your audience engaged till the end, here is a list of good speech-writing tips that you can follow:
  1. Plan the speech: Before sitting down to write a speech, you should first plan the speech considering the event/occasion, the audience, the tone and the duration. Speeches can be informal, formal, sombre, humorous or business-like, depending on the event and audience it is required for. 
  2. Pinpoint the main message/theme: Next, you will need to identify the main theme of the speech, and how you will deliver it to your audience. If it is a wedding speech, the main theme would be ‘congratulatory’, while for business speeches, the theme could range from the launch of a new product, company results, board meetings and so on. 
  3. Get your audience’s attention: Make the opening lines of your speech interesting enough to get people listening to the whole speech. You can use a joke, quotation, an anecdote, an assertion or a thought-provoking question while drafting the introduction. This intro should not exceed 30 seconds. 
  4. Make a list of the points you wish to cover: Just as you write informative essays, make a list of the things you’d like to speak about in your speech. 
  5. Organise this list: Arrange the collected points, so that they support each other. Add or remove points, as required, to make the overall theme of your speech clear. Also ensure that the speech does not exceed the time limit.
  6. Main speech content: The main content of your speech is nothing but a smooth transition from one point to another. You can use further jokes and anecdotes between points, to maintain attention and keep the audience from dozing off (which often happens during lengthy speeches). 
  7. Write the conclusion: The conclusion of the speech should be just as strong as the introduction. First, summarise the points you earlier spoke about in your speech, before wrapping up with a comment or question that will get your listeners thinking and talking.

Most speeches go through a number of drafts, before they are finally perfected. While drafting your speech, first write it out in full, before keeping it away. After some time, go back to it, evaluate it, and make changes as necessary. Write as many drafts as you need, until you are satisfied that your speech is clear and compelling.


Next, get a few people to review the final draft of your speech. Ask them to find anything that is not appropriate for the event, as well as grammatical errors, organisation flaws, and lack of clarity in thought. Make changes, if required, based on their feedback. Read the speech aloud a few times, and make any other required changes, to ensure the speech sounds good.

Your impressive speech is now ready for the big occasion!

If you are too busy to write a custom speech yourself, just ask us to help you. StarEdits.com is a professional speech-writing and corporate communications services company, which has written hundreds of successful custom speeches for people around the world.

Whatever the event or occasion, if you require a well-written speech to wow your audience, just email us at info@staredits.com or fill in our Contact Us form now!