Knowing about our skills that we can use to make money, knowing our value helps us write better resumes, and be confident in job interviews, where we have the great feel of knowing beforehand the value we bring to prospective employers. Career advisers recommend we make a list of all our marketable skills before we write our resume.
To make a list of our marketable skills, start listing the jobs you are looking for.
Then search online job sites for the job descriptions and responsibilities required for each job.
Match the above list with a list of skills you have come up with after analyzing your own life (the accomplishments, extra curricular activities, small projects, volunteer, apprenticeship etc) and education so far.
To make thinking about your 'life so far' easy, start thinking chronologically- age 18, age 19...
To make things more simple, just list the 'top 10 accomplishments of your life' so far (you can go back as far as high school as long as you did something remarkable in those days), and then get in the details one by one.
Most of the time, you will find there is a great gap between the skill requirements of the various job descriptions, and the skills you can identify you have so far. However, this exercise will also help you put a name to the skills you never thought you had, after you have analyzed your life's work.
Categorizing your skills inventory:
Now that you have an idea of all your skills, see where do they fit against this sample categorization of marketable skills.
- Technical skills: Operating machines or computers, any specialized knowledge, any manufacturing, sales, engineering, human resources, or other skills.
- Interpersonal skills: Also known as 'soft skills', 'people skills' etc. For example: communication, facilitation, coaching, conflict resolution, negotiation, team building, and many others.
- Managing skills: policy formulation, policy implementation, conducting performance reviews, hiring, firing, project responsibilities, problem solving, budgetary responsibilities, planning, organizing, presenting, and so on.
- Teaching/Training skills: This includes professional training programs, seminars, and symposiums, informal training sessions, group training (e.g. teaching old people to exercise) or any form of instruction you have handled.
- Documentation skills: Reports, manuals, summarized research, studies, and so on.
- Any other skills
Now, you will have a starting list of your marketable skills. Match these skills with your personal goals. Rank each skill on how it meets your career goal.
Now, you can come up with a 'Top 10' skills list.
We are not done yet. Take each of the skills on the 'top 10' list, and write a sentence describing how you have actively used this skill.
For example: 'Taught seniors in my neighborhood to code in php for five years running.'
Finally, take your 'top 10' list of skills and search for jobs online in your chosen field/s (Tip: try to keep the number of your preferred niche just 1. Focus). See what else skill/s do you need to learn to be really marketable in the industry you want to work in.
Thank you for reading.
This guide is from The Success Manual, which contains 200+ guides to succeeding in business, career and personal life. Get the pdf ebook for $12 only.