How to Write a Job Competency Profile: Template + Guide

What a competency profile must do — and what it must not

A competency profile is not a longer job ad. The ad sells the role outside. The profile steers selection inside: which CV signals you look for, which STAR questions you ask, what a 1 vs a 5 looks like. Flanagan’s Critical Incident Technique (1954) is the classic method: collect success and failure episodes, then derive behavioural requirements [3]. If you only write “team player, hands-on, 5 years’ experience”, you have adjectives, not a profile.

• Output: one page that recruiters and hiring managers both sign
• Leave out: salary-negotiation tactics, internal politics, untestable soft skills without anchors
• Put in: knock-outs, core competencies with behavioural examples, 12-month success, and what is deliberately not a criterion (e.g. elite university)

Step 1: Job analysis in 45 minutes

Sit with the person who knows the work — not only HR. Campion’s review puts job analysis at the start of every interview structure [2]. Four questions are enough if you force examples:

• What must be delivered in the first 12 months (not “successful onboarding”)?
• Which 2–3 episodes distinguish strong from weak incumbents (critical incidents [3])?
• What mistakes did previous hires make — and which signal was already visible in the interview?
• What may be missing (degree, industry, tool) if the behaviour is right?

Step 2: 4–6 core competencies, not 12

Each extra competency dilutes interview time and scoring reliability. Cut to 4–6 clusters that actually predict success. Write each as observable behaviour, not a trait (“brings conflicting stakeholders into one room before deciding” instead of “communicative”). The SIOP Principles require that job link [1].

Step 3: Must-haves, nice-to-haves, no-gos

Knock-outs belong in the profile before the first CV arrives — otherwise they get added as gut feel (often as a proxy for origin or pedigree). Must-haves have to be job-necessary, not “we’d like that”. Barocas and Selbst show how seemingly neutral features create disparate impact [4]; the same applies to “degree from a known school” when the role does not need it.

• Must-have: without it the person cannot do the work (e.g. licence to practise, C1 German for customer contact)
• Nice-to-have: speeds onboarding, but is trainable
• Not a criterion: school name, photo, age, gaps without context — do not score them, do not mention them in the guide
• Justify every must-have in one line: which task fails without it?

Template: one-page competency profile

Copy this structure into your ATS or a doc. Anything that does not fit on one page is not sharp yet.

From profile to screening and interview

The profile only works if the same competencies show up in CV screening, AI matching and the structured interview. Otherwise stage 1 scores pedigree and stage 2 scores behaviour — and you hire the compromise. Sackett et al. (2022) rank structured interviews as the strongest classic predictor; without a profile the questions have no content validity [5].

• Screening: knock-outs first, then competency signals — not university rank
• Interview: two STAR questions per competency, anchors from this template
• Scorecard in the ATS: the same 4–6 rows for every interviewer
• Job ad: translate competencies and 12-month success outward; do not inflate must-haves

Conclusion

Writing a competency profile means translating the role into observable behaviour and a few knock-outs before you search. Forty-five minutes of job analysis save weeks of inconsistent interviews. Write the profile once — screening, the ad and the scorecard all feed from it.