Employers seek skills. Many of the skills you will need are career specific: we call those specific skills hard skills or technical skills. These include knowing how to use equipment that is specific to your career and mastering processes that are used in your field. While some of these skills are learned and perfected on the job, you may be in a vocational track program (such as for homeland security officers, nurses, aides, or paralegals) where you are learning your technical skills.
These are not the only skills you will need to be successful. The second set of skills you must have are called soft skills or transferable skills, which contribute to success in any number of occupations because they can be used in almost all occupations. Some soft skills include thinking skills, communication skills, listening skills and leadership skills. This skill set is very broad, and your extent of mastery will vary from skill to skill; therefore, you should identify those skills that are most important to your career objective and develop and master them. Search on O*Net (http://online.onetcenter.org/find) to determine which skills you need to demonstrate to potential employers you have mastered based on your career interest.
Employers want individuals who have the necessary hard and soft skills to do the job well and adapt to changes in the workplace. Soft skills may be especially in demand today because employers are generally equipped to train new employees in a hard skill—by training them to use new computer software, for instance—but it’s much more difficult to teach an employee a soft skill such as developing rapport with coworkers or knowing how to manage conflict. An employer might rather hire an inexperienced worker who can pay close attention to details than an experienced worker who might cause problems on a work team.
In this section, you will look at ways of identifying and building particular hard and soft skills that will be necessary for your career path.19
Table 2.2 - Transferable Skills Inventory
Active listening
Decision making
Negotiating
Researching
Active learning
Editing
Observing
Selling
Analyzing
Evaluating
Organizing
Speaking a 2nd language
Budgeting
Forecasting
Perceiving Feelings
Supervising
Coaching
Goal setting
Persuading
Teaching
Communicating
Handling a crisis
Planning
Teamwork
Consulting
Handling details
Problem solving
Time management
Creative thinking
Manipulating numbers
Public speaking
Training
Critical thinking
Mentoring
Reading
Visualizing
Customer service
Motivating
Reporting
Writing
These skills are transferable because they are positive attributes that are invaluable in practically any kind of work. They also do not require much training from an employer—you have them already and take them with you wherever you go. Transferable/Soft skills are a big part of your “total me” package.
So, identify the transferable/soft skills that show you off the best, and identify the ones that prospective employers are looking for. By comparing both sets, you can more directly gear your job search to your strongest professional qualities.
You will have the opportunity to complete skills assessments using different online resources such as:
Kuder Journey: an online tool, which provides reliable inventories to assess your interests, skills confidence, and work values, and suggests occupations and majors that match your assessment results. Kuder Journey also includes resources like a resume builder and online portfolio, to prepare you for the job search and connect you to today’s jobs! Your instructor will distribute login instructions and you will have the opportunity to take the three assessments: interests, skills confidence, and work values.
Skills Matcher: an online “Skills Assessment” through Careeronestop. The Skills Matcher helps you identify your skills. Use the Skills Matcher to create a list of your skills and match them to careers that use those skills. Click here to complete the Skills Matcher: https://www.careeronestop.org/toolkit/Skills/skills-matcher.aspx
Skills Profiler listed under the “Assess Yourself” heading.
21st Century Skills
Due to the rapid changes in the global economy and the advancement of technology, the workplace has changed dramatically. As a student it is important for you to gain the knowledge and skills employers are seeking. To help train the new generation entering the workforce, a team of educators came together with employers, workforce development boards, and research organizations across the country to build college/career-ready, 21st Century Employability Skills Program called New World of Work (NWoW) 21st Century Skills Training.20
New World of Work (NWoW) was developed under the Doing What MATTERS for Jobs and the Economy framework of the California Community Colleges system, which is the largest higher education system in the nation with 72 districts and 115 colleges serving over 2.1 million students each year.
Starting in 2012, the New World of Work team began tracking futurist projections, economic reports, and national research related to the correlation between education and employment.
The group conducted a series of Skills Panels to gather feedback from employers, entrepreneurs, human resources specialists, educators, and students to determine the essential employability skills required in our emerging global economy.
From the research gathered, NWoW established their “Top 10” list of 21st Century Employability Skills. They worked closely with expert curriculum developers, including the NWoW Co-Creators, video crews, college faculty across disciplines, and digital badging teams then created lessons and badges to go along with each of the skills.
They identified the following "Top 10" list of 221st Century Employability Skills:
The New World of Work awards “Learner Badges” for all 10 of the 21st Century Skills. This is available to you for FREE! The NWoW Learner Badges are based on the NWoW High School/opportunity youth video series paired with multiple-choice questions. These can be used with high school, post secondary, adult learners or the general public to provide an introduction to the 21st Century Skills and the process for earning badges. Assessment pages launch directly from NWoW website by clicking on the Learner Badge icons. Below is a screenshot of the Learner Badges series.
. The Career Skills Courses offered through Continuing Education are FREE and available in an on ground and online format to meet the needs of diverse learners and all courses are open to the community! Completing the Career Skills training is a great way to show employers you are equipped with the skills necessary to be successful in today's workforce and allows you to earn digital badges you may post on your LinkedIn and social media profile.
One other benefit of the NWoW – 21st Century Skills Curriculum, is the LinkedIn Crosswalk, that provides the following:
Partnership with LinkedIn to provide suggested next steps after each skill lesson
Instructors and students can utilize the LinkedIn Learning/Lynda.com videos that have been crosswalked with NWoW skills to take a deeper dive into the traits of that skill
Completion of these video courses generates certificates that can be hosted on LinkedIn profiles along with skills badges, school/alumni information.
Also, Career Education students at COC who participate in the Continuing Education FREE Career Skills courses receive free Lynda.com access.
View the YouTube PBS News Hour video titled " Giving students a leg up with job skills a resume won’t show" to learn more about digital badges and how they can help you be more marketable.
Self-identify your Top 5 transferable (soft) skills, skills you are good at, and those skills you wish to learn or develop further.
Review the list of transferable skills list and additional checklist of transferable skills above to complete the chart below. Describe specific ways in which you have used each skill successfully. This will come in handy when we discuss interviewing strategies. Consider skills important to your career that you have not yet mastered and how you plan to master them. Give examples
