# Personal Competencies Examples: Five Types and How to Show Them Canonical URL: https://headwayskills.com/knowledge/types-of-skills/personal-competencies-examples/ Markdown URL: https://headwayskills.com/knowledge/types-of-skills/personal-competencies-examples.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 Personal competencies examples by type, from integrity to initiative, and how to back each one with a real example on applications and in interviews. ## Key facts - Title: Personal Competencies Examples: Five Types and How to Show Them - Category: Types of Skills - Primary skill: Building Self-Awareness - Related skills: Professional Behaviors, Influence - Primary keyword: personal competencies examples - Source page: https://headwayskills.com/knowledge/types-of-skills/personal-competencies-examples/ ## What this page covers - Personal competencies examples by type, from integrity to initiative, and how to back each one with a real example on applications and in interviews. - Practical guidance for personal competencies examples - How this topic connects to Building Self-Awareness ## Detailed explanation Personal competencies examples include integrity, dependability, initiative, professionalism, self-control and an accurate sense of your own strengths. They are the capabilities that govern how you manage yourself and your work, as opposed to the technical skills of your field, and each one counts only when you can point to something you actually did. That last part is where most people stall. Writing "reliable" on an application form takes a second; recalling the moment that proves it takes longer, and it is easy to wonder whether anything you have done so far even qualifies. It almost certainly does, once you know what each competency looks like in practice. ## What personal competencies are, and what they are not A personal competency is about how you handle yourself: whether you keep your word, how you react under pressure, whether you start things without being asked. It is different from a technical skill, such as building a spreadsheet model or speaking Spanish, which belongs to a particular field. It is also different from the social side of work. In the model popularized by Travis Bradberry and Jean Greaves in *Emotional Intelligence 2.0*, personal competence is made up of [self-awareness and self-management](/knowledge/self-awareness/self-awareness-and-emotional-intelligence/) and concerns you as an individual, while social competence covers how you read and handle other people. Application forms often list both kinds side by side, so it helps to know which one you are being asked about. Personal competencies are also [portable](/knowledge/types-of-skills/transferable-skills/). They travel with you from a café job to a lab to a consultancy, which is why employers ask about them whatever the role, and why your evidence can come from a part-time job, a group project or volunteering just as easily as from an earlier career. Formal competency models describe each one as a short definition plus observable behaviors. That detail matters more than it looks: it means a personal competency is something you do, not a trait you either have or lack, and anything you do can be practiced and shown. ## Personal competencies examples, grouped into five types The U.S. Department of Labor's industry competency models collect a set of what they call personal effectiveness competencies: interpersonal skills and teamwork, integrity, professionalism, initiative, dependability and reliability, adaptability and flexibility, and lifelong learning. Interpersonal skills and teamwork belong to the social side. The rest, together with self-awareness, fall into five types, and each one shows up in recognizable behavior. ### Self-awareness Self-awareness is the base the other personal competencies rest on. Daniel Goleman's competency model places [accurate self-assessment](/knowledge/self-awareness/how-to-identify-your-strengths/) and self-confidence here: a realistic view of what you do well, where your limits are and how you tend to react. Without it, the rest of any list is guesswork, because you cannot credibly claim dependability or self-control until you know whether they really describe you. Examples in practice: - asking a supervisor for feedback after a project and changing how you approach the next one - noticing that you do your best work on structured, well-defined tasks and choosing a thesis topic with that in mind - telling your group early that a deadline is beyond you, rather than discovering it the night before ### Self-management Self-management is how you direct your own behavior, especially under pressure or change. Goleman's model gathers emotional self-control, conscientiousness, adaptability and achievement orientation here, and the Department of Labor's list adds lifelong learning: keeping your own development moving without being told to. These competencies concern how you handle yourself, not how you handle others. Examples in practice: - staying calm and polite with an angry customer at a part-time job, then reporting the issue afterward - keeping a weekly plan through exam season so a shift schedule and three deadlines all held - teaching yourself a new system mid-semester so the work kept moving ### Integrity and dependability These are the trust competencies, and they show through consistency over time rather than in single moments. Chicago Public Schools' Chicago Builds program, whose competencies are aligned with the Department of Labor's construction model, describes integrity through owning your decisions and actions, ethical conduct, and honest and fair treatment of others. Dependability is usually written as taking personal responsibility for the quality and timeliness of your work and delivering results with little oversight. Examples in practice: - telling your manager about a mistake in an order before anyone else noticed it - handing in your part of a group project on the date you promised, every time, so nobody had to chase you - giving credit to the teammate whose idea it was ### Initiative Initiative is the proactive competency: it shows when you do more than the assignment required. The Chicago Builds framework describes it as pursuing tasks with energy and persisting through obstacles, and Goleman places it under self-management. For someone new to a workplace, it often comes down to [not waiting to be told](/knowledge/influence/show-initiative-at-work/). If you have ever stood around in a new job unsure whether you were allowed to ask for more to do, you are in good company. One of the young people we