4 Responses

1. Maybe not a competence?
   Maybe the trouble here is thinking of resilience as a competency?

   Isn’t it a state of mind and an attitude?

   Are we talking physical resilience, or are we talking mental resilience?

   Cheers

   Martin

2. STAR approach
   You might ask the candidate to give you examples of a situation or task where his/her initial approach was thwarted, and (s)he had to figure out an alternative . What did (s)he do, and what was the result?

   S – situation
   T – task
   A – action
   R – result

3. Using a simulation exercise
   This sounds similar to the competency of persistency, especially when under pressure, stress or constantly changing circumstances. We have used a simulation exercise in an assessment centre context, that I’d be happy to share with you on a commercial basis.
   Edit added 10 November following Peter Davison’s comment above. It is measurable is two or more ways – firstly through a well constructed simulation exercise, where candidates are put under pressure to complete tasks under constantly changing circumstances. Candidates’ abilities to demonstrate resiliance (persistency) in a behavioural sense are observable by the trained assessors, and are demonstrated in practical terms through the quality of the tasks’ completion. Both can also be validated by completion of a good, occupationally related, personality questionnaire – Saville and Holdsworth’s OPQ comes to mind.
   PS: Aren’t most (if not all) human traits also competencies?

4. Arian Associates Ltd
   I agree with Martin, below.

   Is resilience not a human trait rather that an assessable competency ?

   The dictionary explanation of resilience doesn’t come anywhere near to what would be considered as being measurable and if you are looking at resilience in relation to competency how then can you measure and subsequently assess it ?