| What Are
Your Job Skills?
One of the most important things for
you to know about yourself is your skills. You'll need to describe them
on your resume and talk about them on interviews.
Here's an exercise to help you organize
your skills and then determine which ones you want to use on your next
job. This exercise will take some honest appraisal work on your part.
First, make a list of everything you
can do. This is the time to be generous about your skills. You'll pare
the list down later. Right now focus on everything you can do, for example:
-
supervise others (employees, children,
cleaning lady)
-
write reports
-
drive safely
-
manage a budget
-
use a computer
-
get along with people
-
synthesize information
-
invent things
-
repair broken lamps
-
organize projects
-
etc.
This list includes skills from the workplace
and outside it.
Also think about what you know - specific
information that you've learned through education, training, hobbies and
on-the-job experience. Examples include:
-
insurance sales techniques
-
tax accounting
-
knowledge of zoning by-laws
-
research in child development
-
surfing the 'net
-
etc.
Even if there are things you know or do
well, but don't like doing, list them anyway. Don't worry if you don't
do everything on your list well. This isn't a time for evaluation. Your
list should have more than 100 items on it. Two hundred would be better.
Now, make four columns across a second
piece of paper. Title the first FREQUENTLY, the second OFTEN, the third
OCCASIONALLY and the fourth NEVER. Write each of the items from your first
list in the appropriate column on this page, based on how often you want
to use each skill. Think of "frequently" as daily or several times a week,
"occasionally" as once a month or less, and "often" as in between.
| FREQUENTLY |
OFTEN |
OCCASIONALLY |
NEVER |
|
brainstorm new ideas
design conferences
etc.
|
speak to groups
teach
organize meetings
etc.
|
budget
write reports
develop websites
etc.
|
filing
drive carpool
etc.
|
From this second list, select 15 items
from the FREQUENTLY column that you enjoy doing, 15 from the OFTEN column
and 10 from the OCCASIONALLY list. Write them down and see which ones seem
related to each other.
Are there several that have to do with
helping others? Is communication a category? Could a group of them be called
"creative"? Use your own list to generalize about your skills areas.
There will be more than one, probably
three, fairly strong areas of ability. These are the skills you should
be seeking to work with in your next career move. They're the ones you'd
like to use most frequently and you'll feel frustrated if you don't.
Once you have your list of preferred
skills, you can scan job postings to see if there's a match between what
you want to do and what the job requires. Remember, if there's a
skill you don't want to use, don't put it on your resume.
Click
here to find a fabulous career. |
