Because people often confuse Capabilities and Competencies, it is worthwhile recapping on what they are.

Capabilities are pretty much your genetic hard – wiring that is expressed in many ways. In a job context the cognitive, emotional and personality expression of that hard wiring significantly determines how effectively you cope with the workspace. Capability is internal, psychological, under the surface. Most simply stated, it is the EQ and IQ that drives most of an individual’ s behaviour at work. Competencies are skills and sets of behaviours that are learned through education and experience. They are tools that we use to cope with job demands. As long as organisations are not clear on this distinction, they will always run the risk of using the wrong assessment tools in their selection process. What do we mean?

While there are many tools available to assess person’s Competencies such as:

• CV checks

• Qualification Reviews

• Interviews

• Work Sample Tests

• Assessment Centre tools like role plays, case studies, in – baskets,

These tools are not designed to assess Capability (EQ and IQ).

The only way to assess Capability accurately, objectively, and legally, is by means of psychometric tests. You also cannot use psychometric tests to assess Competencies, because they are not designed for this purpose. This means that if you do not use psychometric tests as part of you selection battery, you will not be able to assess the candidate's capability and how well it fits with the role. Your selection process will therefore only tell you about the one third that the candidate brings to the role that predicts job success (competencies), while omitting to consider the two thirds that will predict his job success (capability). Looking ahead, we will devote modules 3 to 6 to do a deep dive into Psychometric Tests, and then discuss the various ways of assessing Competencies in Module 7.