# Workplace Competencies: What They Are and How to Build Them Canonical URL: https://headwayskills.com/knowledge/soft-skills-at-work/workplace-competencies/ Markdown URL: https://headwayskills.com/knowledge/soft-skills-at-work/workplace-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 Workplace competencies explained: the four types (core, behavioral, technical, leadership), how employers assess them, and how to build the ones you lack. ## Key facts - Title: Workplace Competencies: What They Are and How to Build Them - Category: Soft Skills at Work - Primary skill: Professional Behaviors - Related skills: Building Self-Awareness, Communication - Primary keyword: workplace competencies - Source page: https://headwayskills.com/knowledge/soft-skills-at-work/workplace-competencies/ ## What this page covers - Workplace competencies explained: the four types (core, behavioral, technical, leadership), how employers assess them, and how to build the ones you lack. - Practical guidance for workplace competencies - How this topic connects to Professional Behaviors ## Detailed explanation Workplace competencies are the combinations of knowledge, skills and behavior that let you do a job well, written as things a person can be seen doing. Most fall into four groups: core competencies everyone in an organization needs, behavioral competencies for working with people and managing yourself, technical competencies tied to one job, and leadership competencies. The word turns up the moment you start looking for work: in job ads, in interview questions, on appraisal forms. It can feel like being graded on a subject nobody taught. It is less mysterious than that. Every competency describes behavior, and once you see how the four groups fit together, it becomes clear which parts your education already covers and which parts you build at work. ## What makes something a workplace competency A competency is not a qualification, and it is not a general quality like "hard-working." It describes what doing a job well actually looks like. "Good communicator" is an adjective. A competency says something closer to: keeps the people affected informed before a deadline slips. Because it describes observable behavior, it can be measured. An employer can set the level a role requires, a manager can see whether you are reaching it, and you can prepare evidence that you are. The clearest reference point for people starting their careers comes from the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE), the US body that connects university career services with graduate employers. NACE describes career readiness through eight competencies: Career & Self-Development, Communication, Critical Thinking, Equity & Inclusion, Leadership, Professionalism, Teamwork, and Technology. Only one of the eight, Technology, is technical. The other seven describe how you think, how you work with others, and how you manage yourself and your career. Career & Self-Development, for example, covers continual learning, awareness of [your own strengths and weaknesses](/knowledge/setting-goals/strengths-and-weaknesses/), and networking. Knowing yourself is treated as a workplace competency in its own right, not a personal extra. One phrase in NACE's earlier definition is worth holding on to. It defined career readiness as "the attainment and demonstration of requisite competencies that broadly prepare college graduates for a successful transition into the workplace," and it built its list on research among employers. Attainment is half of it. The other half is demonstration. Building a competency and being able to show it are two separate jobs, and the second one is easy to neglect. The labels vary from one competency model to the next, but nearly all of them sort competencies into the same four types. ## The four types of workplace competencies ### Core competencies Core competencies, sometimes called fundamental competencies, are the ones an organization expects from everyone, whatever their job. They are not tied to a role, and that is exactly what defines them: they come with you when you change teams, employers or industries. Competency-model guidance recommends that organizations combine these [cross-job competencies](/knowledge/soft-skills-at-work/transferable-skills-for-jobs/) with the technical ones specific to each position, so the two always appear side by side. For someone early in their career, core competencies are the safest investment you can make, because they keep their value whichever direction your work takes. ### Behavioral competencies Behavioral competencies cover how you work with other people and how you manage yourself: communicating, collaborating, conducting yourself professionally, handling relationships. They are usually the largest group in any model, even in specialist professions. The Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) competency model for HR professionals has nine competencies. One is technical, the HR knowledge and law a practitioner needs. The other eight are behavioral, including ethical practice, leadership and navigation, communication, and relationship management. The reason for that balance is simple. Technical knowledge gets you into a profession, but how effective you are depends mostly on how you apply that knowledge with and through other people. Behavioral competencies are also the group most often mistaken for personality. They are not personality. Each one is defined by what a person does, which is why each one can be observed, practiced and improved. A gap in this group is something to work on, not a verdict on who you are. ### Technical competencies Technical competencies, also called functional competencies, are the particular knowledge and skills a specific job requires. The US Office of Personnel Management (OPM) draws the line clearly in its framework for federal program and project managers. General competencies are the cognitive and social capabilities, such as problem solving and interpersonal skills, that any job performance depends on. Technical competencies are the knowledge and skill requirements of that particular line of work. In SHRM's model, the technical side is HR knowledge, including employment law. In NACE's list, it is technology. This is usually the part a degree or vocational program is designed to supply, and it is often what gets you considered for a role at all. What it cannot do on its own is make you effective in that role. That depends on the other three types. ### Leadership competencies Leadership competencies are easy to skip over if you are not managing anyone. That would be a mistake. SHRM defines its leadership and navigation competency as the ability to direct and contribute to initiatives and processes within the organization. Notice the word "contribute." You can show a leadership competency [without a title](/knowledge/influence/leading-without-authority/) by taking ownership of a piece of work, moving it forward without being chased, and helping a shared project get finished. OPM likewise