Competency Modeling

What is a Competency Model

A competency model is a model to help organizations identify the essential skills, knowledge, and personal characteristics that are necessary to effectively perform certain roles. Competencies are the traits that contribute to the success of companies' high performers. For example, to be a successful automobile salesperson, some of the competencies needed are good communication skills, basic selling skills, sociability, customer-orientation, relevant technical knowledge etc. A more thorough definition of a competency model is "a cluster of related knowledge, skills, and attitudes that affects a major part of one's job (a role or responsibility), that correlates with performance on the job, that can be measured via training and development" (Parry, 1996, p.50). Thus, a competency model outlines the most important knowledge, skills, abilities, and characteristics that a high performer possesses in a certain role.