# List of Skills and Competencies: What They Are and How to Prove Them Canonical URL: https://headwayskills.com/knowledge/types-of-skills/list-of-skills-and-competencies/ Markdown URL: https://headwayskills.com/knowledge/types-of-skills/list-of-skills-and-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 A list of skills and competencies employers look for, the difference between the two, and how to sort it into what you can prove and what to build next. ## Key facts - Title: List of Skills and Competencies: What They Are and How to Prove Them - Category: Types of Skills - Primary skill: Building Self-Awareness - Related skills: Communication, Teamwork - Primary keyword: list of skills and competencies - Source page: https://headwayskills.com/knowledge/types-of-skills/list-of-skills-and-competencies/ ## What this page covers - A list of skills and competencies employers look for, the difference between the two, and how to sort it into what you can prove and what to build next. - Practical guidance for list of skills and competencies - How this topic connects to Building Self-Awareness ## Detailed explanation A list of skills and competencies has two layers. Skills are specific, task-level abilities you can demonstrate quickly, such as building a spreadsheet in Excel, querying a database in SQL or planning a project in scheduling software. Competencies combine skills with knowledge and behavior, and they show in how you work: communication, teamwork, professionalism, leadership and a habit of developing yourself. Knowing the labels is the easy part. The harder part is deciding which of them you can honestly put your name to when an application or an interviewer asks for proof. That decision gets much simpler once you see how the two layers differ. ## Skills vs. competencies: the difference that shapes your list A skill is narrow and concrete. It is tied to a task, it can be observed and measured, and training or practice builds it. Writing a report, cleaning a data set and formatting a presentation are skills. Either you can do them or you are still learning, and an employer can check in minutes. A competency is wider. It combines skills with knowledge, attitudes and behavior, and it only becomes visible in how you act at work. A useful way to hold the difference: the skill is what you can do, and the competency is how well you do it when the situation is real. That is why a competency on a list is only a claim until you back it with an example of the behavior behind it. Most jobs contain both layers at once. A project manager's skill is using scheduling software; the competency is leading a team drawn from different departments, managing risk and delivering under pressure. Proficiency in SQL is a skill; making sound decisions based on the data it produces is a competency. [Job ads](/knowledge/types-of-skills/preferred-skills/) usually mix the two into one list without labeling which is which, and reading one can feel like a verdict on everything you have not learned yet. One of the young people we interviewed about starting work described that feeling: > What have I actually learned? If a job ad says you must be able to do these calculations, or brief a manager this way — those are the things I should have learned, and we didn't. Sometimes it feels like the emperor's new clothes. That doubt is understandable, and it is not the end of the story. Splitting the list into skills and competencies takes most of the sting out of it: the skills tell you what to practice, and the competencies are behaviors you can build and demonstrate through coursework, student jobs and your first role. None of them is a fixed trait you either have or lack. ## A list of skills and competencies employers look for The list below covers the items that matter most when you are starting out. The National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE) has identified [eight career readiness competencies](/knowledge/employability/career-readiness-skills/) that employers look for when they hire new graduates, and university career centers use that framework widely, so several of its items appear here alongside the technical layer every role also needs. ### 1. Technical skills These are the task-level abilities: Excel, SQL, scheduling software, a lab method, a design tool. They are the easiest items to list and the easiest to verify, and your coursework and the tools you already use often cover a good share of them. Name them precisely. "Pivot tables and lookups in Excel" tells an employer more than "computer skills," and precision also keeps you honest about what you can do today. Because many technical skills are tied to a particular tool, role or industry, they tend to travel less well from one job to the next than the competencies further down this list. ### 2. Communication NACE defines communication as exchanging information, ideas, facts and perspectives with people inside and outside an organization. The key word is exchanging: it runs in both directions, so listening counts as much as speaking or writing well. That also explains why nobody takes "excellent communicator" on a [resume](/knowledge/soft-skills-at-work/career-skills-resume/) at face value. Communication is judged through behavior, in how clear your emails are, how you contribute in a meeting and how well you explain your own work in an interview. To show it, point to a moment when you made something complicated easy to follow, or when listening carefully changed the outcome. ### 3. Teamwork Teamwork is also named among NACE's eight competencies. Like communication, it transfers to almost any job, which is why graduate frameworks lean on it: it says something about how you will perform in a role you have not done before. The evidence is behavior, not attitude: doing what you said you would do, sharing what you know and coordinating your part with everyone else's. A group assignment where the workload had to be renegotiated halfway through is usually better proof than any adjective. ### 4. Career and self-development NACE's Career & Self-Development competency means proactively developing yourself and your career through continual learning and networking. It treats knowing your strengths and gaps, and acting on them, as a competency in its own right. That has a practical consequence for you: auditing your own list is not a chore you do before the real work starts. It is this competency in