Skills for your new career

Skills for your new career, what are they?

How many times have you been asked “what skills do you have?”
You immediately starting thinking – what are you talking about, what are skills?

Definition of skills:
Talent, cleverness, dexterity, expertise, proficiency, handiness, skilfulness

Any of these ring a bell?
Yes, we all use skills in our every day life. Looking after children, playing sport, doing house hold choirs, pursing your interests, your hobbies, finding employment, the list goes on. Any thing we do you could call a skill, may not be a great skill or might be a fantastic skill. Anyway who decides, if you feel good about it then you will have confidence and that will show.

Has anyone said to you?
You have a natural ability in… A flair for… A good understanding of… Experience in… A great knack for… The know how to …
They are talking about your skills!

So now you have an insight to skills, what about abilities? Maybe you’ve been told:
You’re so confident, effective, reliable, capable, talented, competent
They are saying how well you use those skills – these are you abilities!

Your skills can be divided into 3 types:

Following are just a few examples
Technical:
Keyboard skills, cash register operation, data entry, drivers licence, forklift ticket

Transferable:
Problem solving, cash handling, good organisational skills, verbal and communicating skills, great at supervision others

Personal:
Reliable, hard working, honest, ability to work under pressure, a team player
Able to work unsupervised

And all this time you have been thinking you don’t have any skills.

Employability skills. Personal transferable skills. Personal qualities and attributes.

Take a moment to reflex on you own skills and abilities, you may wish to write them down to use later.