Tips for writing competencies
- Your application is your personal advertisement and an opportunity for you to promote yourself.
- Give examples of things you actually did and how you did them. Make sure you include your personal involvement. If your role is unclear you will not get credit.
- Use the STAR model:
Situation: explain the context
Task: explain what you had to do
Actions: explain what you did, what steps you took etc.
Result: explain the outcome of your actions
- Try not to go into unnecessary detail.
- Each competency is equally important so try to put an equal amount of time and thought into each of them.
- If possible use a different example for each competency.
- Make your examples interesting, factual, easy to read and relevant.
Example Competencies
Detailed below are some examples of suitable and unsuitable answers for a Level 2/3 post to assist you in the completion of your application.
A suitable example for Working Collaboratively
I do voluntary work for a local charity and was asked to help organise a fund raising day in the village hall. We met to discuss ideas and, after everyone had made suggestions, we decided as a team what stalls and activities we would run. I kept a record of what everyone agreed to do so we were all clear about our roles. I volunteered to organise a second hand book stall. We held regular meetings to ensure things were going to plan and I took notes each time for the group so that we had a record of who was doing what. On the day of the event a team member was ill and could not run her stall. I suggested calling a friend in the next village to see if she would help. She agreed and during the day the team took it in turns to help her out. The event ran smoothly and people who attended said they enjoyed it. We gave a cheque to the charity after the event and they were very pleased with the amount we had raised.
An unsuitable example for Working Collaboratively
I am very good at working in a team. I enjoy working with others and coming up with ideas. In my last job we reorganised the filing system. We met to discuss how to do it. We wrote down instructions which we could follow. We implemented the new system and it worked very well.
The above example is unsuitable because:
- It is not specific enough about the personal involvement of the individual.
- It does not provide enough detail about what was done, how and the outcome.
Ideas to help you identify examples
Previous work activities: Training others to do your job
Success stories: Key achievements
Things you have done well: Activities outside work
Don’t forget, when you have briefly set the scene your examples will need to address how you went about the task and what you did and what the outcome was.
