Map Your Formal And Real Competencies

by Dejan Mladenovic | Last Updated: April 30, 2021

Formal competencies are all the competencies that can be documented and you have obtained them through education or working experience.

Real competencies are all the undocumented competencies. However, you can accomplish them and can give value to a job you work with.

First, you want to list your competencies. The list of your competencies will make search filters on which type of jobs you can search for on Job portals, recruitment agencies websites, companies websites, etc. Next, when you find a Job Vacancy worth applying for you will do a Job Vacancy Analysis where you will match the professional qualifications required for the position with your competencies and assess how you are covering the requirements.

In addition, by mapping your competencies upfront it will be a lot easier for you in later stages of the job application process when you need to write your Elevator Pitch, Cover Letter, Resume (CV), etc.

Just remember that mapping your competencies is hopefully a never-ending story since you will enhance them with years to come with additional working and education experience.

What Is Competence

Competence comes from the Latin term “competentia” which means “is authorized to judge” or “has right to speak”. However, when we talk about job competencies the meanings are “to know something” and “to be able to do something”.

Your total competence is a sum of your formal, real competence, and personal characteristics.

What Are Formal Competencies

Formal competencies are all the competencies you have obtained through education and can be documented with these documents:

Formal Competence Documents

• Diploma
• Certificates
• Course – Certificate of Achievement

Formal Competencies

Formal competencies can be:

• Documented working experience
• Education
• Certificate of apprenticeship
• Course – Certificate of achievement
• Certificates in general
• Attest – Letter of recommendation from the previous employer
• Letter of commendation from business partners
• References
• Language tests
• Driving license

What Are Real Competencies

Everything you can accomplish and can give value for some job but cannot be documented is real competence.

Real Competencies

Real competencies can be:

• Undocumented working experience
• Organizational skills
• Cultural understanding
• Artistic skills
• Languages
• Skills and experience from hobbies and interests
• Experience from trade unions
• Memberships in different organizations
• Experience from sports teams
• Competition results
• Experience and accomplishments from home and family

Why We Want To Map Our Competencies

We have already mentioned some of the reasons but let’s list them here.

Your mapped competencies:

• are guidelines for the type of jobs you want to search for,
• help you to match them with Job Vacancy professional qualifications requirements,
• will be useful when you write an Elevator Pitch, Cover Letter, Resume (CV), etc.
• useful asset in your Competencies Cornerstones personal and professional mapping.

Competencies Mapping Template

We have created a Word document that you can use to write down all your formal and real competencies. In addition, you can write down all the other cornerstones as well in the same document so you can have an overview of all of them in one place.

Get our FREE Competencies Cornerstones Mapping Template Word Document.

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How To Use Mapping Of Formal And Real Competencies In Job Application Process

When you find a Job Vacancy that you are interested in and want to apply for it you will do a Job Vacancy Analysis. In the analysis, you want to match professional qualifications in a Job Vacancy with your formal and real competencies as we have described in our article How To Analyze Job Vacancy In Norway. You can see on the infographic below how you can do the matching between Job Vacancy Analysis and Competencies Cornerstones Mapping.

Mapping of formal and real competencies is part of the broader personal and professional mapping that we call Competencies Cornersontes. As you can see on the infographic below in the Competencies Cornerstones mapping besides formal and real competence are included motivation, values, strengths, and social skills. By mapping all of these cornerstones you are building strong fundament for further job application stages.

You can use competencies mapping while writing or preparing Elevator Pitch, phone calls, your targeted Cover Letter, your targeted Resume, and of course during Job Interview.

Do not forget the usefulness of these pieces of information for professional branding and writing your LinkedIn profile, a website about me page, other social media profiles, YouTube channel profile, etc.

As you map your formal competencies you will collect all the documents as proof that you possess them which will be in the attachment section of your Cover Letter when you apply for the job. To have an overview of your documents you can use our checklist of documents necessary for a job application.

Useful Vocabulary

Here are some useful words in Norwegian used in this text.

Next Step

You should focus on mapping the next cornerstone and that is the motivation cornerstone.

Find Job In Norway By Following These Easy 19 Steps

Don’t forget that this article is part of a text serious about finding a job in Norway. Depending on the phase you are in at the moment maybe you can find some articles useful for yourself. So please check them out.

Below you can see the infographic with an overview of all the texts in the series. If you click on the link above you will be sent to the page where all these steps are listed.

Author: Dejan Mladenovic

I moved my family of 3 to Norway in 2008 and created this website so that I can share what I’ve learned with anyone that’s thinking of moving or traveling to Norway. It’s such an awesome place, and I want you to get the most out of it!