Analyse Your Skills... And Sell Yourself

I recommend that you Analyse Your Skills before you start to write your CV or resume, before you think about writing a job application letter and certainly before you go along to an interview.

Armed with an understanding of what skills you possess and the extent of those skills, puts you in the best position of being able to sell yourself and to be able to convince an interviewer or hiring manager of your value to an organisation.

The easiest way to analyse your skills is to start by listing your top ten achievements or career events of which you are most proud - you can do this by looking at your Achievements and then consider your Transferable Skills which are your richest source of information providing concrete and tangible evidence of what you have done so far.

To describe your work skills, use an active verb at the beginning of the phrase, and you’ll hear how much more powerful it sounds.

Analyse your transferable skills by using a set of tests or logic to determine what jobs or positions you may fill if your previous job type no longer exists, or if you can no longer perform the same job.

Transferable skills may be determined by analyzing past accomplishments or experience. For instance, a stay-at-home parent and homemaker might find they have skills or competencies in financial budgeting, child development, cookery, property management, negotiation and so on.

Starting To Analyze Your Skills

• Now you can start to analyse your skills by asking yourself what you did (try: where did I start?)
• Then think about what happened next? (or perhaps - what did I say?)
• The next stage is to consider what skills you used when you did the thing you achieved (how did I do that? What did I need to do it?)

Skills are often described as

• Functional: Analyse your skills which you use to deal with the world around you e.g. people, data, things, ideas.

• Personal: Analyse your skills that you use to manage yourself.

• Technical: Analyse your skills that you use and develop for aspects of your job.

Examples of words describing skills:

Analysing; summarising; selecting; testing; reporting; communicating; presentation; listening; questioning; report-writing; co-operation; planning; delegation; negotiation; leading; people management; facilitating; organising; time management; setting targets; prioritising; collating; assembling; problem-solving, developing ideas, coaching; influencing; team-working; visualising; goal-setting; persistence; resilience; managing; assertiveness; achieving results.

Make yourself a chart to take stock of your achievements:

Achievement 1

"Convinced colleagues of the need to change working practices"

Skills used

Communication skills; analysis; presentation skills; commerciality; financial awareness; negotiation;

When you've done that for all of your achievements list all of your skills so you can rate them for transferability; most of your skills will transfer to another job quite easily.

How Good Are Your Skills?

My recommendation is to think not just "how good am I?" but to ask "how much do I enjoy this?" The skills that score most highly on both counts are your most transferable skills and you will be able to use them in many different settings.

Write them down - score them out of 10 then add up - the highest skills analysis scores are the ones you can use in your personal marketing to best effect.

Please don’t think that you can’t do something just because you haven’t done a job with that title before – let me explain that.

Most jobs involve a lot of the same skills and just a small layer of things that are specific so you’re probably a lot closer than you think!!

All you have to do is analyze your skills one at a time and then think how each one can be applied in a different setting.

Using Your Skills Analysis

Before starting to analyse your skills, you need to review what you’ve developed through experience in work and separate from work. Here are some of the main skills required by employers and some suggestions of how to describe these. When you claim these skills in your CV, cover letter or when speaking about yourself at an interview, you must be able to back up what you say, so put together some skills stories as illustrations.

Personal Transferable skills

• Communication Skills – Verbal: the capacity to make a point, communicate a specific message or present an argument with an awareness of audience reaction, and to respond appropriately to feedback. Listening skills are also valued

• Communication Skills – Written: the ability to present arguments, make reports, summarize in writing in a clear and focused manner, depending on the purpose of the text and its intended readers

• Interpersonal/Social Skills

The capacity to establish good working relationships with customers, clients, colleagues, is seen as of utmost importance in all work roles, for effective performance within the organization and competent representation of the organization with its clients. Analyse your skills carefully as the ability to negotiate is seen as especially useful.

• Organizing Skills

E.g.: planning ahead; meeting deadlines; managing self and others; co-ordinating people; activities such as events of all kinds; whether work-related; social; fund-raising and so on

• Problem Analysis and Solution

E.g.: clarity and logic of thought in defining and solving complex problems; capacity to identify key issues and reconcile conflict; ingenuity in the creation of solutions; effectiveness under pressure; concern with priorities; creative thinking

• Leadership

Leadership potential is considered important because it is assumed that most graduates will eventually take up senior positions and roles in managing others. Think Positive Use Action Words

• Team Working

This ability is necessary to work in formal and informal, interdisciplinary, long-term and project based teams or groups towards a common objective, with an understanding of the different roles within groups and importance of team-building, when you analyse your skills, be sure to include this area.

• Adaptability/Flexibility

For initiation of, and response to, changing circumstances, breadth of intellects, interests, knowledge and attitudes required for adaptation to changing demands

• Achievement

Ability to set and achieve goals for self and others. Employers increasingly need those who will help move the organization forward, so the capacity to recognize opportunities, appraise needs, evaluate risks and execute effective action plans in order to achieve results is highly regarded

• Intellect

Judged by how effectively mental ability is turned into action and as an underpinning for the use of the other skills wanted by the employers.

Action and keywords

When describing your education and work experience consider using words which are active and strong. Also consider the use of concise phrasing rather than complete sentences. For example, in connection with

• Advertising/marketing

Convinced, generated, influenced, launched, persuaded, sold, represented

• Communication

Demonstrated, disseminated, edited, presented, reported, wrote

• Creativity

Arranged, conceived, created, designed, developed, devised, imagined, invented, originated

• Management

Planned, negotiated, supervised, trained

How To Analyse Your Skills

You should try to analyse your skills gained through every job, course or leisure activity you have been involved with. These are the skills that are potentially of interest to most employers. With the following list of key skills, try to record examples from your work experience, college or other academic studies and don't forget to include aspects of your social or home life.

Look at each heading in this form and decide what skills you could describe using the suggested keywords as initial prompts.

1. Working with other people for example when working on a group project:

Key words that may apply: approachability, team work, support, co-operation, rapport, adaptability

2. Communication as when explaining complex information or ideas:

Key words that may apply: empathy, listening, enthusiasm, clarity, relevance, confidence

3. Decision making and using judgement when prioritising tasks:

Key words that may apply: decisiveness, research, planning, reaching a conclusion, evaluation

4. Persuading and influencing as when different choices are available:

Key words that may apply: communication, leadership, negotiation, charisma, motivation, determination, forcefulness, vision, empathy

5. Problem Solving:

Key words that may apply: critical thinking, data analysis, lateral thinking, creativity, firmness

6. Time Management:

Key words that may apply: keeping to deadline, apportioning resources, balancing demands, prioritising, overcome procrastination

7. Use of IT:

Key words that may apply: word processing, spreadsheets, powerpoint, SKYPE

8. Achieving your goals:

Key words that may apply: determination, commitment, will-power, resolution, stamina, ambition, energy, resilience

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Now go on to read more about marketable job skills and Work Skills and what Transferable Skills mean to your prospects of getting that new job.

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