In my previous two posts, I have looked at how personality and career interest play key roles in determining career direction.
But, there are other factors that are very influential and that need to be considered and one of the most important is your skills.
How to identify your skills
Maybe it’s an Irish thing, but sometimes we’re not very good at saying what we’re good at!
For the most part, we seem to have an innate modesty when talking about ourselves, our skills, and our achievements. This can have a detrimental impact on career development as it can count against us in the workplace.
But before we ever get there, it can have a potentially more significant negative impact in many work-related settings including professional networking opportunities and, crucially, at job interviews.
If you’ve been following this series of blog posts then you’ll know that the major theme of the series is self-awareness.
With that in mind, I would suggest that an altogether bigger issue is that a huge proportion of job seekers don’t even know what they’re good at!
Broadly speaking when it comes to skills development there is a four-stage model of competence that I’d like to look at for a moment:
1. Unconscious incompetence
You don’t even know that you’re not good at this! Mostly, I believe this is because people haven’t taken the time to evaluate their skills.
2. Unconscious competence
You’re good at this to the point that you almost do it on autopilot. There is also a danger that you can become complacent here.
3. Conscious incompetence
You’re not good at this and you know it! At the very least though, there is awareness which can lead to skills development.
4. Conscious competence
You know what to do, though it takes some effort. This is where you want to be as there is both competence AND ongoing awareness!
So what does this mean?
For sure it means that our skills require a lot of consideration if we are to make well-informed career decisions.
I would certainly hope that this piece will prompt you to really think about the skills you have or don’t have and to ask yourself some key questions:
- What do I do really well?
- What areas for development do I have?
- What are the skills that I really enjoy using?
It’s that final question that I believe represents an excellent starting point in terms of looking at how your skills can help to inform on the career that is a good fit for you.
When it comes to work, we mostly just do what we do without thinking and there is little or no time for appreciating the skills we have and that we enjoy using.
Identifying the skills that you most enjoy using can give really meaningful indicators as regards career direction. The thinking being ultimately is that whatever you do you should use the skills that you really enjoy using, and some career areas involve using those skills more than others.
To get you started here is a very simple but effective skills audit to get you thinking about your skills and what they might mean for your future career development.
In my next post I’ll be looking at how to identify your work values. What is it that you really want from a career and what’s most important to you in your working life?
Finally, if this post is the first of the series that you have read, then I would encourage you to start from the beginning and by reading my earlier blog posts.
About the Author
Shay Nolan is a Careers Advisor at University College Cork. He has a vast wealth of experience in working with undergraduate and postgraduate students in relation to career development and employability issues.
He has designed and delivered careers workshops that have focussed on career planning, CV and Interview preparation, personal branding, skills development etc.
He regularly facilitates career development programmes for researchers in UCC as well as for administrative staff in the university. In addition, he is the Careers Advisor for students with a disability in the UCC Disability Support Service and can provide specialist support in this area.
Outside of UCC, he operates his own private practice meeting a broad spectrum of clients from Leaving Cert students to experienced professionals looking for a career change.