Job Seeker's Workshop

THE SKILFUL ME

Often we think of skills as being complicated special preserves of the highly trained.

However, we all have certain skills which will be useful to employers.

These are the skills which you use every day but which you don't think about.

It will be very useful to you if you can identify the particular skills you have now, or have the potential to develop, and can give examples of how you have successfully used that skill.

Such information will help when we are writing résumés or when we are answering questions in job interviews.

Some of these words listed are ideal "active words" for you to use often when describing yourself in your résumé and in the whole job application process.

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For each skill contained in these lists, state whether you:
- have that skill already (put a tick)
- don't have it yet but have the potential to develop it (put a ?)
- will never have that skill (put a X)

ALSO, think of appropriate examples of occasions where you have used that skill successfully.

PEOPLE SKILLS guiding listening to negotiating with instructing supervising understanding persuading speaking to serving helping nursing encouraging leading motivating responding to healing conflict with making laugh disciplining aiding in emergencies meeting with organising assigning work to directing evaluating coaching counselling referring being polite to

WORD SKILLS coordinating keeping confidential processing collating keeping record of organising classifying retrieving copying persuading planning typing proof reading editing composing teaching communicating writing reading imagining adapting analysing researching compiling comparing

FIGURE SKILLS counting calculating timing recording bookkeeping compiling comparing problem solving correcting analysing financial planning graphing

SKILLS WITH THINGS driving operating installing lifting making repairing adjusting producing imagining changing adapting creating classifying using improving collecting handling money cooking selling growing

We all have developed some skills for dealing with:
- information (words or figures),
- people, or
- things
or we might have the potential to develop some of these skills in the future.

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How do you prove your skills to an employer?

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