What is the Difference Between Competence and Competency?

The terms "competence" and "competency" are often used interchangeably, but they have distinct meanings:

• Competence refers to an individual's capacity to perform job responsibilities or a specific task. It represents a general state of knowledge or understanding of something, indicating that someone can usually perform an action to achieve a desired outcome.
• Competency focuses on an individual's actual performance in a particular situation. It is often described as an action, a behavior, skill, or use of knowledge, and it can be used to measure an individual's performance against a specific standard.

In summary, competence is what you do (the ability to perform a task), while competency is how well you do it (the actual performance in a specific situation).

Comparative Table: Competence vs Competency

The difference between competence and competency can be summarized as follows:

In other words, competence is about having the necessary skills to perform actions, while competency is about the behavior and manner in which those actions are executed. Competencies are more detailed than skills and take a person's knowledge, abilities, and motivations into account to determine whether they can perform a job requirement competently.