# Company Competencies: The Behaviors Employers Rate You On Canonical URL: https://headwayskills.com/knowledge/skills-standards/company-competencies/ Markdown URL: https://headwayskills.com/knowledge/skills-standards/company-competencies.md Entity type: Article Last updated: 2026-07-07 Language: en Primary audience: professionals improving professional behaviors at work Owner: Headway Skills Contact: https://headwayskills.com/contact/ ## Short answer Company competencies are the behaviors your employer rates in interviews and reviews. See the five you'll meet most and how to show each one at work. ## Key facts - Title: Company Competencies: The Behaviors Employers Rate You On - Category: Skills Standards and Frameworks - Primary skill: Professional Behaviors - Related skills: Working with Your Manager, Building Self-Awareness - Primary keyword: company competencies - Source page: https://headwayskills.com/knowledge/skills-standards/company-competencies/ ## What this page covers - Company competencies are the behaviors your employer rates in interviews and reviews. See the five you'll meet most and how to show each one at work. - Practical guidance for company competencies - How this topic connects to Professional Behaviors ## Detailed explanation Company competencies are the behaviors an employer has written down as the way it expects its people to work, such as communication, teamwork, initiative and flexibility. Each one comes with a short definition and examples of what it looks like in practice, and the same list shapes interview questions, performance ratings and training. Seen as single words on a job ad or a review form, they can feel like an exam you were never given the questions for. They are closer to the answer key. The catch is that the phrase hides two quite different meanings, and only one of them is about you. ## Two meanings of company competencies The first meaning comes from business strategy. C. K. Prahalad and Gary Hamel introduced the idea of a firm's core competencies: the combined resources and skills that set it apart from competitors. A true core competency meets three tests. It opens access to new markets, it adds to the benefit customers get from the product, and it is hard for rivals to copy. This tells you what your company believes makes it special, which is useful context, but it is not a list of things you are expected to deliver personally. The second meaning is the one that will follow you through hiring, reviews and promotions. In human resources, competencies describe the behaviors an organization needs from its people to get the results it wants, in a way that fits its culture. The FBI is a well-documented example: collaboration, communication, flexibility and initiative are among the competencies it expects from every employee, not only from managers. And when someone falls short on a competency, the standard response is training and development. Employers themselves treat a gap as something to work on, not a fixed verdict. ## What a competency framework contains When a company writes its competencies down, the result is usually called a competency framework. Each competency gets a name, a short definition and a set of behavioral indicators: concrete descriptions of what the behavior looks like at work. The indicators are often written at several proficiency levels, so the same competency means something different for a new hire than for someone ten years in. Most frameworks are also layered. Core competencies apply to everyone in the organization. Leadership competencies apply to people who manage others. Functional competencies belong to a particular role or profession. As a career starter, you will mostly be judged on the core layer plus the functional competencies of your own job, so those are the pages worth reading closely. The leadership layer can wait. ## How companies use their competencies A framework is rarely just a document in a drawer. It usually does three jobs. In hiring, interview questions are often written to match each competency, and they usually ask about a real situation: "Tell me about a time when..." The logic is that what you did in a past situation is evidence of the competency, which is why such questions are typically answered in the STAR format (Situation, Task, Action, Result). Carnegie Mellon University's HR department, for example, publishes behavioral interview questions organized by its own competencies. If you know an employer's list before the interview, you can prepare a concrete example for each item on it. In performance reviews, managers rate employees against each defined competency, using the proficiency levels and specific evidence. The point is consistency: everyone in the same role is judged on the same behaviors, rather than on what a particular manager happens to like. For you, that makes the review far more predictable. If you know which competencies will be assessed, you can [collect evidence all year](/knowledge/working-with-your-manager/performance-reviews/) instead of trying to remember it the week before. In development, the framework does a quieter job. Because it defines what good looks like, it also shows where training is needed. A competency you are not yet showing becomes a development goal, not a judgment of who you are. ## Five company competencies you will meet most often No two companies use exactly the same list, but some labels turn up again and again. The National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE) defines eight core competencies that employers look for in people entering the workforce, among them communication, critical thinking, teamwork and professionalism. Combine that with the FBI's all-employee list and you get a good picture of the labels you are likely to meet in your first jobs. ### 1. Communication In most frameworks, communication means conveying information and ideas so that the people receiving them understand and remember the message. Notice what that definition leaves out: it says nothing about being talkative or outgoing. The evidence is in what lands with the other person. A clear status update, a well-structured email or a question that saves a colleague an hour of rework all count. ### 2. Teamwork and collaboration Teamwork is usually defined in plain terms: doing your share, being dependable and treating colleagues well. Collaboration adds a listening side to it, taking in other people's ideas actively and staying open to different approaches without getting defensive. It appears on NACE's list and, as collaboration, on the FBI's. In a review, the evidence tends to be small and repeated: deadlines you met so others could meet theirs, and disagreements you handled without making them personal. ### 3. Initiative Initiative is typically defined as going beyond your assigned duties: [taking proactive steps](/knowledge/influence/taking-initiative-at-work-examples/) toward goals and looking for ways to improve how the work gets done. The FBI lists it for all employees, which matters for a junior person, because initiative is not reserved for those with a title. In practice it shows up as volunteering for the task nobody has claimed, flagging a problem early with a suggested fix, or improving a process you use every day. ### 4. Flexibility Flexibility sits on the FBI's list alongside collaboration, communication