SKILLS vs. COMPETENCIES

SKILLS vs. COMPETENCIES

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BASIC DEFINITIONS

A skill is something you learn through education or experience. A competency is something you are born with. Interviewers tend to pose questions that will help to reveal your competencies.

FUNDAMENTAL CHARACTERISTICS AND DIFFERENCES

· Competencies are underlying characteristics that differentiate superior performance from average performance. It should come as no surprise, therefore, that well-trained interviewers try to determine your competencies so that they can make the best possible match on key positions.

· Skills are the know-how, the information acquired from most knowledge. Competencies, however, are the inherent abilities a person has or uses to achieve his/her goals by successfully deploying those skills.

Example: You can call a manager competent only if she can achieve her goals effectively by using her skills. The manager may possess organizational, planning, communication, computer, and interpersonal etc. skills. But we won't call her competent if she fails to achieve her goals, e.g. lowering production costs, enhancing a product quality etc.

· Skill is related to education whereas competency is related to training, experience etc.

· A skilled person can easily teach his skills to others in a short time but in case of competency, it needs a long time orientation and often found very difficult.

· Skills are transferable, i.e., they can be adapted for several different types of jobs or positions.