Good morning lovelies,
I’m back again to cover more (this time tangible) things that you might not know that you didn’t know! This week, I’m going to be addressing skill building. What does it mean? What does it look like? What counts as a “skill?” And how do all of those combine to help you market yourself to potential employers, colleges, etc.?
For many of you, this stuff will not be new information, if you start reading a section and realize you already know the information, feel free to skip around to a place that feels more comfortable, or even feel free to skip to the activity at the bottom of this post! I will have headings that will outline the main topic I want to address so that you know where to skip to.
What is a skill?
A skill, in the most basic definition of the word, is just something that you can do. Simple enough. But, what makes a skill that you can market? Literally anything. Recently, I had a friend apply for a data entry job and she was able to use the fact that she plays for an eSports team to talk about her coordination, technological experience, and fast typing speed. Anything that you do helps you build up skills, it’s just a matter of knowing how the things you do make you better at doing things.
When talking about skills, you’ll likely encounter 2 “types” of skills that people really love to differentiate. Soft skills, and hard skills. In all honesty, while yes, it’s important to have a mix of both, I think the thing that matters more when applying to jobs or colleges is really knowing and understanding what they are looking for. You can have all the skills in the world, but they’re not going to do you any good if you don’t know how to sell your skills. Despite the fact that I personally take issue with over highlighting soft and hard skills, I still think they are important to know so below I will give you a few examples of what they are, how you can build them up, and how you can look at some of the things you’re already doing to pinpoint the skills you do have. Because I promise you, you do have plenty of skills.
Soft skills
A soft skill, in the way I understand them are skills that you have, but can’t necessarily prove in a physical sense. While that sounds confusing, it really just means a thing that affects the way that you interact with things, not necessarily in doing the job itself. Things like communication, problem solving, flexibility, critical thinking, creativity, time management, organization, and MANY more. If you want to know some more examples of soft skills, there is a handshake article that has a list of 50 of them.
With soft skills being something that you can’t exactly measure, how do you know you have them, and how do you build them up?
Honestly, for this answer I can really only say that it’s vibes based. If you feel like you’re good with team work, you’re probably skilled in team work. If you feel that you’re creative or flexible or organized, then you probably are. The key here is taking those skills that you think you have and linking them back to the things you’ve done. Have you participated in group work in class? Done a presentation with a group? There, that’s how you prove that you’re skilled in team work. Have you participated in an art club, taken an art class, or experimented with making your own art? You’re probably creative. Have you ever worked part time in retail or food service? You’re probably pretty flexible. There’s an endless number of ways that you can build up soft skills, so my advice would be to list out things that you’ve done that have had an impact on you and try to figure out from there what you have learned from those.
For instance, I’ve been working at Walmart for 4.5 years now…gross, I know. But in doing that I have learned that I am personable and empathetic by talking with customers, I am communicative because I have to talk to my manager and coworkers when things don’t go to plan, I have good time management because I have to do my tasks on a strict schedule which involves also prioritizing what work needs to be done the most and take the most time. I have listed off a small fraction of my job and got 4 soft skills out of it, believe me, you are skilled even if it’s just you participating in class, playing sports, or playing an instrument. You just have to figure out the ways that the activities you like to do strengthen you.
Hard skills
Hard skills are typically defined as the skills that you have to work to build up and showcase. Things like computer programming, carpentry, welding, languages, photography/photo editing, interior design, and many many more. Think the things that a job really wants you to know or learn before they hire you. The key to thinking about hard skills is to think by industry what they want you to know. If you want to see some more examples TealHQ has a really great list sorted out by industry. For instance, if you want to be a carpenter, you probably want to talk about any skills you have regarding woodworking, geometry or general math, and maybe even fitness. On the other hand if you wanted to go into non-profit work you would probably want to talk about your skills in database management, fundraising, and marketing.
While it is really important to have a mix of hard and soft skills when you’re applying to colleges or jobs, I would encourage you to really not stress out about having a perfect balance. While people really love to have these two skills types as entirely separate, I think there are a lot o areas of overlap. Writing, for instance, is a skill many view as a soft skill, but as a writer I would argue that can very much be a hard skill depending on where you’re applying. Rather than focusing on having that perfect balance, focus on what you’re applying for is asking.
How do you market the skills you have?
Marketing skills is what I would argue is the hardest part of understanding skills. The whole idea behind marketing the skills you have isn’t necessarily to show a potential college or employer the all the skills you have, but rather showing them that you have the skills they want you to have. This is one idea that doesn’t often get passed around as many people assume that this is a natural assumption. As someone who has been writing many resumes for job applications, and helping friends with their resumes, I can promise you that this is not necessarily a natural assumption.
When you’ve decided you want to apply somewhere, the first thing I would recommend doing is looking at their qualifications and/or their duties. If a job says that it wants you to “Greet residents, guests, and service partners in a professional and welcoming manner,” “Respond appropriately to emergency situations and provide crisis intervention, including de-escalation and contacting appropriate authorities or on-call staff when needed,” “Flexible and adaptable to changing needs, schedules, and priorities,” and have “Experience working with young adults (ages 18–24) and/or individuals experiencing homelessness, housing instability, or trauma strongly preferred,” then you can take each of these points and break them down into skills.
Here’s some examples of things you could think about:
“Greet residents, guests, and service partners in a professional and welcoming manner”
Wait, I have worked in food service before, I know how to greet guests! What skills did I learn while doing that?
I learned how to be friendly, attentive, and demonstrate professionalism. Those are skills I could highlight!
“Respond appropriately to emergency situations and provide crisis intervention, including de-escalation and contacting appropriate authorities or on-call staff when needed”
I have done classes on CPR and have participated in trainings related to crisis’s like what to do in case of emergency weather or mental health break
From the CPR class I can say I have a CPR license which helps with emergency situations and those trainings made me be able to act calm during crisis’s which I might be
“Flexible and adaptable to changing needs, schedules, and priorities”
I am a student athlete
As a student athlete I have had to learn how to adapt both during games and on how to deal with scheduling that is out of my control. I thus have flexibility and adaptability as great skills here!\
“”Experience working with young adults (ages 18–24) and/or individuals experiencing homelessness, housing instability, or trauma strongly preferred”
Oh no! I don’t have any direct experience with this. I have no idea how to market myself to this point…
There are two ways I can go from here 1) I could try to ignore this point in my resume and be assured that my other skills meet the other qualifications or 2) I could comment on any personal non-work experiences that might lend themselves to this. For instance, I have had to help some of my friends who have experienced housing instability so I might be able to market my personal experience as a skill. It really depends on if I think I can really sell the point.
In my experience, the jobs I have felt most prepared for sending my resume in for are the ones that I have really focused on aligning my skills with the things they’ve asked for. I do have a master resume (you can find it elsewhere on my portfolio if you’re curious) that lists the main skills I like to market, normally on a resume I submit I only tend to directly mention 2 or 3 skills directly while the others I like to hint at when describing my experiences. Keep in mind if you look at my resume that it’s not perfect by any means. It’s a resume in the works that’s constantly changing, just like me and just like you. Even as I’m trying to give you some tips for developing these skills, I want you to remember that making these perfect is not going to be an end-all-be-all. Having a good grasp on the skills you have is just one additional step from last week’s topic on understanding who you are and what you value most. Next week, I’ll talk more about the interview process. How do you prepare for them and how do you feel confident after them!
Activity of the Week:
If you want a chance to win a prize of your choice, fill out this form I have put together to help you get a grasp on how to think of the skills you have and how to take those skills for a variety of different job qualifications (from real listings!) You can also scan the QR below:
