When you apply for a job – as HR professionals know all too well – winging it in the application or the interview room is unlikely to succeed. Employers like to see a candidate’s competencies.

A competency is a set of “performance behaviours”: characteristics leading to superior performance at work. A competency is therefore a combination of know-how, skills, attitude and demonstrated behaviours – not just what you do, but how you do it.

Candidates have to decode what the language means and try to work out which competencies matter and what the employer’s unstated shortlist is. The job might be defined in terms of activities, targets or outcomes. Work back from those to establish what kind of behaviours will be needed.

The key to success is working out a series of short, focused mini-narratives. It’s all about lining up your experience and achievements in a structured way. Follow this seven-step competency narrative checklist for presenting your evidence:

1. Situation: What was the context? (Don’t over-supply information about the organisation.)
2. Obstacles: What problems did you overcome?
3. Action: What did you actually do?
4. Team contribution: What did you add to the team or organisation?
5. Outcome: What was the result (in concrete terms)?
6. Learning: What did the experience teach you?
7. The future: How would you perform this task differently if you were to do it again?