What Is Your Skillset

The power of knowing what your skillset is allows you to use this information to detail on your resume, outline examples of your best skills on a cover letter, when speaking to a potential employer or at an interview you will be able to speak clearly and confident.

And by knowing what your skills are will allow you to look for jobs where the requirements match what you already have, or give you the insight that this could possibly not be the right job for you.

Plus, let us not forget the “feel good” factor too!

To begin let us confirm what a skill set is not, and the easiest way will be talk about this, will be outlining  the difference between strengths and skills as this will help you when you do go to identify your skills. 

When we do something where we have a natural tendency to do it, you are naturally good at it, this is what describes a strength.  A skill is something which you learn and develop over time through repetition.  For example, your strength can be you work well with others, where your skill can be working effectively as a team player.  While there two examples could be viewed as similar and in some stances will be interchanged, there is a distinct difference between the two.

When it comes time to identify your skill set, one of the most effective ways is to look at two different types: your soft skills and your hard skills. 

Soft skills are best referred to as skills which we do not see or touch, more in line with personality traits such as leadership, communication, problem solving, adaptability.   Hard skills are best defined as skills we learn through books, study, courses, trainings and so on, for example, computer programming, analytics, forklift operation, accounting, languages, sales.

If you know your present job type and or industry is something you do not want to be part of in your next chapter, it is still extremely valuable to look at where your skillset lies today.  The awareness of what you love to do vs what you do not is what will help you when you are discovering future roles, future job types. 

One example I love to share is from a past client who when I asked what task in your day do you enjoy the most, her reply was sales, which then was followed by ‘hang on, not all of the sales process’.  After discussion, what she was selling and the connecting with people was the part of the sales process she loved but speaking to a cold audience was the part of it she did not like.  This is the beauty of this type of awareness and how much in can help you when you are looking for your next job, your next career.

The top 5 exercises I like to do with my clients so they can get clear on their skillset are:

1.       Your current job description.  Whether you have been in your current role for 6 months, 1 year or 5 years, this job description outlines what the fundamental skills are to perform your job.  This is the perfect place to begin as it will tell you what you are currently doing and this you can use to see what of these listed skills you excel with or not.

2.       Ask your work colleagues.  Asking your work colleagues and those of who’s opinion your value what they see as your best skills is another great way to get insight.  I recommend asking about 3 – 5 colleagues if you can.  Email is a great way as it will give the person time to think about it before answering, you can even use something along the lines of:

Dear….

I need your help on a little project of mine. As you and I have worked together for a while I would like it if you can share with me 1 -2 paragraphs about what you think are some of my best skills I exhibit here at work and if you are can give any instances where you saw me use these would be terrific.

3.       Take an online behavior or personality test.  A wonderful way to highlight what your soft skills are and deepen your self-awareness.  There are a number of these free tests online and at the end of the day it is a computer test telling you what your result is, so I always like to take this as interest only and use it to ask if the results I get, I feel are valid and where do I see that I use these skills presently.

4.       Performance reviews.  These reviews are full of clues, whether you agree or disagree with the review given, much of what will be written will outline a lot of where your skills are being used.  Use this information to your advantage and ask yourself with the positives on the review, how much do you enjoy doing that task which involves that skill, and for any negatives on the review, ask yourself what is exactly about this task which is causing this negative – perhaps you have not developed the skill effectively to excel at this task, perhaps you do not enjoy it or it could be something else.

5.       Take inventory of your job.  If you work in a role that is monotonous each day and each week then this exercise will be perfect for you to get a birds-eye type view of you what you do and how much you like doing it.  On a piece of paper write down the tasks for each day, then beside that write down what skill(s) are needed for you to do that task.  Next, you will want to have columns where at the top of each column it will be titled ‘Love’ ‘Like’ ‘Tolerate’ ‘Dislike’ put a checkmark in the column to which best fits how you feel about that skill (s) you have needed to perform that task.   If your work is varied then still do this exercise yet select which days of the week will be best for you to get an overview of.

I will suggest if you can complete a minimum of two of these exercises this will put you in a great position to help you understand what your top skills are, what of your current tasks you do enjoy or not and then how best to use this information when deciding what your next job, your next career can be. 

With career change, the change is not hard, the process is not hard – discovering your strengths, discovering your skillset, discovering your passions, discovering your purpose, all these simply require exercises for you to do to get the answer.

Where some folks come unstuck is they do not dedicate the time to do the exercises or deem them as important.  However, if you do not know who you are today, then how can you discover what it is you want to do next?

I believe that the magic is in the process….while you do these exercises not only do you gain incredible awareness yet what this unfolds is how clear, focused and confident you then become.

Transferable skills is a word that is hot on the job/career market. Folks thinking they must know what their transferable skills are and this places pressure on them. Once you have identified your soft and hard skills, you will then be in a much better place to identify your transferable skills, and to make it a little easier, here is a cheat sheet for you to get started.