Summary: Know how to show off your skills in specific detail. Let this word guide you through applications from now on: competencies.

There was a time when I didn’t know how to talk about myself. My modesty killed my chances of getting further. Then a good friend of mine introduced me to the above and how it changed the way you wrote an application. It’s really another way of saying transferable skill. A transferable skill that you can demonstrate through many examples becomes a competency, as you can show you are competent in it.

Statements/phrases like hard working, result driven and leadership skills are redundant. This is because anyone can say that. More importantly it doesn’t allow an employer to see how creatively you have achieved these skills.

There is a formula to follow when writing a competency. The benefit of following the formula is that recruiters can ascertain whether you have the skill or not quickly and without using too many prompts to steer you back on course. There are loads of formulas available online. Choose the one that’s best for you. I like the formula from You’re Hired! Interview Answers: Impressive Answers to Tough Interview Questions by Ceri Roderick and Stephan Lucks, CAR. This stands for circumstance, action, and result. It is really simple. The book also goes into detail about how to recognise what type of answer they will be looking for and gives examples of entry level, middle management and senior management answers. So a very good long term investment.

Competency based questions on applications and in interviews are phrased in the format ‘Show us a time when you have…’. So you have to think of a specific circumstance. Show how you identified the problem and the method in which you tried to rectify it (actions taken). Finally the results that occurred from your input. This shows that you can make a difference within an organisation. It shows what you did and if you have many examples that you can do it again.

I have attached a table I made in which I break down CAR for a particular scenario. I make sure my scenarios are one sentence long. People have a tendency to waffle on (especially me) about the situation instead of getting on with what they did. This isn’t a gossip session! This keeps it concise and to the point, but the interviewer will still understand what I’m talking about. I have the ideal/objective of the company that this CAR matches. This helps me keep on target and make sure my actions are relevant to their requirements. A great debator gave me a tip of structuring my answers. By saying there are three parts/aspects to my response, again the interviewer knows what to look for. I have structured the answer in a way that I can be very detailed or not so much. This is the amount of detail the big bank was looking for. You need to create a bank of these. I can use this in an application, a telephone interview and a face to face interview. The effort I put into my competencies is the reason I got up to the last stage of the Data Analyst job with no previous experience in the insurance industry. It can make a serious difference.

CAR example

It also has its own formula for competencies: OAAR. This stands for objective, analysis, action and result. The summary of the tactic it teaches is to select about five competencies relevant to job role, put them as relevant experience on your CV but re-write them as RAAO. Showing your results first, allows the recruiter to see the positive changes you can make to an organisation first.A great book that teaches you how to create a bank of these and actually make your CV competency based so that you are selectable rather than ‘a throw in the bin’ candidate is Pitch Yourself: The Most Effective CV You’ll Ever Write. Stand Out and Sell Yourself by Bill Faust and Michael Faust. It teaches you that the traditional CV doesn’t show off any of your skills. This new CV format doesn’t work on recruitment agencies scanning software, where they are looking for keywords. This CV is much better for companies that will actually read it.

The most important thing to remember is that it should be relevant to the job description and to the company ethos.

The level of detail in competency needed in the financial services and most of the corporate world is much higher than the rest of the services industry. It is a very warped version of reality. Keep that in mind and you might just stay sane.