core competencies.
what are core competencies?
Core competency refers to an analysis of an applicant's skills, knowledge, and technical qualifications and matching them to the type of work that'll enhance business performance.
You can do this by gathering a list of skills that your ideal candidate will have, and scoring everyone on a scale.
This allows you to get an idea of whether someone is a good fit for your organisation and helps you base hiring decisions on evidence - minimising the negative effects of bias on your decision making.
how to choose the right core competencies for your vacancy.
step 1: analyse the role
The first step is to think about the role and what the day-to-day tasks include. For example, if you're hiring a software engineer to head up research and development, consider that this person will lead other engineers, develop ideas, communicate with departments, and write code.
Or, if you're hiring a salesperson, they'll identify and talk to prospects while supporting existing clients.
Once you understand everything about your vacant role, identify the qualities someone should have in order to perform well.
step 2: understand what qualities high performers demonstrate
With the list you've gathered about what an employee does within your organisation, examine the skills and qualifications someone needs to fulfil these duties.
Your core competency framework for a software engineer vacancy could look something like this:
- Leadership
- Communication skills
- Time management
- Teamwork
- Technical skills
We recommend using a framework of under 12 elements, since it keeps the hiring process uncomplicated. You also want to include an explanation of why someone would need this skill and an example of when they'll need it.
Using the software engineering example above, your ideal candidate must be a strong leader and have good communication skills and in-depth technical knowledge to spot bugs and other coding problems.
But it's essential to add the correct amount of detail to your core competency framework. If you have too much, your criteria become bureaucratic, thus, losing credibility. But if you lack detail, your requirements are general and meaningless.
Once you've identified a handful of competency elements a potential employee must have, it's time to score them.
how to score your core competencies.
The following are the most critical factors to consider when scoring core competencies.
use a simple system such as a 1–4 scoring range
The most efficient method of scoring core competencies is to keep it simple and use a 1–4 scoring range. A score of 1 could be underqualified; 2 equals average, 3 is above average, and 4 is excellent.
Provide our scorers or interviewers with a few notes covering what a good and bad answer might look like. These examples help remove bias and offer candidates a more consistent scoring approach.
If you're using an applicant tracking system (ATS) like hireful, you can launch your own scoring system. The software also allows you to deploy various competencies for different roles, which is handy if you're hiring for multiple positions at once.
set rules in place
Next, you want to implement rules that eliminate bias and other barriers.
With the hireful candidate management system, you can configure and apply rules that all interviewers must follow to keep hiring fair.
For example, you can prevent interviewers and managers from progressing someone to the next stage before everyone has been analysed. This is valuable if you're part of a large organisation with different hiring managers because you gain a data-backed understanding of the best candidates.
You could also stop hiring managers from seeing the scores of other managers since this can also impact the scoring process.
what are some examples of core competencies?
Here are some of the most popular core competency examples to add to your hiring framework.
team building
If you're hiring someone to head a department within your organisation, team building and leadership are among the most crucial core competencies. So test your prospect's leadership abilities by presenting multiple scenarios and finding out how they'd deal with them.
project management
This is also vital, especially when hiring a leader since it'll test their ability to bring together various components of a project, including planning and time management.
risk management
If you're hiring consultants or analysts, consider risk management as it'll allow you to find how a potential employee evaluates and minimises risk to your organisation.
use hireful to streamline the hiring process.
Evaluating core competencies is a necessary part of the hiring and remote onboarding process. It gives you an understanding of the skills someone requires to be successful at your company.
If you’re looking to implement core competencies into your hiring process, consider an ATS like hireful. It lets you customise your scoring method and configure rules that scorers must follow. This makes finding the perfect employee straightforward. Sign up for a free hireful trial today.
