Answering competency questions in writing

Competency questions ('Describe a time you handled a disagreement with a colleague') are scored against a rubric. The scorer is looking for evidence of specific behaviour, not good writing. A formulaic but complete answer beats an elegant vague one.

The four-part answer

• Situation — one sentence of context: where, when, what was at stake.
• Task — the specific thing you personally were responsible for.
• Action — what you did, in first person, in sequence. Name the steps, the people you consulted and the trade-offs you weighed.
• Result — the outcome, with a number or a clear before-and-after.

Keep each answer to roughly 200 words. Write in plain sentences, not bullet fragments, because rubrics often score 'communication of evidence' separately from the evidence itself.