Core Competencies are Key to Career Mobility

Most people attempting to identify and secure a new job understandably try to sell their experience and skills to land that next position. That works in many cases, but far too often merely trying to link direct skills and experience is not enough to win the day, especially when you are in tough competition for a job or have experiential gaps and are looking to do something different.

So what if you want to pursue a job that you have never really done before? How do you convince someone you are qualified for a role if you have little or no experience performing in that specific role? How do you compete for a position when you have less experience than someone else? The answer is to identify and leverage your job related competencies to secure the new position. In addition to other assessments I have increasingly have placed emphasis on administering a sound competency assessment process on behalf of clients in transition to help them secure their position of choice.

Competencies are innate skills, abilities and behaviors that employees are expected to effectively demonstrate to carry out the mission, goals and values of the organization and perform optimally within their individual roles. They enable and support an employee’s capacity to effectively perform their job-specific tasks and responsibilities. Competencies are part of your professional DNA that is programmed into you just like your personality or behavior style. Your core competencies represent your natural wiring to do a job effectively. They are the transferable abilities that enable you to do a job successfully.

The word “innate” is defined as “the ability comes directly from the mind and natural internal forces rather than being acquired by experience or from external sources such as education.”  Actively leveraging your competency based abilities combined with effective training and coaching are often times all you need to do a job well. If you possess a core competency to do a task you’re more likely to be good at it and enjoy doing it because it is the essence of how you best operate that is being expressed through your work.

To properly identify and leverage your competencies requires access to a credible competency model, embedded in a proven evaluation process and interpreted by a qualified professional. There are hundreds of competency models that range from 50 to 150 specific competencies.  Competency models often link to many factors and layers within a company such as industry, job function, employee level and corporate-wide technical standards and values. Knowing how to identify and align with competency levels are critical to your success in landing a position with any organization that values how competencies affect job alignment and performance. Even more important is possessing the ability to clearly demonstrate versus merely declare your competencies in an interview. More on this when you click on Interviewing? Offer Solutions and Win the Job

The following represent a small sample of competency families and specific competencies.

Personal and Relational Competencies

• Flexibility, decisiveness, tenacity, independence, approachability, collaboration, personal integrity, values driven, conflict management, perseverance

Leadership Competencies

• Leadership, empowerment, strategic planning, command skills, decision making, directing others, delegation, influencing others, persuasiveness, managerial courage, dealing with paradox, risk tolerance, strategic agility, action oriented, composure, risk-taking

Managerial, Operational and Administrative Competencies

• Action oriented, project management, operational effectiveness, priority setting, coordinating ability, multitasking, managing and measuring work, organizing, planning, focus on quality, priority setting, process management, discerning when/how to act

Business and Financial Competencies

• Business acumen, financial awareness, corporate sensitivity, understanding cause and effect, organizational agility, strategic and tactical application, financial cause and effect

Analytical and Technical Competencies

• Thinking, analyzing, reasoning, problem solving, logical or methodical skills, technical acumen, problem solving, practical learning, information assimilation, attention to detail, deductive reasoning, intellectual horsepower, learning on the fly, functional association

Interpersonal and Communication Competencies 

• Effective communication, diplomacy, intuition, emotional intelligence, self-awareness, negotiation, teamwork, openness, collaboration, patience, comfort with higher management, listening acumen, peer relationships, presentation skills, written communications,

Motivational and Inspirational Competencies

• Resilience, challenge, motivation, achievement, initiative, drive for results, ability to inspire

Creative and Inventive Competencies

• Innovation, vision creation, imaging, collaborative inquiry, crafting, creative curiosity, conceptualizing

So the next time you are sizing yourself up for new position and trying to communicate your ability to perform, link your core competencies, skills and experience to the criteria required of the position. Do this effectively by telling S.T.A.R. Stories (Situation, Task, Action, Result) that relate specifically to the topic(s) you are discussing and you’ll be in great shape to win the job.

Written by Rex Rolf; Career, Leadership and Performance Coach.

Cornerstone Performance Group, LLC