places leadership among its general competencies, next to integrity and organizational awareness, rather than treating it as a separate skill set reserved for managers. What changes as you take on more responsibility is how much of it is expected of you. ## How workplace competencies are assessed Because competencies describe behavior, they are judged by behavior. A job ad sets them out as a list. In an interview, they come back as questions asking you to describe a time you did something specific: handled a disagreement, worked to a tight deadline, explained something complex. Once you are hired, they often reappear as headings in your [performance review](/knowledge/working-with-your-manager/performance-review-preparation/), where your manager rates you against the level the role requires. Read straight through, a long list of required competencies can make a role feel out of reach. If that reaction sounds familiar, you are in good company. One of the young people we interviewed about starting work told us: > Job ads are written so convoluted and with so many expectations that you look at them and think: nobody can do this. Whether it's a cashier or a chief physician. A list like that reads differently once you know what it is. Competencies are described in levels, so the useful question is not whether you match the whole list, but where you stand on each item and what evidence you can offer for it. Saying "I am a strong team player" demonstrates nothing. A specific situation, what you did in it, and what came of it demonstrates a great deal. ## How to build the competencies you do not have yet Start by sorting. Take the competency list from a role you want and divide it into the four types. Your technical competencies can be checked against your education and any work you have done in the field. For the core and behavioral items, look for one real example each: a part-time job, a group project, a volunteer role, a club you helped run. Write down the situation, what you did, and what changed because of it. Some items will come up empty, and that is the useful part, because it tells you what to practice next. Behavioral competencies are built the way any behavior is built: by doing it deliberately, getting feedback, and doing it again a little better. No transcript certifies this half of the list, so it is worth [getting an honest baseline](https://assessment.headwayskills.com/) on the behaviors behind it before an interviewer asks you for examples. A gap you know about is a plan. A gap you discover in the interview room is a surprise. ## Where to start building competencies that last Put the four types next to each other and the behavioral items keep pointing back to the same few habits: how you conduct yourself around colleagues, how accurately you read your own strengths, and how clearly your work reaches the people who depend on it. **Professional Behaviors** is the everyday form of the core competencies. Professionalism and engaging respectfully with people from different backgrounds both appear on NACE's list, and this skill covers what colleagues register long before they judge your technical output: treating everyone with the same respect, being on time, handling confidential information properly, and speaking about people as if they were in the room. It also covers what to avoid, such as going passive in meetings or sliding into constant complaint. Done consistently, these behaviors are what make people comfortable trusting you with more. **Building Self-Awareness** is what makes a competency list usable. A list only helps once you can place yourself on it honestly, and that means knowing your natural strengths (the things you are genuinely good at, not just competent at) and finding the blind spots you cannot see yourself. The most reliable route is feedback: asking a manager or colleague a specific, future-focused question, such as what would make your next piece of work more useful to them, and treating the answer as information rather than judgment. **Communication** is the competency people see most often, because nearly every piece of your work passes through someone else. In practice it is concrete: putting the main point first, keeping messages brief and direct, choosing a conversation over an email when the topic is sensitive or complicated, listening fully before you respond, and speaking up in meetings when you have something to add. Each of those is a behavior you can practice on an ordinary workday. If you want to know which of these three is already a strength and which needs attention, the **free Job Skills Test** [puts a score on each of them](https://assessment.headwayskills.com/), alongside the rest of a **set of twelve work skills** that recur in almost every role, so your practice goes where it will show soonest. A low score marks a place to begin, not a limit. Some of this may already sound like you. If a supervisor at a part-time job ever trusted you to close up, handle the cash, or train the next new hire, someone had already judged your conduct reliable. That is a competency seen from the outside. The ones you have not built yet develop the same way, through practice and in your own style, without turning you into someone else. As your work comes to involve more people and more responsibility, more of how you are judged shifts toward these behaviors, so it helps to know your starting point now. Getting that starting point is the obvious next step. ## Find out where your workplace competencies stand The only thing left is to replace guesswork with a baseline. The Job Skills Test is a **free** self-assessment of your work skills. It rates you across the twelve skills behind the behavioral competencies employers name, and shows which ones would make the biggest difference to your next application, interview or review. It takes about 7 minutes. **[Get my skills profile](https://assessment.headwayskills.com/)** *Free, takes 7 minutes, results shown instantly.* ## 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? Workplace competencies explained: the four types (core, behavioral, technical, leadership), how employers assess them, and how to build the ones you lack. ### Which Headway skill does this connect to? This guide connects primarily to Professional Behaviors. It also relates to Building Self-Awareness, Communication. ### 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/soft-skills-at-work.md - https://headwayskills.com/knowledge/professional-behaviors.md - https://headwayskills.com/knowledge/self-awareness.md - https://headwayskills.com/knowledge/communication.md - https://headwayskills.com/work-skills-test.md ## Citation guidance Use the canonical page when citing this content: https://headwayskills.com/knowledge/soft-skills-at-work/workplace-competencies/ Preferred summary: "Workplace competencies explained: the four types (core, behavioral, technical, leadership), how employers assess them, and how to build the ones you lack." ## Change log - 2026-07-07: Content collection version published.