interviewed about starting work described what she found once she started; what follows is our paraphrase of what she told us: > My worries didn't really come true. People are generally kind about helping — but it's something you have to seek out yourself. Nobody comes along and takes you by the hand. > > So you have to be very 'on' yourself and try to make things work — and mention it to someone if you can, because nothing happens by itself. Examples in practice: - spotting that a shared folder was chaotic and proposing a structure the team then adopted - asking to sit in on a client meeting to learn how it worked - sticking with a stalled volunteer fundraiser until it reached its target ### Professionalism Professionalism is the conduct competency, judged by colleagues through visible, everyday behavior. The Chicago Builds framework lists self-control, accepting criticism calmly, dressing appropriately for the workplace and taking pride in your work. None of these requires experience, which makes professionalism one of the easiest personal competencies to evidence early. Examples in practice: - taking corrections on a first draft without arguing, then delivering the revised version on time - matching the dress and tone of a new workplace in your first week - arriving on time for every shift, including the early ones ## How to show personal competencies with real examples A competency on its own is just a word. "Motivated," "hard-working" and "reliable" appear on almost every application, so by themselves they tell an employer nothing. What sets you apart is the example behind the word and what came of it. Competency models offer a useful shape to borrow. Each competency is written in three parts: a title, a short definition, and a performance statement describing what it looks like done well. Do the same for yourself: name the competency, say in one line what it means in your work, then give the moment that proves it. Interviews take this one step further. Competency-based interviews ask you to "tell me about a time when..." and expect a specific situation, often in a Context-Action-Result structure, with most of the weight on what you did and what happened as a result. Anything you list will be probed this way, so prepare one or two examples for each competency you claim, and claim only the ones you can back. A simple way to build your own list: 1. Pick three or four competencies from the five types above that matter most for the role you want. 2. For each, write down two situations from work, study or volunteering where you showed the behavior. 3. Keep the situation with the clearest action and result, and drop any competency you cannot support. The hard part is usually step one: knowing which of your competencies are genuinely strong and which are still developing. If you are unsure, it is worth [checking where your skills actually stand](https://assessment.headwayskills.com/) before you decide which ones to put forward, because any gap it shows is one you can start working on now. ## The skills behind credible personal competencies Look at what each of those steps asked of you: seeing your own strengths honestly, behaving in ways other people can observe, and acting before you are asked. None of that depends on talent. Each rests on a skill you can build on purpose. **Building Self-Awareness** is where a credible list starts. It means identifying what you are genuinely good at, not just competent at, by looking at how you work, how the work makes you feel and what results it produces. Feedback fills in the rest: asking a supervisor or teammate for specific, future-focused input shows you the strengths others already see in you, and the blind spots you might otherwise have listed as strengths. **Professional Behaviors** turn several personal competencies into things people can observe. Being on time, handling confidential information with care, treating everyone with respect and staying open to change are exactly the conduct colleagues read as integrity, dependability and professionalism. You do not need a long code of conduct; a handful of these behaviors, practiced consistently, is the evidence. **Influence** at work begins with taking the initiative: being willing to ask, volunteering to prepare or organize, and seizing an opportunity when it appears. Repeated over time, those actions build a well-earned reputation for delivering, and that reputation is what makes initiative and dependability believable when you claim them in an interview. **The free Job Skills Test** measures these three alongside nine others that show up in almost any job, which makes it the quickest way to [find which skills to build next](https://assessment.headwayskills.com/). Each one is a learnable behavior rather than a fixed trait, so a low score marks a starting point, not a verdict. ## Where your own examples already are You may already recognize some of these competencies in how you work. Perhaps you are the one in a group project who sends the reminder before the deadline, or who quietly fixes the formatting late at night so the submission goes in clean. Behavior like that is the raw material of dependability and initiative, and you can name it, practice it and strengthen it from here without becoming someone else. Personal competencies tend to carry more weight as your responsibilities grow, and the earlier you know which of yours are solid, the easier it is to build the rest. What is left is to find out where you stand. ## Start with an honest baseline The only step left is a clear picture of your starting point. The Job Skills Test is a **free** self-assessment of your workplace skills: in 7 minutes, it shows where you stand across all twelve work skills and which ones will make the biggest difference to the competencies you want to put forward. ## 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? Personal competencies examples by type, from integrity to initiative, and how to back each one with a real example on applications and in interviews. ### Which Headway skill does this connect to? This guide connects primarily to Building Self-Awareness. It also relates to Professional Behaviors, Influence. ### 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/professional-behaviors.md - https://headwayskills.com/knowledge/influence.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/personal-competencies-examples/ Preferred summary: "Personal competencies examples by type, from integrity to initiative, and how to back each one with a real example on applications and in interviews." ## Change log - 2026-07-07: Content collection version published.