  |
Key StrengthsSelf Describing Skills Make for Job Winning Personal DescriptionsMany of us have a natural reticence to talk about our achievements and strong points, but when you want to convince a prospective employer to hire you, you must be able to describe your own key strengths in terms that help you to be picked. So often, in my coaching practice, when I'm trying to find out about whether my client understands her own key strengths I generally, at some point ask this very straightforward and simple question: "What are you good at?"I ask this question purely to establish if they have already thought through this most important question and what it means to create job winning descriptions of their personality. Some have, but more often they haven't and the answer usually involves lots of head-scratching, umms and arrhs and then quite often a monologue on what they're NOT good at!! See the book list at the foot of this section for more help. The Career Success book will give you a greater understanding of how your self description of your key strengths can make or break an interview. To gain even more advantages sign up for our 'Coaching for Success' newsletter NOW! When you come to the question of how to find hidden jobs (See the book list) this self-describing skill and being able to talk about your key strengths is absolutely crucial. Looking for a powerful but user-friendly tool to help you find your next job? Over 10,000 job vacancies online now! More being uploaded every single day! Find out how you can search by sector, role or location click here. Your answer to this should be your key strengths statement which we talked about in personal marketing - let me remind you. A "Key Strengths" statement is a summary of your most powerful skills and attributes. The Key Strengths statement:
Of course at interview, the question may take many different forms: "What are your main strengths?" "why should we hire you?" "what do you think makes you the best candidate?" "convince me you're the right person for us" "how do your skills match our particular needs?" As with all your Presentation Statements it should be so well rehearsed that it sounds completely spontaneous. "I have very good communication skills; I work well either leading or being part of a team and I am self-motivated and capable of working on several tasks at once. As a leader of small teams I involve people in the decisions so that they feel involved and ensure they have the opportunity to contribute to tasks facing the team. I manage the information, plan and organise and make the decisions as required. With my strong communication skills, I have been able to motivate the staff to higher standards of performance meaning we have also helped our profits figures through increased sales and tighter cost-control. Alongside this I have encouraged innovation and my team has produced several very good ideas for new products, services and markets. As an example the new widget has taken off in Eastern Europe and is contributing 7% of profits in less than 18 months. Most importantly I actively seek to develop members of my team for their own careers sake but also for the future of the business itself. This means I also look for personal development opportunities to ensure my skills are kept up to date."
to me now.
If you refer to the sample CVs and resumes, sample resume #1 for a Chief Engineer, the Key Strengths statement from him might go like this: "I have very good communication skills and work across all departments to ensure that issues are identified and practical solutions are prepared. Coupled with my project management skills and my hands-on leadership style I am able to consistently deliver and commission projects on time and to budget. I am focused on internal and external customer's needs, rather than purely functional needs and I apply specialist skills in continuous improvement and world class manufacturing to increase efficiency, reduce waste and losses due to downtime. As Chief Engineer I have initiated and managed strategic change programmes and implemented effective quality improvement programs all the way through to successful local level implementation. This has led to savings of £750k per annum and helps to maintain the position and financial strength of my employer". These key strengths statements naturally answer many of the interviewers questions whilst being reassuring in content. You will find though, that they will create new questions for the interviewer, so be aware that you must be able to substantiate everything you claim.
Try working on your own statement using your own words and skills, blending them together to create a strong "key strengths" statement to meet your needs. You'll be surprised how often you use this one!! If you are still struggling with it perhaps you need to brush up on your Public Speaking skills? Now you can return from key strengths to the Presentation Statements page.
Why not take a closer look at the career ebooks I've written for you? You can pick up this whole set for a very low price. This is not available anywhere else!
Looking for something specific? If you can't find what you want from the buttons on the left or the Table of Contents below use the Google search box to search this site or the whole of the web Just enter your keyword in the search box below to find your answer on this site or anywhere else on the web. You will see some adverts but your results will be below that.  
|
||||||||||||||||||||
Returning To Work After A Career Break
Career Success Get The Job You Want
CV & Resume Samples To Adapt
Top Interview Questions & Answers 
23 Cover Letter Samples to Copy
How To Find Unadvertised Jobs
Ultimate CV and Resume Writing Guide 
Regain Your Confidence and Succeed
New Self Improvement Manual
