Harvard University Competency Dictionary: Your Guide to Behavioral Interview Success
In today's competitive job market, mastering behavioral interviews is essential for career advancement. When interviewers ask questions like "Tell me about a time when you influenced a team to change direction" or "Describe a complex project you managed successfully," they're not just looking for interesting stories—they're systematically evaluating specific professional competencies.
What Is the Harvard Competency Dictionary?
The Harvard University Competency Dictionary has become a gold standard resource for defining and understanding these competencies, making it an invaluable tool for interview preparation. This comprehensive framework breaks down abstract qualities like "leadership" or "problem-solving" into observable behavioral indicators, helping you craft responses that demonstrate your capabilities precisely.
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The dictionary breaks down complex professional qualities into observable behaviors, making abstract concepts like "leadership" or "innovation" concrete and assessable.
Benefits of Using the Dictionary
1. Transform Generic Claims into Compelling Evidence
Instead of saying "I'm good at teamwork," you can describe how you "created an environment where diverse perspectives were valued and synthesized into innovative solutions"—language that aligns with advanced collaboration competency indicators.
2. Align Your Experience with Job Requirements
By understanding which competencies are crucial for your target role, you can prioritize preparing examples that demonstrate mastery in those specific areas. For instance, if "developing others" is key for a management position, you'll know to emphasize how you've provided constructive feedback, created development opportunities, and helped advance team members' careers.
3. Identify Your Development Areas
The dictionary provides a framework for honest self-assessment. If you recognize gaps in certain competencies, you can prepare thoughtful responses about your professional development journey and learning goals.
The Harvard Competency Dictionary transforms interview preparation from guesswork into a strategic process. By understanding the specific behaviors that demonstrate each competency at different levels, you can craft precise, compelling responses that showcase your capabilities exactly as interviewers are trained to assess them.
Understanding the Dictionary's Structure
The Harvard University Competency Dictionary defines numerous competencies, each with specific "Key Actions" that demonstrate proficiency. These competencies cover everything from communication skills to strategic thinking, providing a common language for discussing professional capabilities.
Below are few examples demonstrating how to use dictionary to paraphrase your answers
Addressing Questions About Influence
The dictionary offers clear guidance on this frequently assessed competency:
Ability to Influence
This is defined as "Uses appropriate interpersonal styles and techniques to gain acceptance of ideas or plans. Effectively explores alternatives to reach outcomes that gain the support and acceptance of others."
Key actions include:
Opening discussions effectively
Developing others' and own ideas
Building support for preferred alternatives
Facilitating agreement
Example Response Using the Dictionary Framework:
"When our company needed to implement a new cybersecurity protocol that would significantly change how developers worked, I encountered strong resistance from the engineering team who viewed it as unnecessarily burdensome.
Rather than mandating compliance, I opened the discussion by clearly describing our security objectives and regulatory requirements while acknowledging the potential impact on productivity. I scheduled individual conversations with key opinion leaders on the development team to understand their specific concerns.
I actively developed both my ideas and theirs, incorporating their suggestions for streamlining certain security checks while maintaining compliance. This collaborative approach led to several valuable modifications to the implementation plan.
To build support, I related the new protocol to the engineers' own concerns about data integrity and system reliability, demonstrating how several recent incidents could have been prevented with these measures. I also acknowledged legitimate concerns by proposing a phased implementation that would allow teams to adapt gradually.
To facilitate agreement, I organized a workshop where security experts and development leads could work through practical examples together. This hands-on approach helped overcome resistance by demonstrating that the new protocols, while adding some steps, would ultimately reduce emergency fixes and improve code quality.
The result was not just compliance but eventual advocacy from the development team, who began to see the security protocols as a valuable quality control measure rather than an obstacle."
This response directly maps to the key actions in the "Ability to Influence" competency, showing how you:
Opened discussions effectively with clear objectives
Developed others' ideas through active listening
Built support by relating changes to their values
Facilitated agreement through collaborative workshops
Tackling Questions About Complex Projects
While there isn't a specific "Complex Project" competency in the dictionary, several competencies combine to address this common interview question:
Problem Analysis and Problem Solving
The dictionary defines this as "Uses sound or logical judgment to spot and analyze problems, develop alternative solutions and initiate corrective action."
Key actions include:
Proactively identifying problems
Identifying multiple solutions
Proposing and implementing solutions
Planning and Organizing
This competency involves "Establishes courses of action for self and others to ensure that work is completed efficiently."
Key actions include:
Prioritizing critical activities
Determining tasks and resources
Scheduling with appropriate timelines
Leveraging available resources
Staying focused
Decision Making
The dictionary defines this as "Identifies and understands issues, problems, and opportunities; compares data from different sources to draw conclusions; uses effective approaches for choosing a course of action or developing appropriate solutions."
Key actions include:
Identifying issues and opportunities
Gathering information
Interpreting information from various sources
Generating alternatives
Choosing appropriate action
Committing to action
Involving others
Example Response Using the Dictionary Framework:
"When asked to lead the migration of our legacy financial system to a cloud-based solution affecting four departments, I approached it as a multi-faceted challenge requiring careful planning and stakeholder management.
First, I proactively identified potential problems by conducting a thorough systems analysis and stakeholder interviews, revealing data integrity concerns and user resistance issues. I then determined tasks and resources needed by breaking the project into five major phases with clear deliverables and milestones.
For each identified challenge, I developed multiple solution options. For instance, with the data migration concerns, I proposed three different approaches with varying levels of automation and manual verification. After gathering input from technical and business stakeholders, I chose a hybrid approach that balanced speed with data quality.
I prioritized critical activities by focusing first on the accounting department's core functions since their month-end processes couldn't tolerate disruption. I leveraged available resources by forming a cross-functional team that included both technical experts and business users.
Throughout the project, I stayed focused on our objectives while remaining flexible enough to adjust our approach when early testing revealed performance issues. The project was delivered on time with zero critical defects and 95% user acceptance."
This response demonstrates multiple competencies from the dictionary, showing how you:
Proactively identified problems
Developed multiple solution options
Prioritized effectively
Determined appropriate resources
Made sound decisions with stakeholder input
Stayed focused on objectives
Hope this helps you ace your next behavioural interview. Please drop a commend if you find this article useful