You probably already know that the topic of skills is currently a hot topic on social media at the minute thanks to the shambles that is the UK government; firstly the skills assessment quiz which gave people career suggestions that did not match what they actually did or wanted to do work wise, followed up by the Fatima advertising campaign and subsequent memes. With these in mind, I’ve decided to write this blog post on career development and skills.
It’s really interesting that I’m only writing this now given that my portfolio is about this subject matter but I think it’s because I’m trying to get away from writing about myself and more about the topics in general. I’ll try as hard as I can to not bring up myself in this post but no promises will be given!
Differences of the Terms
A skill is the ability to do something well and be an expert in it. To upskill is when you learn a new skill that can help you in the role you currently have or industry you work in right now. Reskilling is when you train for a new role completely or improve skills outside of your current role so that you can change job or career. Skills are incredibly important to have but they also must be transferrable – actionable expertise that you can do for any job or piece of work or that can be moved from one workplace to another. It’s also useful to recognise the obvious difference of a skill and an attribute; as like the distinction between diversity and inclusion (which you can read about here), one is a doing whilst the other is an adjective or characteristic.
How Do You Work Them Out?
Finding what you’re good at and what you enjoy doing work wise takes time but is also something that you must get to know. As Mishal Hussain points out in her book The Skills, “it is vital to have figured out the techniques that suit you and stick to them” and “to keep the focus on what I do know and how I can use it, because focusing on what is lacking can take you perilously close to losing your nerve”. I definitely agree with this when it comes to this – I remember doing SWOTs of myself and always thinking about the weaknesses over the strengths.
One of the things that has taken me away from that process of thought and may also help you if you’re in a state of thinking about what you can’t do or are bad at rather than the good things is to know what you’re passionate about and having a growth mindset. I know that I’m never going to be great at sport or become a banker. I’m not going to be an astronaut or the next Jamie Oliver. What I do know is that I love and am good at writing, social media and research. Being more positive about yourself skills-wise and discovering what you can improve on in the areas that you adore does help.
But are skills enough?
No, they are not. It’s important to know yourself as a whole person and that includes what your values are and what experience you already have. As someone who still feels like they don’t have enough experience, this is hard for me. However, I also know that this is the so called gremlin that is imposter syndrome saying that as even though it’s still quite early on in my career life, I know that I’m good enough right now. I have the skills, I’m gaining the experience and I know who I am as a person.
Less of me, more on you
To bring this back to being general and less about me, another tip is to know that there are different types of skills, according to Sidney Fine who’s quoted in Richard Bolles’ What Color is Your Parachute book. These are functional (transferrable), special knowledges and self-management or traits; also known and stated as what you can do, what you know and how you conduct yourself. Once you break it down to these categories, it’s actually a lot easier to start thinking about your skills.
Another way that Bolles says you can discover what your skills are, within each of those three sections, is by thinking about and reminiscing on stories. In that sense, he might mean parts of or glimpses of the life you’ve lived so far or the work you’ve already achieved or the things you already enjoy. But I also think he is also getting at the creativity of stories. People think that they’re not creative and that is how I used to feel until I went to Digital Gaggle last year (which you can read about here) and heard this – that creativity is something that you learn and can control. You can learn to tell your stories. Believing that you are your skills is the first step to actually doing and being.
Final Thoughts
The last point I want to make is that this is not just something that you think about when starting your career or when you want to change jobs. Upskilling is something that has to be done throughout the career lifecycle and needs to be thought about all the time. Knowing what you’re good at is only the first point, having the curiosity to keep learning and growing is the important part.
I hope you’ve enjoyed reading this blog post, whatever stage of life you are at and that it can be helpful in some way – even though it has been more personal and waffly than I intended it to be! I guess hearing about people’s experiences of what they’ve learnt does help in some way though, right?
Beth x