action. Show it with something you chose to learn without being required to, or with a piece of feedback you asked for and then used. ### 5. Professionalism and work ethic An earlier version of the NACE framework listed Professionalism/Work Ethic as an item of its own, alongside oral and written communications, leadership, digital technology and career management. The framework has been revised since then, a useful reminder that competency lists are maintained conventions rather than fixed facts. What has stayed constant is that employers expect professional conduct: being on time, being reliable, treating everyone with respect and finishing routine tasks without fuss. The evidence tends to be quiet, such as a steady record of showing up, covering a shift at short notice or meeting a deadline in the middle of exams. ### 6. Leadership Leadership also appeared in the earlier NACE list, and early in a career it rarely means a title. Go back to the project manager: the competency there is leading a team from different parts of an organization and delivering under pressure. At your stage, the same competency shows in smaller forms, such as restarting a group project that had stalled, training a new colleague or taking charge of a student event. The scale matters less than whether people moved forward because of something you did. ### 7. Data-driven decision-making This entry shows the two layers side by side. Knowing SQL, or finding your way around a large spreadsheet, is the skill. Using what the data shows to make a sound call, and being able to explain why, is the competency. It is a good model for the rest of your list: for almost any technical skill you have, ask what you have done with it. The answer is usually the competency an employer is really asking about. ## How to turn the list into your own A list of skills and competencies only becomes useful once you sort it. Go through every item and place it in one of three groups: - Can demonstrate: you have a specific example, with a situation and a result, that you could describe in an interview tomorrow. - Can partly demonstrate: you have done it, but the example is thin, old or hard to explain. - Cannot show yet: you know the word, but there is no evidence behind it so far. Because competencies are judged through observed behavior, an unsorted list cannot guide either a job application or a [development plan](/knowledge/improve-skills/how-to-improve-career-skills/). The first group belongs on your resume and in your interview answers. The second tells you which examples to sharpen. The third is not a failure; it is the start of your development plan, and every item on it can be learned. If it is hard to tell which group an item belongs in, [get an honest read on your skills](https://assessment.headwayskills.com/) before you commit anything to paper. ## The skills behind an honest list Sorting a list well turns out to depend on a few abilities of its own: seeing yourself accurately, putting what you find into clear words and showing how you work with other people. **Building Self-Awareness** is what makes the sort honest. It means knowing which items are natural strengths, where you work well, feel energized and get good results, and which you are merely competent at. Feedback fills in the blind spots: ask a supervisor or teammate what you did well on a specific piece of work, and you often get both the competency and the example that proves it. **Communication** decides whether your evidence lands. Once you know what you can demonstrate, you still have to say it: lead with the main point, be clear and direct, keep it brief. An example told in two clear sentences in an interview proves the competency in the act of describing it. **Teamwork** is the richest source of examples you have. Being reliable, sharing knowledge freely, handling a disagreement without making it personal and committing to a group decision you argued against are all behaviors you can point to from group work, student jobs or volunteering. None of these is fixed, and you do not need to build all three at once. If you want to know which one to work on first, the **free Job Skills Test** scores you on each of them, plus nine more work skills, so you can [choose the skill to build next](https://assessment.headwayskills.com/). ## Your list will keep changing You may already spot a few items you could defend tomorrow and a few you have been listing out of habit. Both are worth knowing. If you have ever explained a task to a new colleague and watched it click, you have a communication example; if you have ever picked up the slack when a group member went quiet, you have a teamwork one. The competencies you cannot show yet are simply the ones you have not had the chance to practice, and you can build them without becoming someone else. The more your work depends on other people, the more these competencies shape how far you go, and the earlier you know your gaps, the more time you have to close them. ## See which competencies you can already claim All that is left is to check your list against something more objective than your own judgment. The Job Skills Test is a **free** self-assessment of twelve work skills, from self-awareness and communication to teamwork and decision-making. It takes 7 minutes and shows which skills you can stand behind today and which would make the biggest difference to develop next. ## 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? A list of skills and competencies employers look for, the difference between the two, and how to sort it into what you can prove and what to build next. ### Which Headway skill does this connect to? This guide connects primarily to Building Self-Awareness. It also relates to Communication, Teamwork. ### 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/types-of-skills.md - https://headwayskills.com/knowledge/self-awareness.md - https://headwayskills.com/knowledge/communication.md - https://headwayskills.com/knowledge/teamwork.md - https://headwayskills.com/work-skills-test.md ## Citation guidance Use the canonical page when citing this content: https://headwayskills.com/knowledge/types-of-skills/list-of-skills-and-competencies/ Preferred summary: "A list of skills and competencies employers look for, the difference between the two, and how to sort it into what you can prove and what to build next." ## Change log - 2026-07-07: Content collection version published.