and initiative. In everyday terms it means adjusting how you work when plans, priorities or circumstances change, without the change throwing you off course. Like every competency, it is judged through what you do, such as how you respond when a deadline moves or a task is reassigned halfway through. ### 5. Professionalism Professionalism is one of NACE's core competencies, and in most frameworks it sits in the core layer that applies to everyone. It covers the conduct that makes you easy to rely on: keeping commitments, treating people with respect whatever their role, and handling the routine parts of the job without fuss. It rarely gets noticed when it is there. It gets noticed quickly when it is not. ## Reading your own company's competencies A general list is a starting point, not the standard you will be held to. Each organization ties its framework to its own values and strategy. Wichita State University, for example, uses six core competencies linked to its strategic values, while Carnegie Mellon uses seven aligned with its core values. The definitions in your own company's framework are the ones that count, so find them and read the indicators for your level. Indicators can also be worded in ways that seem to favor one kind of person. Something like "speaks up confidently in meetings" can look like a problem if you are reserved by temperament or upbringing, even when you meet the competency in other ways: careful preparation, a clear written summary, a well-timed question. Competencies describe behavior, not personality, and there is usually more than one way to show a behavior. The surest way through both problems is to ask. One of the young people we interviewed about starting work described what he wished he had done in his first job: > I think it would help me a lot to sit down with my direct manager and really understand what I need to do to be successful in their eyes. > > That would make it much easier to go to work without constantly second-guessing myself. In the end, my manager is the person assessing whether I am doing a good job, so I need to understand their expectations and work within them. > > That may also mean doing something I'm not always very good at: simply taking their direction, doing the work well, and finding satisfaction in that — even when I don't necessarily agree with everything or find it slightly frustrating that they get to decide. > > The important thing is to keep that dialogue open and be honest. Ask direct questions instead of circling around the issue, because trying to guess what people really mean simply takes too much time. In practice, that means taking the competency list into an [early one-on-one](/knowledge/working-with-your-manager/one-on-one-meetings/) and asking what each item looks like in your role, ideally with an example of someone doing it well. It helps to go in already knowing which of these behaviors come easily to you and which you have rarely practiced, and [a quick read on your strengths](https://assessment.headwayskills.com/) gives you that before the conversation rather than after your first review. ## The skills that turn competency labels into everyday behavior Look at the five competencies again and something stands out: none of them is a talent you either have or lack. Each is a pattern of behavior, and the behaviors are built from a few underlying skills that you can practice on purpose. **Professional Behaviors** is where much of a core competency layer quietly lives. Respect for everyone regardless of role, openness to change, reliability with policies and the routine administrative work: these are what frameworks mean by professionalism and flexibility, written as daily conduct. Practicing them deliberately gives you the behavior and, at the same time, a supply of real situations to describe when a review asks for evidence. **Working with Your Manager** matters because your manager is the one who interprets the framework and rates you against it. Agreeing on what good looks like in your role, making your results visible and preparing properly for performance reviews let you shape the evaluation instead of waiting for it. Regular one-on-ones are where an abstract list becomes expectations you have actually discussed. **Building Self-Awareness** is what lets you place yourself honestly against the list. Knowing your natural strengths tells you which competencies you already show without effort. Asking for specific, future-focused feedback reveals the blind spots, the indicators you believe you meet that colleagues do not see yet. That turns a generic list into a personal map of where to develop next. The free Job Skills Test looks at the skills that sit underneath competency lists like these, three of them covered above and the rest of the twelve alongside them, so you can [see which skills carry your competencies](https://assessment.headwayskills.com/) and which would lift them most. Every one of them can be learned, so a lower score simply shows you where to start. ## What you can already point to Some of this probably sounds familiar from how you already work. If you have ever rewritten a handover note so the next shift could pick it up without calling you, or noticed a broken step in a process and fixed it before anyone asked, you already have evidence for a competency on most companies' lists. The ones you cannot point to yet are built the same way, one situation at a time, and none of them asks you to become someone else. As your responsibilities grow, more of how you are judged rests on these behaviors and less on what you know, which makes it worth learning early where you stand. ## Find your starting point All that is left is to see your own starting point. The **free** Job Skills Test is a self-assessment of your work skills: in 7 minutes it shows where you stand across all twelve skills and which ones will make the biggest difference to the competencies your company rates you on. ## Who this is for - Professionals building practical workplace skills - Readers looking for specific, usable work advice - Managers, educators, and coaches supporting career readiness ## Common questions ### What is this guide about? Company competencies are the behaviors your employer rates in interviews and reviews. See the five you'll meet most and how to show each one at work. ### Which Headway skill does this connect to? This guide connects primarily to Professional Behaviors. It also relates to Working with Your Manager, Building Self-Awareness. ### What is the recommended next step? Use the free Work Skills Test to reflect on which work skill to improve next. ## Related pages - https://headwayskills.com/knowledge.md - https://headwayskills.com/knowledge/skills-standards.md - https://headwayskills.com/knowledge/professional-behaviors.md - https://headwayskills.com/knowledge/working-with-your-manager.md - https://headwayskills.com/knowledge/self-awareness.md - https://headwayskills.com/work-skills-test.md ## Citation guidance Use the canonical page when citing this content: https://headwayskills.com/knowledge/skills-standards/company-competencies/ Preferred summary: "Company competencies are the behaviors your employer rates in interviews and reviews. See the five you'll meet most and how to show each one at work." ## Change log - 2026-07-07: Content collection version published.