# Required Competencies: What Employers Ask For and How to Prove It Canonical URL: https://headwayskills.com/knowledge/skills-standards/required-competencies/ Markdown URL: https://headwayskills.com/knowledge/skills-standards/required-competencies.md Entity type: Article Last updated: 2026-07-07 Language: en Primary audience: professionals improving building self-awareness at work Owner: Headway Skills Contact: https://headwayskills.com/contact/ ## Short answer Required competencies are the abilities a job expects you to prove, not just claim. See the two layers most lists mix and how to back each line with evidence. ## Key facts - Title: Required Competencies: What Employers Ask For and How to Prove It - Category: Skills Standards and Frameworks - Primary skill: Building Self-Awareness - Related skills: Communication, Professional Behaviors - Primary keyword: required competencies - Source page: https://headwayskills.com/knowledge/skills-standards/required-competencies/ ## What this page covers - Required competencies are the abilities a job expects you to prove, not just claim. See the two layers most lists mix and how to back each line with evidence. - Practical guidance for required competencies - How this topic connects to Building Self-Awareness ## Detailed explanation Required competencies are the abilities an employer expects you to bring to a role and to prove, not just claim. They combine knowledge, skills and behaviors, and they come in two layers: the technical competencies a specific job needs, and general ones such as communication, teamwork and professionalism that turn up in very different fields. A long list of them in a job posting can read like an exam you have already failed. It reads very differently once you know what each line is really asking for, and why the word that carries the most weight is not "required" but "demonstrated." ## What does "required competencies" mean in a job description? It means the things an employer needs to see evidence of before they can trust you with the role. The National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE) defines career readiness as "the attainment and demonstration of requisite competencies that broadly prepare college graduates for a successful transition into the workplace." Both halves of that definition matter. Attaining a competency happens through your studies, jobs and projects. Demonstrating it is a separate step, and it is the only one an employer actually sees. So read every line of a competency list as a question rather than a description: where have you shown this, and what came of it? The same question sits underneath the word whether it appears in a posting, an application form or an interview invitation, and having an answer ready for each line is most of the work. ## What is the difference between skills and competencies? A skill is one thing you can do. A competency is wider: it combines knowledge, skills, abilities and behaviors, and it adds the part that matters most to an employer, which is applying them to get a result in a real situation. Statistical analysis is a skill. Using that analysis to make a sound production decision is the competency. That is why listing a skill rarely satisfies a competency requirement on its own. "Excel" on a resume tells a reader you have a tool. A line showing how you used it to catch an error in a budget before it went out tells them you can do what the role asks. ## What are core competencies? Core competencies are the general layer: the ones an organization expects across many roles, as opposed to the technical or functional competencies tied to one job. Most postings mix the two. The technical layer covers the tools, methods and subject knowledge the work itself needs, and it is usually what education teaches directly. The general layer covers how you communicate, work with others and conduct yourself, and it is far more often left for you to pick up on the job. Check the two layers separately, because a match in one says nothing about the other. You can meet every technical line and still have work to do on the general ones, or the reverse, and each calls for a different kind of preparation. ## What competencies do employers look for in graduates? For the general layer, a useful map comes from NACE, which sets out eight [career readiness competencies](/knowledge/skills-standards/nace-competencies/): Career and Self-Development, Communication, Critical Thinking, Equity and Inclusion, Leadership, Professionalism, Teamwork, and Technology. NACE built the framework around transferable, core competencies rather than job-specific technical skills, which is why the same headings recur in postings from very different fields. NACE also states that the competencies can be used in any combination, with no requirement to use all eight. Organizations pick and weight the ones that matter for their context, so the competencies a posting chooses to name are information in themselves. If one posting leans on teamwork and another on communication, each is telling you which evidence to lead with. ## How do I know which competencies I actually have? Go through the list one line at a time and, for each, name a specific situation where you did it and what came of it. A study project, a part-time job, a volunteer role or a student society all count. Where you can name a situation easily, you have evidence. Where you can only offer a general sense that you are "good at it," you have a claim that still needs evidence behind it. Where nothing comes to mind at all, you have found a gap, and a gap is simply something you have not learned yet. The trap runs both ways. It is easy to overclaim a competency you have only watched others use, and just as easy to dismiss one you show all the time because nobody ever gave it a name. Asking someone who has seen you work, a supervisor from a part-time job or a teammate from a project, which lines they would vouch for is one of the fastest corrections. If you would like a second opinion that does not depend on who you ask, [a structured skills check](https://assessment.headwayskills.com/) gives you a baseline to set your own reading against, and anything it flags as weak can be practiced. ## Should I apply if I don't meet all the required competencies? There is no dependable rule for how many of the listed competencies you need to match before you apply. If a long list has ever made a role feel out of reach before you even started, that reaction is a familiar one. One of the young people we interviewed about starting work described it this way: > I was actually a bit surprised by how simple many of the tasks were. You read all these fancy job ads that expect a lot — you have to be able to do this, and that, and the other thing. But I quickly found that even though I was just the student assistant, I felt at least as competent as many of my colleagues, if not more. So in the end, that worry was proved wrong. That was his experience in one job, and it is no promise about yours. The more useful point is how to read the list itself. Employers include skills and attributes in a posting as a screening tool, to steer applicants toward the candidate they would ideally hire, so the list describes an ideal profile rather than a minimum every new hire matches on day one. Work out which competencies the role leans on most: the ones tied to its main duties, or the ones the posting repeats. Then check whether you can show evidence for those. If you can, the sheer length of the list is a weak reason to hold back. If your gaps sit in the competencies at the center of the role, you have learned exactly what to build before your next application. ## How do I show competencies on my resume? A short core competencies section near the top of the resume, below your summary, is a common way to signal the match, and it works best when you build it by comparing your strongest competencies with the wording of the posting. But a list only claims a competency. What shows it is an [achievement line](/knowledge/soft-skills-at-work/career-skills-resume/) in your experience section that describes the competency in action: what you did and what changed as a result. The separate section mainly earns its space when the posting itself is heavily built around competencies. Otherwise, put the effort into your experience lines. For each competency the posting stresses, aim for at least one line a reader could point to as proof: for teamwork, a project you delivered with others and your part in it; for communication, an explanation, report or presentation that someone acted on. ## What are competency-based interview questions and how do I answer them? They are questions that ask how you have applied your knowledge and experience in a workplace or a comparable setting, often on general competencies such as teamwork or solving a problem in a previous role. Because they ask for a real past situation, they leave no room for a general claim. You either have an example or you don't. Preparation is the same move as your self-check, done out loud. For each competency the role stresses, pick [one specific situation](/knowledge/soft-skills-at-work/interpersonal-skills-interview/) you can describe in detail: what was happening, what you did, and what came of it. Keep the spotlight on your own part rather than the team's, since your part is what is being assessed. Then say each answer out loud a few times; an answer you have only thought through tends to wander when you finally speak it. ## How can I develop a competency I'm missing? Break the label into behaviors you could actually see. "Communication" is too broad to practice; stating your main point first in an email, or checking you have understood a request before you start on it, is not. Pick one of those behaviors and give yourself a concrete occasion to use it, such as the next team meeting or the next request that lands on your desk. Afterward, ask one person who was there what they noticed. That loop of trying, [getting feedback](/knowledge/working-with-your-manager/ask-for-feedback-at-work/) and adjusting is how a gap closes. Keep at it until the behavior feels like your normal way of working, then move on to the next one. None of this asks you to change your personality. Competencies are judged on behavior, not temperament, so you can build them in a way that still sounds like you. ## The skills that turn a list into evidence Read these answers side by side and two moves keep returning: seeing honestly what you can already do, and making it visible to the person who has to judge it. Neither depends on talent, and the habits behind them are worth a closer look. **Building Self-Awareness** decides whether you read a competency list accurately. Knowing which strengths come naturally to you, rather than the ones you can merely manage, tells you where your strongest evidence will come from. Specific, future-focused feedback from people who have watched you work catches the blind spots, so you neither overclaim every line nor rule yourself out of a role you could do well. And when it turns up a gap, it treats that gap as unfinished learning rather than a fixed flaw. **Communication** does double duty with required competencies. It is one in its own right, and it is on NACE's list, but it is also the channel through which every other competency reaches the person assessing you. Leading with your main point, keeping an answer clear and brief, and listening properly to what you are actually being asked decide whether an interview answer proves a competency or buries it. Each of those is a separate behavior, so you can practice them one at a time. **Professional Behaviors** is where many abstract-sounding requirements, professionalism above all, turn concrete. They come down to everyday conduct: being on time, treating everyone with the same respect whatever their role, showing humility and genuine interest, handling confidential information carefully, and getting the administrative side of the job done without complaint. Steering clear of passive, arrogant or negative habits counts just as much. It is the layer you can show from your first week, and all of it is learned rather than inborn. If you want to know [which one to practice first](https://assessment.headwayskills.com/), the **free** Job Skills Test will show you, and it reads the rest of the set as well: all **twelve work skills**, these three among them. Whatever it shows, a low score marks a starting point rather than a limit, since every one of them responds to practice. ## Where your evidence already comes from Some of this may already show up in how you handle an ordinary week. If you have explained a tricky process to a new coworker at a part-time job, or kept a club's budget straight for a whole year, you already hold evidence for competencies that appear on real job postings, and it is yours to use. The lines you cannot back up yet can be built the same way, one situation at a time, without turning into someone you are not. The general layer also carries more weight the further your career goes, which makes an honest look at your own pattern worth more now than later. ## See which competencies you can already show What remains is putting your own skills beside the list. The **free** Job Skills Test is a self-assessment of your work skills: in 7 minutes it shows where you stand across all twelve and which ones would make the biggest difference to the competencies your next application asks for. ## 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? Required competencies are the abilities a job expects you to prove, not just claim. See the two layers most lists mix and how to back each line with evidence. ### Which Headway skill does this connect to? This guide connects primarily to Building Self-Awareness. It also relates to Communication, Professional Behaviors. ### 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/self-awareness.md - https://headwayskills.com/knowledge/communication.md - https://headwayskills.com/knowledge/professional-behaviors.md - https://headwayskills.com/work-skills-test.md ## Citation guidance Use the canonical page when citing this content: https://headwayskills.com/knowledge/skills-standards/required-competencies/ Preferred summary: "Required competencies are the abilities a job expects you to prove, not just claim. See the two layers most lists mix and how to back each line with evidence." ## Change log - 2026-07-07: Content collection version published.