APS Professions capability model

We use a capability model to help explain the different skills, knowledge and personal attributes that combine to make up someone's overall capability.

Professional skills relate to someone competently performing activities in a specialist area of application to achieve organisational outcomes. Sometimes referred to as technical skills, these are skills that are only found in certain pockets of the workforce. Computer programming is an example of a professional skill.

General workplace skills relate to someone competently performing activities that are commonly performed across the workforce. Sometimes referred to as transferable skills, this includes what is often referred to as literacy and fluency skills. Minute taking is an example of a general workplace skill.

Behaviours relate to the personal abilities that someone expresses in the workplace. Sometimes referred to as attributes, social skills, interpersonal skills, soft skills, common skills, power skills etc. Communicating with influence is an example of a behavioural skill.

Experience is what someone gets when they apply their skills, knowledge and behaviours in the workplace to achieve a task or outcome, and through experience people can build their skills and knowledge. Producing a certain product for a high-profile customer would be an example of experience.

Knowledge relates to information that someone needs to possess to perform a skill competently. It may include methodologies, standards, history, context, and insights as well as facts. For the example of programming a computer, someone would need to know a programming language.

Qualifications and certifications are a mechanism for providing people with assurance that an individual has one or many of the aspects of capability described above.