assess your skills

if you’re not sure what to look for, how exactly are you supposed to stand out from the zillions of other candidates? have you ever stopped to ask yourself what makes you so awesome at your job? neither scenario is a good look, but the former could remove you from the running sooner. so what exactly are you good at that would make a company love to have you on their team? refer back to the job posting of your current position, and see what skills were mentioned as requirements. most likely, you’ll find it easiest to pinpoint hard skills, like computer literacy or fluency in a foreign language, because they’re the things you’ve learned through schooling or training, and are often tied directly to your work experience or degrees and certificates you’ve earned. do you know how to create pivot tables? the next step in your skills assessment takes you beyond technical know-how.

think about what soft skills are in your repertoire, and focus on how you’ve applied those skills. how have you proved yourself to be a team player? a good indicator of your professional skills is how managers have appraised your performance in the past. find people you can turn to for honest feedback on your performance. as a result, you’ll be in the lead if you take some of these tests on your own. once you have a comprehensive list of your skills and some anecdotes of them in action, it’s time to apply them to the needs of companies hiring. this will give you a good indication of which of your skills you should highlight on your resume and in your cover letter. create a free profile on monster and we’ll send you career advice, job search tips, and even job alerts of your choosing.

instead, do a self-assessment to help you identify all the key information about yourself. think about the skills that are required to do your job effectively. you might find it helpful to think about the difference in skills between someone who would do your job well and someone who would do it poorly. if you look closely, you will usually find that within each example there are a host of other related skills you employed. do you have the skills they are looking for with the examples to prove it? are there areas you need to develop? can you step straight into your target role, or will a stepping-stone role be more realistic? are you up to date with the level of understanding required for your next role?

do you have access to people, information and resources that could be of benefit to a potential employer? how do you want your next job to be different from your current one? what are the things you would like to keep the same? ask them what you do well and any areas that you need to develop. it may not be a good idea to tell your boss that you’re thinking of leaving, but you can certainly ask for their advice and feedback on your career development. once your assessment is completed, you should have a much more detailed idea about what it is you have to offer prospective employers and you can now start writing your cv. hear her personal career story and find out how her personal career management coaching programme helped land her ideal job at google! if you’re considering a career change, exploring your options or need effective job search support, guardian jobs recommends personal career management, who offer guardian jobs readers a free career review to find out how career coaching can help you.

your skills describe what you like to do and what you are good at. you develop skills by training and experience that improve your ability to do tasks. skills assessment steps 1. reflect on your job description 2. zero in on soft skills 3. look at your performance reviews 4. ask other people for feedback 5 identifying your skills is important because you will be asked questions during an interview in which your answers will be based on your skills., .

a skills assessment can be helpful at any stage of your career, like when you: start your career; return to work; progress your career. therefore, the best way to analyse your hard skills is to review your cv or job history and think about the skills you had in these roles, and assess your skills. think about the skills that are required to do your job effectively. what do you know? candidates often underestimate their, . skills 101: how to evaluate your skill setdifferentiating hard and soft skills. the importance of a mix of skill sets. demonstrating your repertoire of skills during the job search. the skills that matter as your career develops. identifying gaps in your skillset. plugging skills gaps. skills for the future workplace.

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