Certain features run through all these activities and imperatives. We need a ready currency, such as that provided by competencies, to describe what we are looking for either as single units of required behaviour or as collected units such as would appear in a job description or employee specification. We need a method of cross comparison between these documents and devices to enable:

Most of all we need to be able to describe performance both where it can be positively evidenced and where it can be predicted in terms that are relevant to the job to be done. Equally in terms that are so that we can assess directly on paper rather than indirectly by informed guesswork and getting the indicative answers to the indicative questions.

Most people seem to be interested in behavioural competencies as these are more difficult to assess. In practice this term is used more generally whichever aspect is being dealt with. This is particularly so with the "off the shelf" competency frameworks where working with people may have a dimension called teamwork which is then split into levels of indicative behaviours for the team member, team supervisor and team manager. All are required to be competent in teamworking but to different degrees and in different roles. The competency has become a competence but can be tailored from a generic competency into a specific one.

For example under Teamworking on Level 1 for a team member, we might have a behavioural indicator such as "Shares learning and information with colleagues". To this could be added, to tailor it to the context, "about new market intelligence and possible client contacts"

What Competencies Do for Selection

Competencies provide the currency of expression and the necessary building blocks

Critical competencies are often useful to use to highlight areas that make one job different from another when superficially hundreds could be very similar to it. In this case, identifying critical competencies helps when you have many applicants with similar qualifications and experience all of whom would seem suitable to carry out the job. Critical competencies should not of course be confused with either important or desirable competencies. If a critical competency is making cold calls actually rather than potentially following a certain in-house procedure, no other competency, however desirable, will compensate for the lack of it.

Developing Behavioural Indicators

Once the critical competencies have been identified and agreed, such as analysing and presenting data quickly and accurately, we have to produce behavioural indicators which describe what is done and in what situation to achieve acceptable competency. The desired behaviours are known but are not often made explicit. We may need to use structured interviews with various stakeholders, questionnaires and facilitated groups. The result is a job specific competency statement that is realistic and relevant but should not be so specific that only the in-house candidate could possibly produce evidence of competency for the moment.

Drafting Advertisements

Competency statements allow advertisements to reflect the job accurately in terms applicants can identify with. This way, better-suited candidates will be attracted and hopefully those less well-suited will be discouraged from applying. If critical competencies have already been, agreed these may be highlighted and prioritised.

Devising Interview Questions

The purpose of the questions is to elicit information allowing judgement to be made on the results. Questions are only as good as the material they generate. The material is only as good as its relevance to predict likely performance in relation to the requirements of the job. With competencies already identified, the behavioural indicators allow questions to test competence direct. We can probe experience for similar behaviours to discover what the candidate has done and from this might do in the future. We can similarly compare not only question-produced material but that derived from portfolios, reports, here and now tests, against the competency statements and behavioural indicators.

Assessment Centre Tests

Selection tests pose problems of predictive, concurrent and face validity as well as reliability. With the clear benchmarks of the competency statements and behavioural indicators, work-related exercises using materials from the real workplace are much easier to design. The competencies can help identify relevant simulations as well as provide accurate ways of assessing results.

A Focused Analysis