Today, people are no longer sticking to same kind of job throughout their life, therefore, career for life is no longer an option. Most people work under variety of employers and move across different industries. And how do they do this? They work on their job oriented skillsets.
What is a skill? A skill is an ability to perform an activity in a competent manner. The skill can be classified as transferable, based on personality traits and knowledge based skills.
What is a skillset? A skillset is a combination of abilities, qualities and experience you can apply to perform any task. Each person will have different skillset according to their interest, natural abilities, personal qualities and technical skills.
As an employability coach, I define employability as a set of skills that includes skills, understanding and personal attributes. A fresher is called to be employable if they posess all of these , that will lead to success in their chosen profession. These set of achievements will benefit themselves, the workplace, the community and the economy.
Most of the people are not just worried about getting the job but how can they be successful throughout their working life. This can only be achieved if they broaden their skill sets and attributes to fit into anything and everything by being more adaptable.
According to The American Society for Training and Development (ASTD), employees should own 6 skill sets
- Basic Competency Skills: includes reading, writing, computation skills
- Communication Skills: includes listening and speaking skills
- Adaptability Skills: includes problem solving and creative skills
- Development Skills: includes goal setting, motivation, career planning skills
- Group Effectiveness Skills: includes team work, negotiation and interpersonal skills
- Influencing Skills: leadership and understanding organizational culture skills
Are you aware about your skills if not How can you discover them?
If you know what you are good at or what skills do you possess , you can display them on your resume that will help your employers to understand why you are a good fit for the job. But, if you are not sure then consider spending some time answering these questions to discover your most prominent skill.
- What type of task you enjoy doing or something that come easily to you?
- Do you receive praise or compliment for certain abilities?
- What previous accomplishments you have, and what skills helped you to do achieve them?
6 Steps to develop new skills
Every job require certain skillsets that includes both hard and soft skills. As a general rule, employers are willing to teach you hard skills which are job specific but they usually want to see that you already have the other soft skills before hiring as they are much harder to teach. Remember your education and experience may make you eligible to apply for a job but to be successful in most of the roles you will need soft skills that you are likely to develop over a period of time.
If you are looking for a change and bored with your monotonous job , the first and the foremost thing that you need to do is, learn those skills that are required for that particular job or industry.
- Review job description for the position you want to apply for. This will give you an idea of the transferable skills ( Skills that apply to any job, no matter the level of industry, they are mostly soft skills) you have as well as the job specific skills you need.
- Set goals for yourself. Make sure you set a SMART Goal for yourself, as it will help you to stay on track with your development.
- Find a mentor, someone you respect and trust and who can guide you in the right direction.
- Do a personal SWOT analysis by finding your strengths and weaknesses and the area for improvement.
- Enroll in an online degree programs, as companies do encourage their employees to further their education with a degree.
- Participate in company organized training and in job shadowing. Job shadowing is a great way to learn about day to day responsibilities of another job which you are aiming at and will be more beneficial if you chose individual who is experiences or perform well in their position to guide you.
In my next post I will be talking about Skill Mapping, So stay tuned……
@Swati Mathur
Imagemakeover 
Being an HR I can relate to the points. Different Skillsets are much needed to enhance career growth and get adaptable to the changing technology.
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Skill development is the time one invests in to improve their proficiency and to stay future-ready. Great thoughts.
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This is going to be so helpful for the people getting ready to start a job. These are the points that can definitely help one succeed at work and be beneficial to the organization.
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Spending time sharpening our skills can help us achieve personal career goals like getting a promotion or becoming an expert on a particular subject. You have mentioned great pointers to develop new skills. Worth reading this article.
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Your post reminded me of my MBA days when we used to perform SWOT analysis and explore job-related skillset requirements. Informative post and will definitely help job-seekers.
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I think nowadays everyone needs to get their skill set updated as every day new and better software and more is coming to the front. I think best is to get oneself enrolled in an online course with proper certification so that one can keep self updated and also put in a resume.
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This is such a well explained and detailed post I have read in some time. At one glance you really understand the subject matter effectively. Thanks for sharing.
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this is such. helpful and useful blog for people who are seeking job or freshly out of collage into the job market. This steps of SWOT analysis I personally think is very important.
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This is amazing post for people who are seeking job . We must do these swot analysis .
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Constant skill development has become must to stay in the competition. And the six skills you mentioned are so apt when you talk about skill set.
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Thank you so much for breaking it down for me. Skillsets etc seemed like jargon to me but now I can understand what it means and how i can ask my kids to focus on their skillsets and develop them.
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Many people don’t know what they are good at. But the three pointers about how to figure our skills are quite true. When it comes to applying for jobs, quite often the freshers get tensed seeing a new skill mentioned in the job requirements. But with the 6 pointers that you have mentioned, they can polish themselves for the upcoming job interview.
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Nowadays there is high level of competition in every field. in that scenario, it is important to develop required set of skills before applying for any job. job shadowing is a great way to gather the needed experience for any job.
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I agree with you we should have a mentor, who can guide you to achieve and develop your skills to get your job!!
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One need to keep on upgrading their skills to survive in this competitive world.very well written.
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Important points that you have shared here. As fresh graduates a lot of things are unknown to kids joining in a company. Having a mentor, job shadowing etc. truly helps them gain perspective and understand what they need to grow in life and industry.
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Sometimes it is truly hard to jot down the skills in the category manner. The 6 skill sets shall help people to prepare for the job and also give then area of improvement. Informative post for all as learning is ongoing process.
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Identifying our skillset is useful when we present our resume or when we are in the look out for career change ir even when we want to upskill. This was an insightful post.
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Every article of your campus to corporate series is a gem. You have penned much needed information in most simple way ever. Great read indeed
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These are summer very good tips for improving your skill set. Another thing that’s becoming very important these days it’s the ability to be fungible and versatile. Since the job landscape is changing fast, this is an important skill to have.
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During my HolisticWellness coaching i often tell my clients about the importance of upgrading the skills. Now I will share this link for further reference too.
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Thank you so much Rakhi
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it is so important to develop skillset and it quite helps in career. And it is always better to upgrade your skills because workplace and tech is dynamic today.
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This article is really helpful for everyone and especially for those who want to start their career. Love the way you penned it soo perfectly and made us soo easy to understand
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