When listing your competences, you’ll be faced with the task of identifying specific knowledge, skills, and social competences. This can be challenging. Fortunately, there are standards you can refer to:

●    the requirements in a job advertisement (if they concern knowledge, skills and social competences),
●    job profiles,
●    the core curriculum of vocational education,
●    competence frameworks, e.g., the Transversal Competences Framework, the European Digital Competence Framework (DigComp) or the European Sustainable Development Competence Framework (GreenComp),
●    the European Skills, Competences, Qualifications and Occupations Classification System (ESCO),
●    the qualifications included in the Integrated Qualifications Register.

However, sometimes you’ll need to identify knowledge, skills, and social competences that aren’t listed in the resources above, but that you possess. When describing them, remember to:

●    use unambiguous phrases – the description should not raise any doubts nor be interpreted differently; everyone should understand them in the same way. For example, “is ready to cooperate” can be understood in various ways, including “wants to cooperate now” and “knows the rules of cooperation”;
●    the entries are understandable to others – avoid mental shortcuts and overgeneralisations. Sometimes it is better to use less specialised vocabulary (especially when describing the skills useful in more than one industry or sector);
●    where possible, use operational verbs.