Every job posting lists qualifications. Almost none of them list the things that actually determine who does well once hired. Those are usually called competencies — the behaviors an employer expects, as opposed to the technical knowledge they hired you for. Understanding them is what explains the otherwise baffling situation of the most technically capable person on a team being the one who is struggling.
Skills, Knowledge, and Competencies
Knowledge is what you know. A skill is something you can do. A competency is how you behave when doing it — and it is the layer performance reviews actually measure, whether or not anyone says so.
An accountant’s knowledge is the accounting rules. Their skill is producing a correct set of accounts. Their competency is whether they flag a problem early, explain it to someone who does not read balance sheets, and stay accurate in the last week of a close. Two people with identical knowledge and skill can be rated very differently on the third.
The Ones Nearly Every Employer Wants
- Reliability. Showing up, on time, doing what you said by when you said. It is unglamorous and it is the single most commented-on quality in real performance reviews.
- Communication. Explaining clearly to people who do not share your expertise, in writing and out loud — see workplace communication skills.
- Problem solving. Bringing a proposed solution along with the problem, rather than only the problem.
- Working with others, including people you would not choose.
- Adaptability. Absorbing a change in priorities without needing to be managed through it.
- Taking feedback. Being correctable is what makes everything else improvable, and its absence caps a career early.
- Initiative. Doing the obviously necessary thing without waiting to be assigned it.
- Customer focus, internal or external — remembering that the work is for somebody.
- Judgment about priorities. Knowing what matters most this week is more valuable than working faster.
- Integrity. Reporting the bad number. It is what makes everything you report believable.
Applying Yourself
The gap between people who advance and people who stall is rarely raw ability. It is more often the ordinary discipline of applying what you already know.
- Finish things. A completed adequate piece of work beats an excellent unfinished one every time.
- Do the boring part properly. Every job contains tedious work, and doing it carelessly is the most common way capable people acquire a bad reputation.
- Learn the whole picture, not only your piece. Knowing how your work reaches a customer makes you better at it and visible to more people.
- Write things down. Notes, commitments, decisions. Being the person who remembers is a genuine competitive advantage.
- Ask for feedback before it is scheduled, and specifically: “what should I do differently on the next one?” beats “how am I doing?”
Where This Shows Up
Competencies are why behavioral interview questions exist. “Tell me about a time you handled a conflict” is not curiosity; it is an attempt to measure something a resume cannot show. Preparing an example for each competency above is most of interview preparation — see how to prepare for a job interview.
They also show up in performance reviews, promotion decisions, and layoffs. If your employer publishes a competency framework, read it — it is a written statement of the criteria you will be judged against, and remarkably few employees ever look at it. See what is a performance review.