In an ever-changing world, businesses need stable organizing principles as a foundation. For many companies today looking to hire the most suitable employees in less time, job description software based on “competencies” is indispensable.
Please keep reading to learn more about the difference between skills and competencies and how savvy companies today use AI-driven software to focus more on the heart of their business.
What is a “Competency”
Whereas a skill is the ability to do a specific learned activity, a “competency” is broader. If you have knowledge and a skill, you’re more likely to have a “competency.”
Businesses now are savvy to think of their needs and wants in terms of “competencies,” because bridging the gap along these lines leads to proven success. From a talent-management perspective, orienting a business around “competencies” is more holistic in that they give you the “how” about how an employee functions on the job, not just the “what.”
By linking job positions to competencies, a company can attract better candidates, ask better interview questions, and provide better career mapping.
Faster Job Descriptions
HR departments struggle with creating job descriptions, especially with large companies with multiple departments. Inaccurate job descriptions have a trickle-down effect; when the wrong candidate applies, the result is wasted time or all the drains associated with a bad hire.
By reducing the time it takes to create accurate job postings and making them more accurate, a company can save money, energy and create processes that lead to better long-term outcomes. Organizing around “competencies” helps to unify all descriptions and positions across an organization, providing structure for HR departments.
Better Questions in the Interview
The software that focuses on “competencies” in the job descriptions helps you later in the hiring process. The best platforms have as many as 1,500 high-quality interview questions aligned with the competencies in the job descriptions.
Such a structure ensures that the questions proceed along the same line as what made that candidate attractive in the first place. Plus, the software has powerful AI that lets you generate questions from scratch.
Career Mapping
Once competencies are engrained in your company’s structure, there’ll be alignment between what initially made a job candidate attractive and what they need to do throughout their career to succeed.
Rather than anecdotes or general information, businesses built on “competencies” have hard data and real targets to provide to their workers. This level of transparency helps everybody: businesses know exactly what needs to get done to take things to another level, while employees know what they need to do to get a promotion.
Structure and organization are a boon for everybody, and “competencies” is an actionable organizing principle that gives businesses stability. No matter what industry you’re in, stability is something you could surely use now. Get the right people in the door and keep them engaged continually by using competencies as your basis for hiring and relying on it moving forward.